I have a discord server (sort of)! My bf created a discord server, and I'm part of it. Join us! https://discord.gg/y8RHrmgpJG (server name is Amaranth). It's SFW, verification gives you access to the NSFW sections.
I'm
typing this in notepad++ on my laptop before posting, so I don't have
any previous posts in front of me. I might repeat some info.
I've
had a few messages from people asking me how I am. When those messages
were sent, I was about the same as usual, but I didn't see them until
recently. x.x So I'm going to go back a ways, and talk about the past
couple years.
In Feb 2019, my partner (I think I've been
referring to him as Tek, it's the same partner I've had since 2008) and I
moved to the middle of the country. I've been in Central time zone for
the past couple years, and it's weird. We moved here because Tek's other
partner at the time lives here (she is no longer in our lives, but as
far as I know she's still alive so I'll be using present tense when
talking about her situation). She has a million physical and mental
health problems (obviously an exaggeration), such that she can't work,
and is reliant on her mother's insurance, which she can't get if she
moves out of state. She has an infant son by a different man, but Tek
and the son bonded through the magic of skype, so Tek felt responsible
towards the son. The son was in the care of her mother under court
order, so she was jumping through whatever hoops she needed to in order
to get her son back. They were convinced she was a danger to her son.
Despite everything that happens later, I'm convinced her son is in no
danger from her, and as far as I could tell, he felt no fear of her.
We
got a two bedroom apartment. The plan was, I cam, he gets a job, we
save up and move into a bigger place before she moves in with us. The
place where she was staying was a lovely place in actuality, except for
the fact that they used weed to stay relaxed enough to deal with three
disabled children (plus the disabled roommate partner). Of course, DCF
doesn't like that. They were doing a good job of keeping that out of
everything, but her mother managed to find some evidence and pushed for
full custody, so she needed a different place to go fast. She moved into
the room that was supposed to be my camroom. It was a disaster.
She
and Tek were constantly fighting. The police got called three times.
The last time, in June 2019, the only reason Tek wasn't carted off to
prison is that I was able to counter her testimony. (She had lunged at
him, he raised his arm in defence, she hit his arm and fell, and tried
to claim he hit her). The police took her for observation, and she was
forced to move in with her father.
All of this caused an
explosion in my ptsd. In July 2019, I went back to therapy and applied
for assistance with getting a job. I was given a bit of money to get a
few work appropriate clothes. In Sept 2019, I got a job as a cashier at a
thrift store. Tek and I set up a budget. He was making twice as much as
I was, so we agreed that I would pay a third of the joint bills. We
managed to get a second car right as our car was crapping out on us. I
had found out that the lawsuit from 2016 due to the crash in 2014 had
caused my license to be put on a national hold, so I wasn't allowed to
drive (except I did drive to the store on the rare occasion that Tek
waited to long between cans of Rockstar Energy Drink). I got my license
reinstated in Nov 2019.
The thrift store was shut during lockdown
in March and April 2020. Because I had only been working in my current
state for 6 months, I wasn't eligible for unemployment. The government
stimulus going to both myself and Tek, plus our tax returns, helped me
not just scrape by, but get some new clothes I desparately needed since
the ones I was wearing for work were approaching rags (excepting the
ones I had gotten right before working, I'd had the rest of them since
2012 x.x). I was one of the first people called back when the thrift
store opened back up. In November 2020, I was transferred from
cashiering to processing the incoming media donations. Normally they are
under the department called Production, but someone in upper management
had convinced them to try out in our store having Donations (the
department which receives the donations and initially sorts them to go
to the proper Production section for processing) do some of the
processing. (Cashiers are in Operations.) I was offered the transfer
with the promise of a minor increase in pay, and the option to pick my
own schedule. There were two caveats. I'm supposed to work the full 40
hours every week, and I'm supposed to work Mondays.
