#( i don't think it's covid but then again-- people are rarely wearing masks in that hospital nowadays )

[korinthiakos]

I think I'mma go to bed with my laptop-- my throat is just keeps getting sore and my nose runny

[etakeh]

Yes it's me again, nagging y'all about taking precautions against covid.

They're talking about Parkinson's here.

I want to make sure that everyone understands that Parkinson's isn't always Michael J Fox.

More often, Parkinson's is my dad, who had it for a few of years before it shut down all of his organs and he died.

And this was after his dementia and memory loss got so bad that he didn't know who anyone was except for me, and that's because I was living with him. He couldn't make his own food, he couldn't go to the bathroom by himself, he couldn't get dressed by himself.

There's no cure. There are ways to mitigate symptoms, but there is no cure.

Anyway yeah wear your flipping masks. If you don't care about yourself getting COVID, maybe think about the people who have to take care of you if Parkinson's becomes a thing.

[the-final-sif]

Thank you for answering, do you think this will be a similar thing to covid? Now I don't have facts or sources other than one disabled advocate on social media but I heard something about one of covids less popularized effects being something about brain degeneration? Or something loosely connected to that. And because of how poorly covid was handled in the US it ended up affecting a lot of people including the children. Or maybe it was something about how the pandemic never truly ended over there and people stopped wearing their masks too soon. I can't remember, but if you know more of it or have any idea what I'm talking about, how comparable do you consider the two situations? Thanks in advance

So I haven't really seen anything about brain degradation, but there is current research into acute covid-19 infections disrupting the blood brain barrier.

It does appear to happen in severe cases, but it's specifically severe cases as far as all of the research I've seen. It's also not really unique to covid-19. To my knowledge, there's a lot of viruses that can trigger a similar response, like Influenza or West Nile. This is generally what causes the most severe forms of these diseases, the BBB gets disturbed, and this triggers inflammation in the brain which fucks with a lot of shit.

This topic is really complicated, and again, research is still ongoing. Part of the current issue with active neurological studies for COVID-19 is kinda similar to CTE research, you can only really tell how bad the neurological damage was after someone's died and you can yoink their brain out to have an in depth look. This means a almost all of the more indepth studies on COVID-19 in brain tissue are from people who are dead. Usually from COVID. So there's a strong bias towards the most severe cases.

That being said, I actually don't think this is particularly comparable to the severity of lead poisoning on people through the 1950s-1980s. Part of which is that children, while they did catch COVID-19, didn't usually get severely sick. They also didn't tend to catch COVID-19 as often in the first place. That's not to say neither happened ever, just that it's comparatively quite rare.

Meanwhile, effectively 100% of children had lead blood poisoning at a level of clinical significance for most of the 1950s-1980s.

Literally, I am not even kidding, this research is from 2015 but it's still extremely informative,

Like, their graphing of blood levels displays this really well,

I apologize, you may have to click on it to see, but this is graphing out our entire population in the US and led blood levels in early childhood (note, while people who are old enough to not have been born or been children in the 1950s would not have had CHILDHOOD lead poisoning, they still would've been at high risk for exposure to adult lead poisoning which can still fuck you up). S

For quick reference on blood lead poisoning btw, the CDC level used to be 10 μg/dL (light blue and above), but as since been lowed to 5 and then 3.5 μg/dL as a reference level. This is part of no amount of lead being safe, but above 10 μg/dL is bad. Above 20 μg/dL for children is "hey so we need to do a full medical exam of this child, do an environmental hazard investigation of your home and get a hazard team response specifically to help you get lead of your house". Meanwhile above 45 is "we may need to hospitalize this child".

That's the scale I'm talking about when I say everyone in the 1950s-1980s had childhood lead poisoning. It was everyone. COVID-19, while bad, isn't everyone. It isn't even close. BBB disruption, according to the research I could find, only occurs in some acute illness of infections that happen. This is still bad, but nowhere near the scale of lead poisoning.

[nerdinsandals]

Hi I just need to vent a lil bit because I'm kinda frustrated with my health at the moment shdkfj

I'm not like, sick or anything, or at least I don't think I am. I'm just feeling physically and mentally exhausted to the point that I can barely keep my eyes open sometimes, or maybe I manage to do one (1) task and that's enough to knock me out for the day and maybe even the next day sometimes if I do more than one thing that requires the smallest amount of effort. It's not like I was full of energy before because my battery is always at like 60%, but I don't think I've felt this weak in a long time, and this has been going on for months already. Some days are better than others, but I never feel like I'm at my normal.

At first I thought it was just the result of all the accumulated exhaustion I wasn't allowing myself to feel while preparing for my librarian exam (which took place in late January), but like I said it's been months already and I feel like the exhaustion should've been gone by now? But then I remembered that I was sick with a high fever a couple weeks before said exam, because a relative thought it was a great idea to come to visit with clear flu-like symptoms and no mask (and they didn't cover their mouth when coughing, either), so of course I caught whatever they had. I rarely catch viruses, but I still get vaccinated and take as many precautions as I can because, when I do, I usually have to deal with the nastier side-effects, unlike other people who recover just fine.

Since I was isolating anyway because I was in full hermit mode studying for my exam, I didn't think about taking a COVID test, but now I'm starting to think that maybe what that relative had was in fact COVID and what I'm experiencing is post-viral fatigue? It's the only thing that makes sense with the information I have, since iirc it can last for months… I'm not sure if there's anything that can be done to make it better so idk if I should bother my doctor again (healthcare is currently very overworked and understaffed here, and especially in the summer), but if I keep feeling this way after the summer I guess an appointment won't hurt. 😅

My librarian exam fortunately went well despite already feeling the exhaustion (which at that point I chalked up to the stress of preparing for the exam for like a year), and I don't know the final results just yet because they're taking an embarrassingly long time to publish them, but I have to wonder if I would've done better had I not fallen sick. I needed to do exceptionally well to secure the position and unfortunately, while like I said, I did well (like an 80 out of 100), I didn't do "secure the position by getting in the top 10 out of thousands" well. ;; There's always next time I guess. But right now I just want to be able to draw and do things I enjoy without getting tired!

