Quarantine…again…but for real

“Quarantine” has been thrown out a lot when discussing the last 6 months. But as a smart person knows, “lock down” and “stay at home” orders were not actually the same as quarantine.

We were in lock down, with nothing open except essential businesses. We had stay at home orders, to keep away from people and hopefully stop the spread.

Now I am actually in quarantine. J tested positive on the 9th, after being sick for 3 days. He had a fever and GI issues, so I took him to get tested on July 5th as a precaution cuz I knew GI issues were accepted as a symptom, and having a fever as an adult is weird. But he got better, so we really didn’t think it was going to be covid, but just food poisoning or something. Urgent care called 4 days later with the results and boom, we are quarantined. He hadn’t worked because he was sick enough that he couldn’t, and once he had been tested he was not allowed to work until he got results. But me? I kept working 3 more days, cuz I was not sick.

And I am still not sick. I’m not sure how it is possible. The test takes too long, so in the meantime we were still sharing the same living space (separate bedrooms at least), and not being particularly careful about shared items (realized over a week later that we were using the same bathroom cup still, as well as toothpaste). The urgent care Dr had speculated that I’d get sick by the 12th. The 12th came and went, and I am not sick.

Based on the time line of sickness (lol), J will be non-contagious tomorrow, the 15th. I was advised not to get tested without symptoms, because I might be negative one day and catch it the next, so they would be useless results. He needs 2 negative tests to return to work, so we are going to both get tested on the 16th. My results at that point should be clear, and he can begin the process of returning to work.

And regarding work. He got to sign up for disability, however I am sitting here unpaid. Our job does not follow state law, so they did not have to provide 14 sick days to employees as per Cuomo’s law, and the federal law that they do follow excludes companies with over 500 employees (for some stupid ass reason, wtf)

Back to me not being sick. I really don’t think it’s possible that I didn’t catch it. I have a history of getting bad cases of every illness I have caught (all those chicken pox type diseases of childhood), and I fully expected to catch the full brunt of covid (hopefully minus the hospitalization) at some point in time. Am I really sitting here with a body full of covid and NO symptoms? There are stories of some patients only having a headache, and sure I have had a headache this week…but that is just my life! Could I have had it with only a headache? I mean, the tests are going to tell us, but it’s just kind of mind blowing to me either way….either I somehow managed not to catch it when sharing the same space as J, or I had it with no symptoms. And that in itself is scary, because in any normal time, we would have assumed J had food poisoning and not a communicable disease. If we weren’t proactive and took him for a test, we would have continued as normal, he even would have gone back to work 1 day that week because he was better. We would have been super spreaders, he not knowing he had it, and me not having symptoms and continuing as normal. That’s why this is such a problem. All these non symptomatic people walking around. Or people who are sick and don’t have insurance, and don’t get tested, but “recover” quickly and can still spread it. This is not going away. Wear your mask.

Work has been a whole other shit show. As soon as it came out that someone (J) tested positive everyone starts freaking out. Sick calls because people don’t want to be there, some that he worked closely with also put into quarantine (not sure if it was by work, or by the state). The contact tracing seems sketchy, as one of the friends we listed because she had been at our house never got called (luckily she is smart and proactive and got tested on her own, negative). Other friends are calling us, asking why we didn’t turn in their names….well the tracers only asked about the 3 days prior to symptoms…we can only give them the info they ask for. And if you are worried, get your own damn test! Being called by the state doesn’t actually get you anything. Ooooh they emailed me my quarantine notice, big deal. I also live with the positive test, I didn’t just have a beer with him outside on a restaurant patio. 😛

Anyway. I am quarantined until July 23rd, I guess regardless as to my test results. Tho if J is contagious until the 15th, shouldn’t I be quarantined for 14 days after that? Whatever. Just tell me what to do State Dept of Health and I’ll do it. (They send me a txt survey every day, asking if anyone has developed new symptoms, 9 more days of monitoring to go.)

Oh, also, my mom got sick 2 days ago…went for a test, no results yet. But she was our errand girl, and we needed groceries. Luckily Adr has been in town at her mom’s and grocery shopped for us awwwww.

Oh, one last thing. Quarantine is a little harder when everything isn’t shut down. I mean, I’m still totally fine not going out, but I do see an awful lot of good looking restaurant food on FB that I think, oh, I want that, and then realize I can’t, not even take out, cuz I can’t leave the house. 🙁 It’s national mac n cheese day, I want some good mac n cheese!

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