Life in Quarantine

June 8, 2020

Today my temperature was 97.7.  Normal for the first time since May 30.   That's when I discovered I  had a temperature over 102 and got a test for Covid 19.  I didn't get the test back until Thursday, June 4, and it came back negative.  A false negative we think.

  

I  have had no other symptoms.  I still have a fever.  100.9 as I write this.  It's been as high as 104.5 and never lower than  100 until yesterday when I woke up to 99.5.  The morning readings are lower because I take aspirin or ibuprofen at bed time.  I'm stuck here, more or less, until I get three days of normal temperature. 

It's not that bad although I'm getting tired of the routine and cannot lose the feeling that I'm a burden to the rest of the household.  They are not complaining, and keep me comfortably fed and watered (sometimes beer).  

The good news is no one else in the house is showing symptoms. Hickory, whose health issues (severe asthma) make  her the most vulnerable is, normal for her, driving herself to physical exhaustion. That has a lot less to do with me than her volunteer job at Keeping Our Promises, an organization she created which has resettled over 100 Afghan and Iraqi  families here in Rochester.  She has found a new place to store and manage the donated household goods that for the last three years have taken up all the spare space in our house and garage. She is getting it all out of  here (HURRAH) and organizing it downtown at Greenovation. Yesterday she pulled a muscle moving stuff she should  not have been moving  and had to go to the emergency room. (I have told her to slow down many times, but when has she listened to me?)

Hickory has also done her share of cooking and delivering meals to the shut-in.  Will, who  started his internship last week with a local custom amplifier maker, fills in shopping and delivering meals.  The family shut-in appreciates the delicious meals. Hickory has done some lunch sandwiches, soups.  Will and Swillar have cooked some excellent spicy stir fries, BLTs, breakfast quesadillas and peanut butter and jelly banana wraps.  The family is also keeping an eye on Harry and Shirley, which has normally been my job.  

I can imagine what hell this would be for my wife the extrovert,  but for me it's the Life Of Riley.  I have a room full of books and have finished four light novels in the last week,  will probably finish another today. I am plowing my way through Barbara Tuchman's  A Distant Mirror (minimum 25 pages/day) and decided,  after 50 pages, I don't want to read Advise and Consent or Lord Jim...  at least not now.  I organized all the books in my bedroom (and the one shelf in the hall just outside my door) and culled out about  20 volumes for the library sale.  I read the NYT, WAPO, DnC and Guardian daily and spend entirely too much time on the Facedbook.  I subscribed to Curiosity Stream and binged an excellent documentary on WWI (Apocalypse).  I binged Fargo on Hulu.  I have watched many movies:  yesterday alone Clueless and Groundhog Day (I  had forgotten how much I love that movie.)  There is this blog to maintain and... I actually got some work  done for one of  my clients. 

There must be an end game here.  My doctor (who  calls periodically) is  convinced that this is Covid or maybe Lyme Disease.  I'm going to get another COVID test and if it's  negative we'll  test for Lyme and run a Covid antibody test.  In the meantime I'm looking for at least four more days of this RnR here in quarantine.