So yeah, I thought I'd be able to get at least a couple pieces done for Conway Day this year, but with only a bit over a couple weeks left I haven't been able to even finish *one* because I don't want to push myself and make it worse. I hope I can at least finish one of them, since I should be able to make a couple posts out of it! And of course I know this should be the least of my worries, but I just really like celebrating Conway Day and it frustrates me that I can't have my usual stash of new art to provide haha

Anyway, thanks for reading and take care of yourselves! And tell your relatives to wear a mask if they want to visit you and they know they're sick (or maybe don't visit at all?) 😑

[kharmii]

In the area where I live there are really only a handful of people still wearing masks its either leftist teen pupils or Karen looking women. Leftism and all that nonsense really didn't take off in the area I live even if the greater country cares a lot about leftism.

At the very least they are easy to recognize and here and are rare to spot in the wild and even easier to avoid.

Personally I never caught the virus. And I highly doubt the vaccine helped with that. I am usually preferring to stay at home and I think I am one of those people being immune to this whole thing from the get-go (and I worked in retail for the majority of the time, working with young children who sprayed their sneezes all across the room when they were too young to have memorized sneeze etiquette.)

But this isn't about me it is about weirdos still wearing masks and I chuckle to myself each time I see them. Hon things are looking good right now and no mask can help you save brain cells since you all kick them out when you joined the leftist cult.

It is comforting to live in an area where most modern day leftism is rejected or ignored... Makes me feel like real life really only has a handful of lunatics advocating for this bs and common sense still has a big space there.

I hope in the upcoming years all this nonsense will eventually die out and we have a new nonsensical trend people do that is less harmful than the current one.

Only just recently did some of the hardcore mask people stop wearing them at work. There are still a few people around, and I mostly see them when I'm out shopping.

I never got Covid either, or if I did, it was so mild it was hardly noticeable. Some people reported losing their sense of smell for a few days or having a scratchiness in their throats. I had that a time or two. It might be a mix of genetic luck of the draw and goodish lifestyle choices. I don't always eat the best, but I stay physically fit. I don't smoke or drink.

The thing is...I'm not the same person irl that I am trolling on the internet. I'm actually sensitive and considerate, and some people have even misinterpreted me as being shy. Years ago, at work, someone released a baby raccoon caught in a trap crying for its mommy, and a bunch of people assumed it was me. I was like, "What?! I didn't even know it was there!" (If it was me, why wouldn't they assume I still had it stuffed in my shirt like MY BABY RACCOON NOW!!)

If the people I worked with were decent, I might have suffered wearing the mask for a bit when asked, even though it was stupid, pointless, and ineffective, and I don't like wasting my time with stupid, pointless crap, especially if it comes with an uncomfortable sensory experience. My job is physically demanding, and I can't have restricted breathing. Someone sitting at a desk all day might not be capable of understanding that.

When Covid hysteria first hit, I still had a committed stalker, and I was working around a bunch of low lives who'd cackle around me like hyenas. Almost every day, I'd have to listen to this nasty, nasty woman mutter under her breath, "Huhuhuhuhuhuhuh.....you can't make comedy like this up!" every time I'd get harassed by the stalker guy.

-So then when someone accused me of 'dehumanizing them' for not wearing the mask, I went off. I've been dehumanized constantly my entire life, -sometimes by my own family- and nobody has ever given the slightest damn. I don't want to hear about how (so-and-so) lives a cushy, pain-free life and still feels 'dehumanized' because they belong to some 'marginalized' group, or because someone around them isn't towing the line to follow some group-think political agenda.

Again, if I thought people would actually die if I personally didn't wear a mask, then I'd wear one. If I was surrounded by decent people who treated me well, then I'd wear one out of consideration for their anxiety. -But I'm surrounded by narrow-minded goobers, some of which clearly don't believe their own bullshit and only were doing it because they cared too much about what other people thought. A couple people might have even got the vaccine for that reason.

Side note: I'm feeling a smidge pissy today because someone started drama at work after a long period of peace. About once a month, I'll heat up fish in the break room, either salmon or rainbow trout over rice. Keep in mind, the break room isn't a place where people hang out. Workers will heat up their food, grab their drinks out of the fridge, then go off and eat somewhere else. The only time we had people hanging out in the break room was when we had the two office workers shirking their duties and going in there to hide.

Around Christmas, the stalker guy made some comment like, 'Someone didn't like how you heated up fish yesterday.'

I replied something like, 'Someone can fuck right on off...'

Now today, I get a note in my workstation saying, 'Stop heating up fish in the microwave. Signed: Everybody :-)

I hung it up on the wall with a reply, 'If you don't like it, get a job at McDonalds where the food smells good. I only eat fish once a month. Get a life.' *circles the word 'everybody'* 'Like I've ever cared.'

I can't count how many times I'd be surrounded by dirty rotten low life scumbags cackling around me with an attitude like, "Everybody has decided....(this and that) about you."

As if I'm going to be like, "What?! You mean 'everybody' has an issue with something I'm doing?! Well then, I guess I'd better goddamn well change!"

This is that impossible standard of perfection I'm always going on about. Nobody cares that I'll clean out the microwave every so often, or bring in plastic cutlery everybody is free to use, or that I'm one of the few people who puts napkins over my food when I heat it up, so food doesn't splatter all over the microwave. I heat food up every day (fish once a month, every other kind of food the rest of the month). Nobody notices or gives a damn about anything positive I do. They have to find something to pick a fight about, and it's always something that's not that big of a deal.

