And somehow saying, "Greetings and salutations!" doesn't seem quite right.
How's the Stay Home Order treating you and yours? Who's on you're #quaranteam?
I mean, at least we don't have 36 goddamn inches of snow on the ground...which...depending on if you're a Stephen King fan or a Twilight Zone fan...has the potential for a little fun...Yeah....
Anyway, so my family is managing, like any family, to the best of it's current ability amid the Coronavius Pandemic. Many families are in survival mode. And survival mode sucks. Speaking from experience as a mom of a 13-year-old boy who is living with a rare form of epilepsy, and has been seizing since he was 3...I get it. Survival mode completely fucking sucks. Oh, and cancer in each parent in two years was also survival mode. Subsequently, this survival mode is just how my home functions on the daily because epilepsy, autism, and surviving cancers is, thankfully, how we roll here at The Anderson Family Circus.
At first, my husband and I largely took turns leaving our home during the Stay Home order. Since I'm the Purchasing Department and the Creative Culinary Force/Primary Food Source, I'd make a trip to Safeway...which is a blog in and of itself. My husband, in order to escape the Monkey House, would make the trip all the way into town to go to the Post Office. Which, in our world, is a guarantee of 40 minutes alone time, round trip. We discussed logistics of our new to us as a family version of survival mode, and agreed to use InstaCart for our Costco Purchases.
Anyway, so collectively, the four of us have not left our home together as a family since Wednesday March 18th. The weekend before, everything had come to a screeching halt, and our school district was emailing parents each day with the rapidly changing shit show in the earliest days of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Wednesday was the first day students were permitted to retrieve their
Annnnnyyyyyyyyway...third Saturday in May was our first venture out, as a family, in two solid months. And, yes, we wore our masks. Because it's all the rage. And alllllll the cool kids are doing it. #AndAlso the CDC says. In my house, tend to subscribe to the fascinating belief system called science!
Science is really cool.
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| You guys, I really captured our essences with watermelon, cats, Spirograph, and Star Wars fabrics. #Obvs |
So aside from the fact that the CDC recommends them and I totally #NailedIt with these fabulous fabrics, and we look like a goddamn bunch of badasses, why am I wearing a mask? Because of my Cancer Adventure in 2015. My husband is choosing to wear a mask because of his own Cancer Situation (can we call it that? Cancer Situation? Can we finally name it?) in 2016. #AndAlso the American Cancer Society, who is responsible for a lot of sciencey stuff, says, "Most people who were treated for cancer in the past (especially if it was years ago) are likely to have normal immune function, but each person is different."
My family is different. We've been struck by lightening. Several times, actually. So I prefer to not call down the thunder. The Fates.
Because the stories of kids contracting Coronavirus...and a parent not being able to go in. What? You mean if one of my children contracts COVID-19 and is hospitalized, my husband and/or I would not be permitted to be with him? I can't even wrap my brain around that. What if it's my child who is disabled and what about his meds and how will he take them and can I get his CBD oil in him and how will he understand what you're doing to him and WAIT!
So now up here in Washington State, and specifically in my little community, where you can get dirty looks at the Post Office for wearing a mask while walking towards your hybrid...maybe she just had RBF...but the sticker on her rig told me otherwise...we're getting ready to go into Phase 2. On Monday, June 1st. So, like tomorrow. And as a cancer survivor who was a cancer care giver and we have a kiddo with myriad neurological disabilities, reopening is fucking terrifying. My former home state of Arizona recently reopened and apparently Mill Ave was hopping like there wasn't a respiratory virus running around. WTF Tempe? Get your shit together. #FuckinMaricopaCounty #ScumDevils
Will communities that reopen see an increase in cases? Absolutely. The good thing about living up here on the North Olympic Peninsula, we have been lucky to have (a) a very low number of cases, and (b) no community transmission. Basically, everyone who's been diagnosed with Coronavirus in Clalllam County contracted the disease when they traveled outside of the county. So they got up and bounced over to Seattle...and then they got the 'rona, and then they brought it home. Does this concern me? Absolutely. I get it: sometimes we need to travel. But right now, we all need to figure out what's an essential trip and what's not. We need to make health decisions not only for ourselves, but for our community. And by wearing a mask, I'm saying: "I see you. I recognize that I do not know if I've been exposed to Coronavirus. But I do not want to risk your health."
It's kinda like saying, "Hey, I'm really sexually active and I need to use a condom, not because I am worried you're going to give me something, I'm more concerned I'm going to give you something, and that would really suck. So let's still have sex. But be safe about it."
In this example, we're saying we like to have sex. Right? Totally on board with that. But can you imagine if HIV was transmitted as easily as Coronavirus? "Hey, I'm really into breathing and being alive and I need to wear a mask, not because I'm worried you're going to give me something, I'm more concerned I'm going to give you something, and that would really suck. So let's breathe the same air. But be safe about it."
And what is that going to look like for all of the people who were out protesting yesterday? Will there be an increase in the number of Coronavirus cases across the country? Absolutely. And how do you feel, knowing that the United States of America is leading the pack with the number of deaths caused by this disease? Is it a badge of honor for you? Have we, culturally, really become that desensitized to death?
Maybe the protesters aren't "just" protesting the systemic racial injustice that they have experienced for hundreds of years in a country they were forcibly brought to. Maybe there was a little bit of angst about the fact that blacks are dying at significantly higher rates from like, every goddamn disease, including Coronavirus?
So, when we re-open tomorrow, will much change for us as a community? No. However, our summertime tourist season is fixing to start and while we are all relying on that influx of money, it may or may not come immediately...but it will come, and with it will come an increase of cases. When we look at pandemics over time, let's say the Spanish Flu, which is also called the 1918 Flu, and, curiously, started on an Army Base in...wait for it...Kansas! It's called Spanish Flu because Spain wasn't involved in WWI and their press was free to report about this emerging illness, the US, France, Germany, and others, all perceived that the Spanish "started" the flu. Anyway a hundred years later, estimates of 20 million to an 50 million people died during the 1918/Spanish Flu Pandemic. That's a lot of goddamn people you guys...
So second wave...it's coming. For all of us. When? I don't know, you guys...because, again, I'm not an oracle. I'm just a mom that's gotta get dinner going for her kids, ya know?
Thanks for reading. Stay safe out there. And most importantly, please be kind. You can never tell what a person is dealing with, just based on the eyes above their face mask.
