Monday, October 5, 2020

Postcard #161: "Viral Load"

 


Text:

www.minormumbles.com US-1017630

"GREETINGS FROM ATLANTA”

R. LAND 

It's 3 am. I awake to find my 2 1/2-year-old daughter had crawled up into arms at some point in the night.  I turned over in bed to look again at the clock. I begin to perform the calculations "if I fall asleep by 'X' I will get 'Y' amount of sleep before work."  1 hr 45 mins max. Then I realize I have called out already. My daughter was exposed to Covid-19 at school by her teacher. 3 days ago the teacher and all students were ejected from the class for 14 days. Quarantined. No daycare, besides my wife and I.  I am a nurse by trade, my wife also works in Healthcare. Who is to say I am any more or less exposed or positive than my daughter is right now? I become aware that I am holding my breath contemplating my daughter. I know this because the CPAP I am wearing, is violently trying to force air into my nostrils - a humidified pressurized high flow cloud of potentially aerosolized airborne-stable COVID -19. I am faced with a new calculation How long had my child been in my arms? How much of a viral load could she have received? I push her into the middle of the bed between my wife and I.  I turn off the CPAP and sit on the edge of the bed. I will get up. Knowing the chance of sleep is gone. The symptoms of non-illness now rival those of an illness.  -TM.

Sent to chanm.  She wanted a "Greetings from Postcard..." and something typical of my country.  I had the perfect card.  

I am actually back on postcrossing.  I finally deactivated my facebook account.  Maybe at some point I can actually delete it.  I will try and watch that Social Dilemma program everyone has been raving about.  Maybe that will finally get me to delete the account rather than treating it like a credit card I can not get rid of because its the credit card I have the most credit history with.  I am looking at you discovercard.com with your 20.99% self.  

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