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

Seeing as my parents are visiting this month, I scheduled counseling for the week after. My mother is anti-max and refuses to wear one...which means she's not entering my home. She and my dad are flying here, and planes are a great place to catch all sorts of illnesses. I don't want covid (or any other sickness) for my birthday, tyvm.

Oh, they're gonna throw a fit about. We also have a no shoe rule. No outdoor shoes are to worn indoors. Bubby's D&D players bring slippers and don't make a big deal out it. The first time my parents visited us after the first was in 2018...and it was Not Good. Started with them getting rude and angry about being barred entry. When they said bending down on the porch was unacceptable...and got angrier when I brought chairs out for them. The house we were living room had white carpeting! Shoes are filthy!

We have no carpeting now, but I don't wanna mop the floors. Again. I'm doing that before they visit.

If they agree to wear a mask if I permit shoes, then I work with that. Let's see what sort of Karen fit they throw.

Needless to say, there's a very good reason I'm seeing my therapist the week after the visit. She's got notes marked that I may call her before then. I'm low contact with my parents. Conversations with my mom are almost exclusively about quilts, with a professional and less personal tone. I rarely speak to my dad because I have no idea what we can talk about seeing as all his hobbies and interests involve sports (he went damn near mad during lockdown).

Oh, and my dad is a Trump-Humper. It's absolutely bizarre seeing as he worked in military intelligence (that's an oxymoron right there). When they visited, my dad got really aggressive and hostile when it was very fucking clear we're not. His aggression and anger was very prominent. My mom expressed fear and anxiety because he had even watching Foxaganda all day everyday since Dumbass Agent Orange began his campaign. Folks, my dad thinks the guy is brilliant and must be respected.

Yeah.

Then they dragged me to an area almost two hours away, to have lunch with my bigot aunt and uncle, who lived several hours away (they have since moved far away, likely due to the PNW being too blue). It was a restaurant where I couldn't eat, and all four of them ignored this. No one spoke to me, and I was trapped between the window and my parents because they chose a booth. Oh, and they got upset about me bringing protein bars. The waitress heard me state I can't eat anything due to celiac disease and cross contamination. She said her son is the same way, and told me she'd have all the dishes used to prepare a salad washed, as well as the countertop. I didn't get sick, and my mom tried the whole "gotcha" nonsense.

I have issues with being trapped. Not claustrophobic, but being trapped and unable to leave. Bubby was working and couldn't come pick me up, my parents told me to "get over it." My anxiety was sky high, and I was fighting panic attacks. It got worse the longer everyone talked. The more they talked, thr more hateful their words got.

My uncle firmly believes all drug addicts and homeless people should be put on boat and taken to a deep part of thr Pacific ocean. Then have the authorities put a hole in the boat and let it sink. Yeah, he's that kind of guy. My dad said it's a good plan. I didn't say a fucking thing because it would've been dangerous.

The next several months were spent recovering from that.

This time, my parents are going to discover how much stronger I am. I will not cower, I will not bend to their demands, and I sure as shit will not be getting I'm a car with them. We're buying some cheap lawn furniture to put in the backyard. If they're gonna throw a fit, they'll be barred entry. Therapy has done wonders for me, and standing up to these bullies will be a good way to see how far I've come.

[pandemic-info]

What is meant by zero covid? NEWCOMERS READ THIS: ZeroCovidCommunity

Below is copied from the post; links and formatting may be broken so I recommend reading the original.

If you already know, you fucking know and don't need to read all this for the hundredth time. If you don't, it's good info.

Covid is not over, because long covid has no cure. The virus may not kill the victim but instead make them disabled with crushing fatigue, debilitating brain fog or over 200 other recorded problems. People with long covid often lose the ability to work or even get out of bed. About half of long covid is ME/CFS [ref1 ref2 ref3 ref4], which is the extremely disabling disease causing fatigue and brain fog. Somewhere between 5% and 20% of covid infections become long covid. For reference a "medically rare event" is considered 0.1%. Long covid isn't rare. Serious disability from long covid isn't rare. Vaccines and antivirals reduce the chances a little bit but are not a solution on their own. Long covid lasts for years. Some people improve but most never completely recover. Scientific research into it is only just starting and will be many years before it produces results. The only thing left then to not get covid in the first place. Or if you've already had it to not get it again, as we know the damage to the body accumulates with repeat infections. Not getting it again also gives you the best chance of recovery if you already have long covid. Death from covid is also still a problem. It is a leading cause of death. You may have heard only old people die of covid, but old people die more of anything. If you compare covid deaths in children with other things that kill children, then covid comes out as a leading killer of children. This is true in every age group. Everyone must be protected. Even if we ourselves aren't harmed by covid on the first or second infection, we'll be greatly affected if so many of our friends, family and neighbours get sick. Millions are missing from the workforce due to covid. The five pillars of prevention are: clean air, masks, testing, physical distancing and vaccination. We must also redouble efforts into research, for example better ways of cleaning the air, better vaccines, better tests. We choose health over disease. Ultimately we aim to suppress covid transmission and eventually reach elimination so that covid becomes rare in society. Zero X is not some radical new idea, it's how we've always dealt with serious disease. We don't think it's acceptable to "live with" other dangerous infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, smallpox or polio, why should we "live with" Covid? (Fun fact: AIDS is nothing but long HIV. An acute HIV infection seems like nothing special, it's mild flu-like symptoms for a week or two which gets better... until 5-10 years later when the victim dies of AIDS. Reminding us that just because it starts with flu-like symptoms doesn't mean that's how it ends.) See also: Don't Breath It In (1:06min) video about how covid spreads and how to protect yourself and others Long Covid Symposium final talk (6:36min) https://longcovidlearning.org/ - resource explaining long covid for people unfamiliar with it The World Health Network website. With useful resources on things like masks, how to make schools safer. r/covidlonghaulers and r/longcovid Have a read of some personal stories of long covid. The billionaires at Davos don't think covid is over. The media they own tells us plebs that covid is a cold and let us get sick, while they themselves require PCR tests, HEPA filters in every room and make their drivers wear masks You May Be Early, but You're Not Wrong: A Covid Reading List

[jjsanguine]

I was scrolling on Instagram and went through the account of a guy who roller skates while talking about various things.

