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matthillica · 4 years

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Pandemic - Day 7 (Weds 3/18/20)

Not even sure where to begin this, suffice to say I've had a nagging feeling over the last few days that I need to document this as we all hurtle toward the unknown.

I haven't touched this blog in almost exactly 10 years, which is crazy to think about. Crazy that something I used to spend so much time agonizing over and pouring thought into has become antiquated and obsolete... only to become the one outlet that makes sense during this crazy time.

Yesterday I set up the Kinect on my Xbox, another obsolete piece of technology. Because I'm a nerd and always have to have the newest, hottest, flamingest shit, I got one of the first Xbox Ones to come out, which came with the second generation of Kinect sensor... you know, the one Microsoft tried to shove down all our throats relentlessly. Anyway, we basically used it as a voice operated remote to browse Netflix. "Xbox, pause" "Xbox, play" "Xbox, rewind"... you know, shit Americans are known for. Anyway, Microsoft eventually gave up the ghost and phased the Kinect out. Mine's been sitting on a shelf gathering dust for at least 2 years.

Now, it's a way (if I can get the damn thing working again) for us to use an outdated Skype app so that we can talk to Grandma on a daily basis. My daughter, Caroline is almost 2 (yes! I have a daughter now and have been married to my wife since September 2015). Grandma is in Kansas, set to move to be with us in Atlanta as soon as her house sells. She was supposed to come visit us 3/27, but it's looking like that won't happen now. I told her if she was able to get in the car TODAY and make the 14 hour drive, stopping only for gas and to sleep in her car, that she's welcome to come stay with us and ride this thing out. Tearfully, she told me she needed to stay in case someone wants to come look at the house.

Honestly, it's going to be safer for her there anyway. McPherson has around 15,000 people. Meanwhile Atlanta is set to blow with this virus and cases have started to double overnight. It's hard to know how many there really are simply because there's a shortage of testing. Personally, I think by this weekend, our healthcare system is going to be in the grips of the worst crisis it's ever seen.

I should also mention that my wife has some autoimmune health issues that are pretty unique. She suffers from Schmidt's Syndrome which is a combination of Addison's Disease and Hypothyroidism. It's something that can be managed with a daily regimen of drugs, but is a serious condition that can be exacerbated by illness. The story of her diagnosis and the things we went through to get to it could fill a book at this point. I have taken more trips to the ER in the last 5 years than I care to mention and many of them have been triggered by illness, whether that's a common flu or something given to my wife by Caroline from her daycare or mastitis... even the slightest thing can send her into adrenal crisis, which immediately requires a trip to the ER.

So... as you can probably guess... I'm pretty fuckin nervous about all this. Luckily, I have been quietly prepping and watching this story develop, so we have plenty of food, water, and meds to get us through the next 60-90 days. My concern is that if my wife catches this, which she probably will, we may need a trip to the ER... and that's the last place on earth I want to be right now or for the forseeable future.

I should ALSO also mention... my wife is 13 weeks pregnant with our second child. This means that now, not only do we get to navigate our way through a pandemic AND Schmidt's... but we also have to deal with morning sickness and fatigue, all the while playing the game of "Is this symptom just pregnancy OR is it your Schmidt's OR is it Covid?"

Anyway, the last few days have been rough and we're only at the beginning of this thing. My wife can barely stand due to fatigue. She basically moves from one flat position to the next... shuffling quickly from our bed to a sofa or from the sofa to the kitchen and back as quickly as she can. It's slightly horrifying. I've been trying to cram fluids and food down as much as possible, but it's hard when someone doesn't feel well. I got her a bottle that lights up every 30 min to remind her to drink, but that's not really helped much at all. I grabbed protein shakes from the store in an effort to find something high calorie with vitamins, etc. that she can drink easily. I basically had to hold a gun to her head to make her drink it this morning. I'm equal parts husband and taskmaster. It sucks.

Last night she said she felt the fatigue was getting worse and that it wasn't due to pregnancy. I can connect with her doctors via an app that allows me to send them messages... Laura was too tired last night to do this herself, so I fired off an email to both her endocrinologist and OBGYN. No response.

In preparation for a doctor visit today, which we assumed we'd be able to schedule, we drove to Laura's folks' house so they can watch Caroline while we go to the doc. We tried calling the docs on the way over, but it seems they're already trying to stem the flow of patients. It's worrisome when you're living with someone who has a life-threatening illness to see the system strained already when the worse is yet to come.

Anyway, not long after we got to my in-laws' house, Dr. Patel (endocrinologist) called me directly. After discussing Laura's symptoms with him for about 10 minutes, he said we need to go to the ER so that she can be given fluids via IV. I said, yeah... no I don't want to go there AT ALL. But he said really, we need to go as this is the only way to deliver IV fluids. I thanked him for calling us and he said he'd call back tomorrow to check in.

So... what to do? Do we drive into what we KNOW is a situation that will expose us both to Covid so that she can be given IV fluids and told she needs to eat more, which I can almost guarantee you is what will happen since we've been through this a dozen times before? OR do we do what we can at home, try to see if we can force fluids and food to make her feel better, then reevaluate tomorrow when, in all likelihood, the situation will be even worse at the ERs? Neither is a fantastic choice.

