The Apocalypse Has Arrived

For a number of years now, I've had a feeling that I would be living in a time when the world would change drastically. I didn't know how; maybe a nuclear disaster, maybe an magnetic field shift, maybe even extreme climate change activity. But I didn't actually stop to consider that maybe it would be a pandemic.

Well, we are now in the midst of a global pandemic. A coronavirus called Covid-19, to be exact. It's been officially in the US since March, but was probably here much earlier. It started in China, but is now everywhere in the world (except New Zealand, another reason that country has it good).

Back in March, they shut down poor Simon's school, and most of the schools around the country as well. Most businesses closed, and people were going crazy for toilet paper (?). I felt so bad for Simon. He had a lot of friends, he was finally in a groove with his routine for the day, and then it all just ended so abruptly that he didn't really get a chance to say goodbye to anyone in his kindergarten class. Later on we did video chats with a lot of his friends and his teacher did the same, but zoom calls aren't the same as real life visits.

We took Inara out of day care at the same time, which was a huge blessing, since she HATED it and was refusing to drink her milk or eat much of anything there. She lost a bunch of weight and kept getting sick. Oddly, in early March, both I and Inara were sick with a bad respiratory virus. I was coughing so much that I was having trouble reading to Simon at night, and I had to keep a "spit cup" in my car for all the stuff I was coughing up. Inara was wheezing for weeks and had fevers on and off. This was supposedly before covid-19 hit here, but then later I learned that a boy got it here in February. I actually feel kinda lucky that we didn't know it was around back then, because I probably would have freaked out much more than I did. We both got over it, and we are fine now.

So for the latter part of March and all of April, our state of NY was getting case after case, and it was looking really bad. People would just randomly die or have strange issues, and this thing seemed unbeatable. We stayed home all the time, only leaving for one of us to go to the store. We went on a lot of walks, though. We ordered out every 3 days to try to keep restaurants afloat. We talked to my mom and Mike's mom over video chat, and my dad visited on my birthday but we only took a 6 feet apart walk with him around the neighborhood. My lab stopped accepting new patients in mid-March, and I had to find busy work until late June. NYC got hit very hard, and my coworkers were re-deployed to different locations in the hospital. My supervisor was hauling bodies for 3 weeks in the morgue. I felt, and feel, very lucky to have been working from home already. Incredibly, nobody that I work with caught the virus during that crazy time.

In May, things started lightening up. On Mother's Day, I decided that it was ok to visit my mom. My dad and brother and his wife were there also. On Memorial Day, we let Simon and Inara play with their cousins Kaleb and Giuliana. It felt so nice to be with people again. Our entire state was starting to turn around, and I definitely felt less scared and more hopeful.

In June, we finished Simon's at-home lessons (Mike taught him math and now he's a math genius, and I sorta kinda taught him to read), Simon learned how to ride a bike, and Inara went back to day care. She was now almost 11 months old, and did much better with it. We played with Lauren's family and saw my family more and more, but still didn't see too many others.

In July we branched out to a few more friends. We were able to meet up and play outdoors in most cases, and were very careful not to hug or share food. We'd been wearing face masks in public since April, and Simon at this point was used to wearing one, so we allowed him to attend some summer camps with his mask on. This was GREAT for us, especially since Mike had been working from home since March, but had to start up at the office again 2 weeks on/2 weeks off. I still remember the first day that I was the only one home for 7 hours. It was pretty awesome. 

Inara turned one in July, as well.

I know I haven't written much (or...anything) about her since her birth, but see above as to why I've had no time to really do anything. I will make things short and sweet:

--Inara is so different from Simon. And ever since she was born she's been her own little contradictory person. She can look at you with contempt and scowl, or she can light up a room with her smile. She only learned to crawl at 11 months and can't yet walk on her own, but she has been able to run since 8 months. She loves food, but just flat out won't eat if she's upset about something. She falls asleep in under 5 minutes but it took her until she was 11 months old to sleep until 4:30 am and not wake up earlier than that. She loves baths but hates pools. She will cuddle and snuggle but also headbutt you in anger. I could go on, but I'll just say that she's quite an amazing child, and we feel so lucky to have her in our family. And Simon is the BEST older brother we could ask for. He loves her to death and would do anything for her, including sharing his toys and singing "Inara is the cutest, she's just the cutest, Inara is the cutest in the whoooole world" to her every single night. And if I had had IVF scheduled this year and it had been canceled, I would be in a deep depression right now, so she is my little treasure.

Okay, back to the virus. August just started, but our state just hit a record for having positive test results at 1%. Our county only has 40 people hospitalized right now, and NYC is doing great as well. Other states aren't faring so well, as they refused to listen to science and are now paying the price. I would argue that some in NY are being a bit TOO cautious and not looking at the extremely low numbers, but I guess until it's at 0, it makes sense to be wary. My family is extroverted and is not immune compromised, so we are trying (safely) to see others who are up for it, but I will not fault those who are still quarantining themselves.

Overall, they are working on a vaccine, but it won't arrive for quite awhile yet. It's still summer, when dry hot weather lessens the spread of such things, but come fall, our state may see cases increase again. As of right now, a bunch of Simon's friends will not be going back to school in the fall, and some, like Simon, will only be going 2 days a week in person. The rest will be home schooling or virtual instruction. Most of our businesses are open or opening soon, but some had to shut down for good. The economy is a disaster, but the housing market is bananas, so we may end up moving houses in a month or two, who knows.

All in all, even with hundreds of thousands of people dying, I'd say this apocalypse is not the worst scenario that had crossed my mind. I'll check back in in December with an update though, because maybe we haven't seen the worst of it yet.

Since this is not the most uplifting post in the world, I'll leave you with a cute photo, and I'll sign off with the catchphrase of 2020: "Stay safe!"