And I remember one time in summer 2020, when J Florid bought a penny board and we went skateboarding. I'm not good at skateboarding. and unlike J florids shiny new skateboard, I had a shitty regular board with wood that was staring to split and rusty wheels. I've always preferred using inline skates to a skateboard but after I outgrew the skates I had as a kid I've just never gotten back into it. But it's 2020, I've just dropped out of uni, this whole pandemic thing means finding a job is impossible, and I have nothing but time. So when J Florid is asks if I want to go skateboarding I say sure.

I'm not good at skateboarding. Even if I had been, the only place around that was at all flat enough to skate on assist from the road was full of trees, so I went over a tree root and stacked it. I didn't lose teeth or anything, but my knee bent way further than its natural range of motion. It might sound counter intuitive since I'm hypermobile but I'm very inflexible—I haven't been able to cross my legs since primary school.

Obviously, my knee swelled like a balloon and I had difficulty even walking for the next month. And I think, I'll get back to it at some point when my leg's healed. 3½ years later, I haven't. Watching these videos had me think for a moment, why didn't I buy some skates again? And then I remembered that I can't. I often drop a hobby and pick it up a few years later so for a moment there I forgot that it wasn't just that I had been distracted.

I didn't go skating again because I can't do anything that physically demanding, not without risking hospitalisation. I can't learn how to skate, I can't learn how to swim, I can't get back into rock climbing, or run up the stairs two at a time with a vice grip or the railing, or walk around the shopping centre aimlessly, or go to the library, or go to the lake and skip stones, or dance in my own house because I can't do exercise anymore.

I don't whip cream anymore, I don't turn okele anymore, I don't knead bread dough anymore, I don't draw anymore, I don't spend hours doing my own hair anymore, I don't really read anymore, I don't do much of anything anymore because I don't want to be in an ambulance again.

I don't remember when I last painted my nails, because of how often I've had a pulse oximeter on my hand. I don't remember when the last time I was able to shower standing up was. I don't remember when the last time I sat at my desk was, because I can't sit up for extended periods of time.

I remember the last time I left my house because it was to go to GP, which is the only reason I leave the house nowadays. I remember having to go to the hospital and sitting there for hours and doing a bunch of blood tests and once again getting the everything's clear, go home. And I remember how my breathing was still so constricted I could barely speak, and how the next day it felt like the fog of exhaustion was lifting a little. And how the fog came back. And seemed to lift and then came back. Over and over, to this day.

I will never ever forgive my family for exposing me to COVID. If I didn't live with them I would have been disappointed. I would have been angry. But now I can't leave. And I have to get reinfected over and over because I can't wear a mask while I'm eating or drinking or the rare time I can take an actual shower instead of having a sponge and a bowl. And I have to hear the coughing and the whining about being sick and the catarrh. I can never forgive this because I thought of all people they would care.

They can see me deteriorating month on month but they ignore how they too are getting sicker so I guess it's too much to expect.

I've never had anyone really close to be die before because I just assumed it would be me who died. At first because I was actively suicidal and now because I think my heart or my lungs or my blood vessels might just give up on me. So I never really thought I'd have to experience grief. I never thought about how I could be doing something mundane and just break down, sobbing. Now I'm grieving not just my future but my past. All that time spent acquiescing. All that time spent being angry and afraid and trapped by my family but still loving them. All that time thinking they'd return the favour. And how despite me I still do love them, but wouldn't speak to any of them ever again if I had the chance.

[wideeyedlittlechild]

The Covid diary day 1

So. I have the official confirmation from my PCR Test that I do have Covid19 for real. And I don't like it! I managed to not catch it for such a long time and now this has happened! I'm no longer in the club of the cool covid-free kids. 😫 We were so careful. Wearing masks when no one else was. Did rarely go to any events with a lot of people. Asked friends to test before they come over. It's so frustrating.

And I gotta say: Covid really sucks. I haven't had a fever in a long time. I haven't had any kind of illness in a long time. I'm so uncomfortable. I think I am losing my sense of smell. Because even though I am ill, I still have to take care of my baby. He pooped his diaper and I didn't smell anything. 😳 To be fair his poop usually doesn't smell all that bad, but I didn't even catch the faintest bit of smell. And yes I am aware of the fact that baby might get Covid from me, but I think he might have had it before me. I think he was even the one who gave it to me. He is the only family member that goes out without a mask and he did have a fever some days ago. 🤔 But he was better really fast and so I didn't think to much of it. I was like... Idk maybe teething again? Now I think it was the Covid infection. Anyway. We're all still kind of well. No severe symptoms. We'll survive.