For now, we've decided to stick it out here at her parents and see if we can force the fluids and food for today. At the very least, tomorrow when we wake up if she is still not feeling better, we'll be able to say that we know she's not dehydrated and we know she's had enough food. I know it will be worse at the ER tomorrow, but if going there is a Covid sentence either way, seems like it would be smarter to delay that option as long as possible.

So that's the situation right now. We're all "working from home" at this point. I have a desk set up at home and have grabbed my monitors, so with the exception of the folding table set up in Caroline's playroom, it's just like my normal office setting, basically. It's interesting attending meetings and trying to handle the business-as-usual functions of our jobs while the world around us starts to crack and crumble. I can't help but wonder how long this routine will go on before each one of us is just in 100% survival mode, unable to track or even care about projects that have lost their meaning in the context of this incredible, unbelievable, worldwide crisis.

It's crazy to think that everyone... EVERYONE on EARTH... is living out their own versions of this story, complete with difficult situations to navigate and impossible choices to make. My own drama is consuming all of my mental real estate right now, so my heart is with everyone who is dealing with their own all-consuming drama as well.

Be good to each other over the coming days and weeks. Stay strong and as positive as possible. Take care and stay safe.

-Matt

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rubyvroom · 7 years

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the last six months: a summary

* received word that we were losing our apartment in the most roundabout and confusing way possible, by getting a lease six months short of a full year. At Christmas. Nobody wants to explain to us why. We have to track down our building manager and sit her down and ask what tf is up.

*Turns out we are losing the apartment TO HER. Because she is losing her place, and she is buddies with the landlord, so she talked the landlord into kicking us out and giving it to her. Now, we have lived in this apartment for 12 years and we thought we were friends with the landlord, so this was fairly shocking. Lesson #1 Kids: you are never friends with your landlord. Never. Anyway, I would have been inclined to feel bad for said manager, who is older and her husband is sick and they are clearly having financial issues, but she gave us such an “I don’t have to explain anything to you” attitude that I have permanently crossed her over to Fuck You Forever category. Also she refused to explain exactly when and exactly how all this was gonna go for another bunch of weeks, and also refused to refund us our security deposit and our last month’s rent, because it was ten years ago and we can’t prove we paid it. After, again, twelve years of being perfect tenants and taking great care of the place. Yeah, fuck you lady. Our finances are no picnic either and sadly we are NOT buddies with a landlord to hook us up, as the next six months proved.

*for this reason, we’re gonna neglect to mention that we have had bats in the house again. Yeah, she can figure that out AFTER she’s moved in. Have fun with that.

*Anyway, cue months and months of looking for a new place to live. Friends, Boston real estate is BRUTAL. There are twenty other people looking at any one place you mange to get in to see and they will snatch it out from under you before you’ve pulled back the shower curtain. Every place wants first, last, security, broker fees, key deposit, your firstborn son, etc. We are used to finding places to live on Craigslist by searching for roommates, this is what we always did in the past before I moved in with Mr. X when his roommate moved out. Looking for a place just for us two, no roommates, involves dealing directly with Real Estate agents, building management companies, and landlords. All of whom, Lesson #2, are not there to help you, each other, or anyone but themselves.

*Whenever we did find a place that was not an actual hole in the ground and put in an application, we would get stone cold turned down. My credit score is shitty, and Mr. X is a freelancer without a steady paycheck, so we might as well have had leprosy. This despite the fact that I actually fully paid off my entire student loan this year as well as ALL my credit card debt, so I actually owe nothing to anybody. We have fantastic references, great rental history, and steady income. Does anybody care? Nooooope. They see that number and our application goes in the trash. Not that anybody would tell us this, mind, without me repeatedly calling to ask if they’d called our references yet and if they needed a paycheck stub. They just stopped calling and wasted our time rather than just tell us we were out of the running. This happened over and over and over.

*Couple other Fun Things That Happened: The place with the american flags and the Mystery Landlord who lived on the third floor but nobody ever saw - we chickened out on applying to that one because it sounds blatantly like Jordan Peele’s next horror movie. There was the place that suddenly was no longer available once we had parked on the street in front of it and texted to let them know we were there. Did he look out the window and see an interracial couple and suddenly go Nope? We’ll never know, but we got enough Weird Vibes at places we looked at to have to wonder. There was a summer sublet that was lovely and belonged to a professor who would be sending the summer in France, and we were this close to signing it but put an application down on a 1yr lease instead, and by the time we got turned down for that we had lost the sublet too. There were more real estate agents than I ever want to see again in my life and a whooole lot of basement apartments with no windows that made me want to cry.

*We got down to one month before we lose our current place and had already had our application rejected multiple times. We looked at an apartment right on my birthday that was beautiful, just down the street (so still in our neighborhood), and right in our price range. Put in the app, talked to the landlord, had long conversations with the landlord, landlord called all our references who gave us glowing reviews, were discussing move-in dates, and then she ran my credit report. Literally asked me to explain individual items on my credit report to her satisfaction. Then wrote us an email (after all this talk on the phone) to say that the place was no longer available because someone decided not to move out.

