I am wheezing, coughing, I sound horrible. It’s a mast cell problem that I’ve had my whole life... it’s just flared up at the moment. My doc just prescribed steroids, something we avoid like the plague... but since people are fearing covid-19 more than the plague, and I’m getting worse every day, it was time to give the steroids a short round. Working on getting me off public transit in a hurry. Partly concern about my catching covid-19 but more for general safety since my cough gets evil stares, and things are likely to get much worse in my area than better.
I have to admit, I feel stressed. Not being able to breathe well is a trigger and it’s been part of trauma in multiple ways. Here I am with others nervous about how well I’m breathing. There isn’t cause to suspect I have covid-19 and I don’t qualify to be tested. I’m not concerned I have it but I am concerned how hard we are fighting to get respiratory meds refilled.
Friends know I’m ok. They say they know I cough time to time and I’m good at staying away when actually sick. They are also being protective. Telling me if I need to be pulled out of living alone in the high density urban area I’m in, they’ll come get me. They are not worried about covid-19 but panic about a girl with a chronic cough.
I do well with immediate crisis situations and I especially do well when I’m able to act. Do something. Or I can help others.
I don’t do well with “threats” that are far off and I’m unable to do anything about.
I’m really delighted there is a greater public understanding of staying away from vulnerable populations like me when sick. Right after a recent surgery, I had an infection took and my immune system was down for the count, and the number of friends who tried to visit my whole actively sick... I had to start being very clear, you can’t come near if sick and people took it personally. Now people are getting it. Stay home if sick.
I struggle with how reassuring it is to many that only the sick or elderly are at much risk of death. I’ve started being open that waits minute, this isn’t time to panic but their (my) increased risk of death shouldn’t be the reassurance of others but the cause to pull it together and protect the most vulnerable. I’m glad to see that the message of “don’t panic but act to protect the most vulnerable” is replacing the “no worries only the sick and elderly die.”
This blog author reflects some of the problem in the messaging well:
“Disabled people are always an afterthought, never built into the messaging of a pandemic. Actually, we’re arguably built out of the messaging and used specifically as examples for why healthy people shouldn’t be concerned.
Phrased differently, chronically ill people are marketed as everything someone does not want to be during a pandemic.
Why? Because our lives literally aren’t considered worth protecting via public responsibility. It’s “every man for himself.”
‘The Cripples Will Save You’: A Critical Coronavirus Message from a Disability Activist
There are break-ins at hospitals happening in my state and there haven’t been many cases. (Granted very few are being tested and that will soon spike when they soon start to test many more people.) which pretty dumb ass stupid because of someone gets really sick you’ll want doctors that didn’t have be to be quarantined because you took their equipment so they can’t use it and got sick themselves.
I can’t even discuss work at the moment. I have high public contact at work and we will be one of the last to ever close, if at all.
The memes about on TP runs around the world are good comedy in a weird time in history.
Just all the funniest memes from The Great Australian Toilet Paper Panic of 2020.