[yobaba30]

Because some people need to be reminded or educated From Dr. Fauci: “Chickenpox is a virus. Lots of people have had it, and probably don't think about it much once the initial illness has passed. But it stays in your body and lives there forever, and maybe when you're older, you have debilitatingly painful outbreaks of shingles. You don't just get over this virus in a few weeks, never to have another health effect. We know this because it's been around for years, and has been studied medically for years. Herpes is also a virus. And once someone has it, it stays in your body and lives there forever, and anytime they get a little run down or stressed-out they're going to have an outbreak. Maybe every time you have a big event coming up (school pictures, job interview, big date) you're going to get a cold sore. For the rest of your life. You don't just get over it in a few weeks. We know this because it's been around for years, and been studied medically for years. HIV is a virus. It attacks the immune system and makes the carrier far more vulnerable to other illnesses. It has a list of symptoms and negative health impacts that goes on and on. It was decades before viable treatments were developed that allowed people to live with a reasonable quality of life. Once you have it, it lives in your body forever and there is no cure. Over time, that takes a toll on the body, putting people living with HIV at greater risk for health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, diabetes, bone disease, liver disease, cognitive disorders, and some types of cancer. We know this because it has been around for years, and had been studied medically for years. Now with COVID-19, we have a novel virus that spreads rapidly and easily. The full spectrum of symptoms and health effects is only just beginning to be cataloged, much less understood. So far the symptoms may include: Fever Fatigue Coughing Pneumonia Chills/Trembling Acute respiratory distress Lung damage (potentially permanent) Loss of taste (a neurological symptom) Sore throat Headaches Difficulty breathing Mental confusion Diarrhea Nausea or vomiting Loss of appetite Strokes have also been reported in some people who have COVID-19 (even in the relatively young) Swollen eyes Blood clots Seizures Liver damage Kidney damage Rash COVID toes (weird, right?) People testing positive for COVID-19 have been documented to be sick even after 60 days. Many people are sick for weeks, get better, and then experience a rapid and sudden flare up and get sick all over again. A man in Seattle was hospitalized for 62 days, and while well enough to be released, still has a long road of recovery ahead of him. Not to mention a $1.1 million medical bill. Then there is MIS-C. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs. Children with MIS-C may have a fever and various symptoms, including abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes, or feeling extra tired. While rare, it has caused deaths. This disease has not been around for years. It has basically been 6 months. No one knows yet the long-term health effects, or how it may present itself years down the road for people who have been exposed. We literally *do not know* what we do not know. For those in our society who suggest that people being cautious are cowards, for people who refuse to take even the simplest of precautions to protect themselves and those around them, I want to ask, without hyperbole and in all sincerity: How dare you? How dare you risk the lives of others so cavalierly. How dare you decide for others that they should welcome exposure as "getting it over with", when literally no one knows who will be the lucky "mild symptoms" case, and who may fall ill and die. Because while we know that some people are more susceptible to suffering a more serious case, we also know that 20 and 30-year-olds have died, marathon runners and fitness nuts have died, children and infants have died. How dare you behave as though you know more than medical experts, when those same experts acknowledge that there is so much we don't yet know, but with what we DO know, are smart enough to be scared of how easily this is spread, and recommend baseline precautions such as: Frequent hand-washing Physical distancing Reduced social/public contact or interaction Mask wearing Covering your cough or sneeze Avoiding touching your face Sanitizing frequently touched surfaces The more things we can all do to mitigate our risk of exposure, the better off we all are, in my opinion. Not only does it flatten the curve and allow health care providers to maintain levels of service that aren't immediately and catastrophically overwhelmed; it also reduces unnecessary suffering and deaths, and buys time for the scientific community to study the virus in order to come to a more full understanding of the breadth of its impacts in both the short and long term. I reject the notion that it's "just a virus" and we'll all get it eventually. What a careless, lazy, heartless stance.

[katieskarlette]

Honestly I am not surprised it is delayed, in case you forgot we are in the middle of a pandemic which has made shipping chaotic. You can throw extra money at express delivery but if they don't have a driver or are held up for X reason there is nothing that can be done. Believe me as someone that has also been dumb enough to pay for express during these bad times, you should have known better.

I got long-winded and uncharacteristically bitchy responding to this, so I’m throwing my reply behind a cut because nobody follows me for that.

Oh, I didn’t forget about the pandemic, since I wear a mask and rubber gloves to work, where literally 98% of my job has changed dramatically since we reopened for limited services a few weeks ago, and everything is a backlogged, chaotic mess.  Not to mention the elevated levels of anxiety I’m dealing with as a result.   So I’m well aware of it, thank you.  In fact, I’ve had to explain delivery delays to unhappy customers on the phone myself.  Miss me with that sarcastic, patronizing tone.  (If you didn’t intend it that way, I apologize for misinterpreting your words.  Chalk it up to text lacking the nuance of the spoken word and body language, and the fact that I’m upset and stressed.)

The thing is, we have warnings all over our website, social media, e-mails, and voicemails to let people know to expect delays.  When I ordered my new computer earlier this year, the website said in big, bold letters to expect delays in shipping.  I was patient for almost two months, and just happy when it arrived almost two weeks ahead of the originally estimated date.

Fast delivery is one of Amazon’s big selling points, and the mind boggles at the number of packages they ship in a day.  It would be totally understandable if they had a disclaimer saying “we cannot offer release-day delivery at this time due to uncertainty during the pandemic”!  I would have understood completely and planned accordingly.  But they didn’t.  There was nothing anywhere in the ordering process or the confirmation e-mails to indicate that I should expect anything other than release-day delivery--i.e. what I paid extra for.  

This pandemic has been going on for awhile now, so it’s not like Amazon hasn’t had time to add disclaimers, or to adjust their procedures to compensate for slower, more unreliable transport.  Yes, times are unpredictable and things can happen to throw a wrench into even the best-laid plans.  And of course people’s lives are more important than me getting a stupid video game tie-in novel.  However, I didn’t think it was unrealistic to expect one of the biggest corporations in the history of human civilization to be able to provide a service they were advertising.

And again, forgive me if I’m misinterpreting your words, but saying that I’m “throwing money at” the problem makes it sound like I’m some entitled rich person.  I’m not.  I’m fortunate enough to have a roof over my head and food in my stomach, but I also have thousands in medical debt that I’m dealing with.  I rarely splurge on fun things for myself, but it was important to me to get this book on release day, which happened to fall on my day off, so I decided to treat myself with fast delivery for the first time ever.  I was really looking forward to escaping into a book as relief from all this Covid-related anxiety and stress!  One little bright spot in an otherwise vast sea of utter and complete shit.  So yes, I’m pretty upset about it not working out.