*I lost my shit. I cried. I am not a crier. We talked about moving into separate apartments with roommates again. We talked about putting our stuff in storage and couch surfing. We talked about me going out to North Carolina to live with my parents and him moving in with a friend (this to me was NEVER an option, but it was raised). Then we buckled down and went back to work. Entire days surfing the 18 different apartment listing sites. Contacting real estate agents. Me pleading for help on Tumblr. Making appointments on the phone and checking them separately to cover more ground. Pretty much around the clock stress and work.

*Lesson #3: After all this, it became clear to me that anyplace I get to live with Mr. X is gonna be home. Everything else is bonus. So we were gonna make something work, no matter what.

*Two weeks before d-day we put out three more applications on places we could easily see ourselves living in. By then we’re so pummeled by the process that we were totally prepared to be rejected again, but wouldn’t it be funny if the one time we put in multiple applications several of them were accepted…?

*It was. It was funny. All three places wanted us. On one we got the hook-up from a real sweet twentysomething real estate agent in a managed building with a good commute, another we met the current tenants who were doing the searching for their landlord and hit it off, and the third we went out to see on a whim right after it was posted and it turned out to be gorgeous. So then we had to decide, in really short order, what to do. Still scared of losing all three of them and ending up with nothing, I had already put a deposit with the real estate agent on the managed building apartment. So if we didn’t take that one we would lose a month’s rent. But the last place, the afterthought place, really stuck in our minds, and in the end we ate the cost of the deposit and took that one.

*SO. Our new place. It is the best place we saw anywhere this whole time. The BIGGEST place we saw this whole time. 3+ bedrooms, y’all. A dining room. New kitchen. New bathroom. I am pinching myself. I was trying not to jump up and down while we were looking at it. Landlady was doing up the place herself, showed the place herself, lives in the building herself, was cool as shit. We got on that fast. Applied that night. She accepted, we’ve been over there, signed the lease, it’s all set.

*Two more things fell into place: we got an extra week at the old place, because building manager does not have her shit together to move in yet. They were actually hoping to get a whole other month’s rent from us, but happily, we are outta here on Saturday after pro-rating a week of rent. This allows our new landlady to finish painting the last room, and also we don’t have to move on the first of the month which is always madness.

*Last thing? Astonishingly enough, after preparing ourselves for six months for our rent to go up several hundred dollars a month and have to tighten our budget and give up things, and after getting rid of a significant proportion of our belongings because it looked like we would be living in a basement 1-bedroom for the forseeable future? And after Mr. X pretty much gave up on the idea of having a home studio for his freelance work? Our new apartment with room for an art studio is CHEAPER than what we pay now.

*Holy shit, right? Lesson #4: Sometimes a few ulcers later it all works out.

ps. THANK YOU to all my tumblr buddies who supported me during my crazy stress over all this, and particularly the people who offered direct help and advice. @undeniablyotiose @liaratsoniii @mcnamak, other people who I’m probably forgetting, people who sent videos and supportive messages, bless your souls, thank you for the help.

#this has been a post

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manuelacasagranda · 7 years

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I kind of want to start eating vegan a set amount of days a week (3 or so) for health reasons, maybe increasing to 5 days a week, with animal byproducts only for 2 days, but that’s going to take a huge amount of effort for food preparation that I might not have the mental energy for. Also for social outings, I would rather just participate with ease instead of trying to find vegan options. Before I went vegetarian, I told myself that I could never do it, that my family would be angry with me and I would not be able to sustain it. And then it was fine and I’ve done it for five years now. I don’t think I could ever be Fully Vegan™ because I am currently not, and for the forseeable future cannot be someone with lots of free time to devote to cooking. So there will be times when I have to get a cheap, quick thing.

Also eggs are an important staple when trying to get affordable protein that can be cooked quickly. I’m a very depressed person with not a lot of money so I sort of need that and greek yogurt as a failsafe when I’m too depressed to put any effort into cooking.

I was super busy last semester, and my habits started getting really bad. I would just drink tea instead of making actual food because all my energy was spent on work. And then that plus my cold apartment situation got me really sick. I fainted from exhaustion, illness, and probably malnourishment at the end of the semester, and it’s not the first time this has happened. But I feel like if I make good tasting things I know are good for me, and I make it “fun” then I will put a concerted effort into making sure I don’t let that happen again.

I know the dairy industry is bad, but so is every industry under late capitalism. Your vegetables were picked by wage slaves, and if you have the money to buy from ~locally grown~ farms and shit, you’re immensely privileged, and also the hobbyist farmer’s market thing is really detrimental to people whose livelihood depends on agriculture. Nothing you consume can be divorced from someone’s suffering. This is for health reasons, and because it’s marginally more environmentally sustainable. I do love animals, they warm the cold, dead recesses of my heart. But the people who pick and grow vegetables are terribly mistreated too, and are inarguably more wronged because they’re human beings.

I just wanna be healthier because i’m so mentally unhealthy, if I have control over physical health I can feel a bit better idk.

#ed tw #i do not have an eating disorder but i imagine this kind of talk is bad for people who do #because it's about diet restriction #veganism

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