I’m going to take a break from Tumblr for a little while, I think.  Between spoilers and my nonexistent patience it’s not a good place for me right now.  I don’t need to inflict my mental difficulties on the 1600+ people who follow this blog for fun Warcraft shenanigans.  Forgive me for bitching and/or being short-tempered.  I know we’re all going through hell right now.

See you guys when I’m calmer and/or have the book finished.

[dudewhoabides]

From Dr. Anthony Fauci: “Chickenpox is a virus. Lots of people have had it, and probably don't think about it much once the initial illness has passed. But it stays in your body and lives there forever, and maybe when you're older, you have debilitatingly painful outbreaks of shingles. You don't just get over this virus in a few weeks, never to have another health effect. We know this because it's been around for years, and has been studied medically for years. Herpes is also a virus. And once someone has it, it stays in your body and lives there forever, and anytime they get a little run down or stressed-out they're going to have an outbreak. Maybe every time you have a big event coming up (school pictures, job interview, big date) you're going to get a cold sore. For the rest of your life. You don't just get over it in a few weeks. We know this because it's been around for years, and been studied medically for years. HIV is a virus. It attacks the immune system and makes the carrier far more vulnerable to other illnesses. It has a list of symptoms and negative health impacts that goes on and on. It was decades before viable treatments were developed that allowed people to live with a reasonable quality of life. Once you have it, it lives in your body forever and there is no cure. Over time, that takes a toll on the body, putting people living with HIV at greater risk for health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, diabetes, bone disease, liver disease, cognitive disorders, and some types of cancer. We know this because it has been around for years, and had been studied medically for years. Now with COVID-19, we have a novel virus that spreads rapidly and easily. The full spectrum of symptoms and health effects is only just beginning to be cataloged, much less understood. So far the symptoms may include: Fever Fatigue Coughing Pneumonia Chills/Trembling Acute respiratory distress Lung damage (potentially permanent) Loss of taste (a neurological symptom) Sore throat Headaches Difficulty breathing Mental confusion Diarrhea Nausea or vomiting Loss of appetite Strokes have also been reported in some people who have COVID-19 (even in the relatively young) Swollen eyes Blood clots Seizures Liver damage Kidney damage Rash COVID toes (weird, right?) People testing positive for COVID-19 have been documented to be sick even after 60 days. Many people are sick for weeks, get better, and then experience a rapid and sudden flare up and get sick all over again. A man in Seattle was hospitalized for 62 days, and while well enough to be released, still has a long road of recovery ahead of him. Not to mention a $1.1 million medical bill. Then there is MIS-C. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs. Children with MIS-C may have a fever and various symptoms, including abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes, or feeling extra tired. While rare, it has caused deaths. This disease has not been around for years. It has basically been 6 months. No one knows yet the long-term health effects, or how it may present itself years down the road for people who have been exposed. We literally *do not know* what we do not know. For those in our society who suggest that people being cautious are cowards, for people who refuse to take even the simplest of precautions to protect themselves and those around them, I want to ask, without hyperbole and in all sincerity: How dare you? How dare you risk the lives of others so cavalierly. How dare you decide for others that they should welcome exposure as "getting it over with", when literally no one knows who will be the lucky "mild symptoms" case, and who may fall ill and die. Because while we know that some people are more susceptible to suffering a more serious case, we also know that 20 and 30-year-olds have died, marathon runners and fitness nuts have died, children and infants have died. How dare you behave as though you know more than medical experts, when those same experts acknowledge that there is so much we don't yet know, but with what we DO know, are smart enough to be scared of how easily this is spread, and recommend baseline precautions such as: Frequent hand-washing Physical distancing Reduced social/public contact or interaction Mask wearing Covering your cough or sneeze Avoiding touching your face Sanitizing frequently touched surfaces The more things we can all do to mitigate our risk of exposure, the better off we all are, in my opinion. Not only does it flatten the curve and allow health care providers to maintain levels of service that aren't immediately and catastrophically overwhelmed; it also reduces unnecessary suffering and deaths, and buys time for the scientific community to study the virus in order to come to a more full understanding of the breadth of its impacts in both the short and long term. I reject the notion that it's "just a virus" and we'll all get it eventually. What a careless, lazy, heartless stance.”

[erin-hart]

TLDR: There is still so much we don’t know about the long term affects of this virus. We can’t predict who will get a mild case and who will die. Take precautions and look out for your neighbors.

From Amy Wright

“Chickenpox is a virus. Lots of people have had it, and probably don't think about it much once the initial illness has passed. But it stays in your body and lives there forever, and maybe when you're older, you have debilitatingly painful outbreaks of shingles. You don't just get over this virus in a few weeks, never to have another health effect. We know this because it's been around for years, and has been studied medically for years.

Herpes is also a virus. And once someone has it, it stays in your body and lives there forever, and anytime they get a little run down or stressed-out they're going to have an outbreak. Maybe every time you have a big event coming up (school pictures, job interview, big date) you're going to get a cold sore. For the rest of your life. You don't just get over it in a few weeks. We know this because it's been around for years, and been studied medically for years.

HIV is a virus. It attacks the immune system and makes the carrier far more vulnerable to other illnesses. It has a list of symptoms and negative health impacts that goes on and on. It was decades before viable treatments were developed that allowed people to live with a reasonable quality of life. Once you have it, it lives in your body forever and there is no cure. Over time, that takes a toll on the body, putting people living with HIV at greater risk for health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, diabetes, bone disease, liver disease, cognitive disorders, and some types of cancer. We know this because it has been around for years, and had been studied medically for years.

Now with COVID-19, we have a novel virus that spreads rapidly and easily. The full spectrum of symptoms and health effects is only just beginning to be cataloged, much less understood.

So far the symptoms may include:

Fever

Fatigue

Coughing

Pneumonia

Chills/Trembling

Acute respiratory distress

Lung damage (potentially permanent)

Loss of taste (a neurological symptom)

Sore throat

Headaches

Difficulty breathing

Mental confusion

Diarrhea

Nausea or vomiting

Loss of appetite

Strokes have also been reported in some people who have COVID-19 (even in the relatively young)

Swollen eyes

Blood clots

Seizures

Liver damage

Kidney damage

Rash

COVID toes (weird, right?)

People testing positive for COVID-19 have been documented to be sick even after 60 days. Many people are sick for weeks, get better, and then experience a rapid and sudden flare up and get sick all over again. A man in Seattle was hospitalized for 62 days, and while well enough to be released, still has a long road of recovery ahead of him. Not to mention a $1.1 million medical bill.

Then there is MIS-C. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs. Children with MIS-C may have a fever and various symptoms, including abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes, or feeling extra tired. While rare, it has caused deaths.

This disease has not been around for years. It has basically been 6 months. No one knows yet the long-term health effects, or how it may present itself years down the road for people who have been exposed. We literally *do not know* what we do not know.

For those in our society who suggest that people being cautious are cowards, for people who refuse to take even the simplest of precautions to protect themselves and those around them, I want to ask, without hyperbole and in all sincerity:

How dare you?

How dare you risk the lives of others so cavalierly. How dare you decide for others that they should welcome exposure as "getting it over with", when literally no one knows who will be the lucky "mild symptoms" case, and who may fall ill and die. Because while we know that some people are more susceptible to suffering a more serious case, we also know that 20 and 30-year-olds have died, marathon runners and fitness nuts have died, children and infants have died.

How dare you behave as though you know more than medical experts, when those same experts acknowledge that there is so much we don't yet know, but with what we DO know, are smart enough to be scared of how easily this is spread, and recommend baseline precautions such as:

Frequent hand-washing

Physical distancing

Reduced social/public contact or interaction

Mask wearing

Covering your cough or sneeze

Avoiding touching your face

Sanitizing frequently touched surfaces

The more things we can all do to mitigate our risk of exposure, the better off we all are, in my opinion. Not only does it flatten the curve and allow health care providers to maintain levels of service that aren't immediately and catastrophically overwhelmed; it also reduces unnecessary suffering and deaths, and buys time for the scientific community to study the virus in order to come to a more full understanding of the breadth of its impacts in both the short and long term.

I reject the notion that it's "just a virus" and we'll all get it eventually. What a careless, lazy, heartless stance.”

[builder051]

Aptitude and oversharing?

A is for aptitude

--I had to take this career inventory thing when I was in 8th grade (last year of middle school for my part of the world), then again in high school for two years? I think? (I switched schools in the middle of HS, so it's a little hard to keep track). I have absolutely no clue what my results were. Grades-wise, I pulled high marks across the board (my parents made me in school through 12th grade, and I rarely wound up with under ~85% B average through my Masters classes. Usually pulled somewhere in the mid 90s-- like, one of the smart kids, but rarely THE smartest kid). Anyhow. Even though the autism really likes a black and white world where there is one right answer (I prefer multiple choice tests where "something else" and "all of the above" are NOT options. I hate fill in the blank--esp without a word bank. I totally have "I can remember all the ninja turtles except that one I've forgotten...and it's a different one each time" syndrome. Short answer is... not my fave. Essay questions...eh.), I excel MUCH more in the creative fields than the... how do you call? More straightforward ones? I can't math to save my life. Hard sciences... I have to study a lot. Writing (esp. fiction) comes soooo naturally, and I love it so much. Art as well is a favorite pastime, and I dabble in all sorts of media (traditional, though-- I haven't dabbled in digital). I don't have a major aptitude for sports, but I do well in ballet (again, the black and white correctness of technique, plus I'm rather little and bendy, and I make lean muscle, so...). I tried bodybuilding/fitness modeling for a bit before my body got super sick, and I could do it, but I had to work super hard--not a natural aptitude.

O is for oversharing

--As you can see, I overshare (maybe? Or maybe I just...talk? write?) freely on my blogs. I am pretty protective about PII, and I try to keep everything in line by using nicknames, generalizations, etc. On the other hand, though, this is one of the few spaces where I feel comfortable opening up about stuff like sensory issues and disability things and being into sickfics... I am not really an easy person to get to know/open up with in real life. Once I have an established relationship with someone, it is actually a fairly free-flowing process for me to have a conversation and tell an anecdote or find something we have in common... Those first few interactions, though? Sooo hard for me to navigate. I'm quite introverted, have the classic autism I-can't-read-your-facial-expression thing, don't hear well without hearing aids (and even with them, I can't understand people well while wearing COVID masks). I like these question game things here on Tumblr, as they sort of guide interactions among us, helping me have conversations with you guys in pre-structured ways.

Just for fun, here are a couple overshares that I don't think I've told you before:

-I have a Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch) tsum tsum stuffed animal that I MUST have in my bed, tucked under my left arm, or I cannot sleep. His name is Puppy, and I've had him for about 7 and 1/2 years. My big kid got me a tiny mini Puppy at the dollar store, and I adore him. Then just a couple weeks ago, we randomly received a hula skirt-wearing Puppy at McDonalds.

-I really like dressing out for ballet and, like, matching my socks to my tights and stuff. I splurged and bought myself a pair of Yumiko tights when I went back to class last year (they're charcoal with hot pink stripes down the side--so cool). A lot of guys just wear black & white, or close-fitting generic workout attire (like a spandex shirt and basketball shorts), but I pretty much always wear an actual ballet top, tights (men's tights, just so we're clear-- fairly indistinguishable from unisex skintight leggings), socks, ballet shoes, sometimes legwarmers, a close-fitting sweater... It's just... important to me to look good and feel good.

-We have a cat named Itsy Bitsy (he predates me in the household by many years), and his favorite thing to do is sit on people, especially right when they're about to get up. He also drinks people's unattended coffee, and he licks plates, but ONLY if you've left crumbs of a dessert or something else sweet, like pancakes.

[lighthenight]

Covid

It's crazy to think it's been almost two years since this all started. I took it so seriously and really isolated myself from everyone for close to an entire year, thinking about the risk it could have on my family. We left to taiwan, knowing it was the only safe haven grounds away from all this craziness. We came back to get vaccinated, thinking we could get back to normal life. Sure, we still wore masks and we avoided indoor events and dining, but we felt somewhat protected; that at least the risk wasn't as high for going out. Because yeah, at a certain point, isolating yourself for so long does take a toll on your mind, even if you're not fully aware of it. So here we are, in 2022, and covid is rampant again. All time high number of cases, vaccines not doing much to protect against infection. It really feels like all this time we did so much to protect ourselves from getting it and it's all for nothing because the virus still wins. And that's biology - viruses evolve quick but we don't evolve as fast. They equip themselves with more weapons and we manufacture defenses slower than they can multiply. Although, I am aware that we as a community isolated enough to slow down the initial spread, especially when the virus was more dangerous, and we hadn't been vaccinated yet. It's still a big toll on our mind though. Here's the deal: I'm pretty sure I got Covid. NYE, I went to an SF party with Lauren and it was a concert, much like what you'd expect. If you asked me the normal questions, Yes I wore a mask, yes I tried to distance myself, but i guess it's really hard to stop when you're around so many freaking people. Here's the breakdown of the days after (keep in mind, i'm speaking about this a week after exposure): Jan 1st: I felt perfectly normal aside from the fact that I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like my stomach hurt. Day 2: Woke up in the middle of the night nauseous and puking a little. Stomach hurt during the day and felt nauseous when I had nothing in my stomach. Day 3: Scratchy throat, and stomach continued to hurt. Diarrhea as well. Day 4: Body aches, fever, chills begin, on top of the previous symptoms. Needed painkillers to get through the day. Brain fog in the morning. This was pretty much the worst day. Day 5: Continued fever but less, chest pains when i eat too much, still some stomach pain, painkillers to help with the fever. Day 6: Sore throat, runny nose, cough, but everything else cleared up. Day 7: Feeling about 80% back to normal - just a cough here and there. My take on this whole thing is that it lasts about 6 days total of symptoms, for someone like me. The GI symptoms were the most interesting because they threw me off - I would think it's food poisoning and the stomach flu, and didn't think it was covid because GI symptoms were pretty rare for covid cases. And man this really screwed with me plans too - I was headed back to Taiwan again in 4 days, yet in order to leave, I need to test negative but I don't think I will in time. It's crazy to think this virus really does stay in the body for a lot longer than your normal cold. In the big picture, there's a lot of good news. With omicron growing in case numbers so quick, it means a large majority of people are likely going to get it, and build natural immunity to it, even when vaccines are helping mitigate the symptoms. Omicron is estimated to be the dominant variant for a while, since it is the most infectious, meaning it will beat the other variants to getting into the human population first. Omicron is seen to be a less severe variant which is also great news because people will get it but not die from it as much. The recommendation is still to be vigilant and wear masks. Covid was bad, it sucks, and it was really painful. For a couple days, I just wanted to die and not go through all the suffering. But it just was a matter of pushing through the height of the covid journey. This will be an endemic someday - we will have to live with the fact that it's here to stay. Stay healthy.

[moenalisa]

May 2021

To those of you that still think it's stupid to get vaccinated:

I am a Covid Survivor. Did I ever think that I would get Covid? Of course not. The rare time that I did go out, I was always careful. I washed my hands, stayed a safe distance, wore a mask, and I still got infected. I was home sick for days before I could confirm it was Covid, that's where things took a turn. I was so sick with a fever and a few other symptoms of a regular flu that I started hallucinating and did not realise that I was slowly overdosing on my mental health medication. I normally treat flu symptoms naturally because taking flu meds would interact badly with my mental health meds.

It wasn't until I was at the ER that I found out I had Lithium Toxicity. After being on Lithium for more than 10 years this was new territory for me, and so was Covid. I had trouble getting up, could not walk properly, could not write, my speech was slurring. I could have died. I was then kept in hospital isolation for 3 weeks where I battled Covid and also my mental illness; Bipolar Mood Disorder. I could not take my regular meds and had yet another manic episode. I was relocated between hospitals because my case is a bit rare. They had to watch me closely and find a new treatment regimen for me. I had no human contact. I was lucky enough to call the people that I remembered the numbers of at one point. Since Covid forbids any visitation, the only way I could see my mom and husband was by waving from the window of my room to them in the parking lot.

I had several tests done including extensive MRI, CT scans and blood work. For me, to be able to post this and be almost 100% again is nothing short of a miracle. I am out of the woods but I look around me and still sadden by this debilitating disease.. people refusing to wear masks and refusing to get vaccinated. These are measures we should be taking to protect our families. It's simple, if you believe in medicine and science, man up and take it! Don't wait until someone close to you gets it and has to learn the hard way. I know that I am one in so many cases but my voice matters, especially from experience. Yes you have a choice, and I am not hating on you for being afraid or against it but please consider the benefits and other perspectives. It's been very surreal for me and my family. This is an extra layer of protection. I wish you all well, and I can't wait to hug everyone again. 💛