Sometime
around then, my therapist brought up EMDR as a treatment for PTSD. I
agreed to try it. The way it works, it targets the indicent which
created the ptsd. I had two that I was pretty sure were working in
tandem, and a whole bunch of others that were only traumatic because of
those first two. I figured, let's deal with the incident that happened
before I can even remember, which caused the second one to be more
traumatic than it needed to be. So first we had to build a memory based
on what I know happened and the vague sensory input that might or might
not be related. Once we had that, I had to relive the memory multiple
times as my brain slowly transformed the memory into something much
better, and then I had an epiphany. It wasn't anything I didn't already
know, but it was something that I didn't really know in my core. And
just like that, most of my anxiety around the three h's (homework,
housework, and hygeine), were gone. But only most of it. So we addressed
the other one. That took multiple sessions. Maybe because there was a
clear memory, so my mind resisted changing "what happened". The second
memory also invovled me having absolutely zero allies in the situation
in real life, so we had to insert a spiritual ally. Good thing I have
experince with those!
At the beginning of January, Tek helped me
get a car. It's a Ford Focus, and it takes flex fuel. The closest place
is about a half hour drive away, so I have to go as soon as my empty
light comes on.
A few weeks ago, I started a program to help with
some lower back pain I've been having since my early twenties. (Back
then, it just appeared if I did the dishes for more than 10 minutes at a
time, or folded laundry for the same amount, but it's been getting
steadily worse as I've gotten older). It has me do some exercises with
sensors to see the angle of my spine, then report on how my health has
been (if I understand correctly, it's actually a study), then read an
article to educate me on the pain (most of it I already know, but it's
good to be reminded).
So that brings us up through January 2021. But there's a bit more background needed before I get into the past couple weeks.
First
off, Tek. Tek lives in a constant state of pain. He's resistant to most
medications and his body doesn't react to opiods. Sometimes the pain is
worse than others. I usually forget, because he lives through it.
Rockstar helps the pain, which is why when he hasn't had it in too long I
have to go get it for him. Tek delivers the healthcare test samples to
the lab. He's the "advanced" version, so he takes over the routes where
the normal person has called off or applied for vacation time. As such,
his schedule fluctuates, but he always has either Saturday or Sunday
off, usually both.
Secondly, my current schedule at the thrift
store is 9 am - 7:45 pm with a 1 hour break for lunch, Mon, Tues, Thurs,
Fri. I need to bring home $500 per check (bi-weekly, so $1000 a month),
in order to meet my third of the joint expenses. In order to meet that,
I need 70 hours on the check, which is 35 hours per week. My job gives
me 1 week of paid sick leave, 1 week of paid time off (vacation time),
and 1 floating holiday (I am unclear if that's paid or unpaid). The sick
leave will roll over for a year or two, so I started this year with 48
hours of sick leave.
Third, my schedule outside the thrift store.
I'm currently taking a birth control pill. In order for it to be the
most effective, I have to take it as close to the same time as possible
every day. (That's just how all birth control pills work. The closer to
the same time each day it's taken, the more effective it is at
preventing pregnancy.) The particular pill I'm taking tends to cause
nausea and vomiting if taken on an empty stomach. I'm taking mine at
7:55am. So I wake up at 7am, get my juice, do the exercises for my back,
get breakfast, take my birth control, get ready and leave for work
around 8:30 am. I shower at night, I put the exercises off till 9 or 10
on my days off, I do laundry on Saturdays, I get paid every other
Friday.
Now I can get into it.
On the week of Feb 7th -
13th, the weather was bad enough that there wasn't much business. Since
items weren't being sold, and items weren't being donated, production
was sent home early on Monday and Tuesday. I also left early. So I used 8
hours of sick leave to make sure that I would get at least the 35 hours
I needed.
On Friday, Feb 12th, I left work feeling very
exhausted, and like my whole body hurt. On Saturday, I could barely
stand, and slept for 1 - 2 hours after every little thing I did until
2pm. Then I felt just how it feels when I spend too much time sleeping,
and was able to function normally. I was at the tail end of my period.
On
Sunday, Feb 14th, still being on my period, I gave Tek a BJ for V Day.
It took him longer than usual to recover from that, so I asked if he was
okay. He explained what was going on with him, and I suggested he sleep
it off, explaining that's what I did on Saturday. He told me it had
been since Friday, so he didn't think it would help. I brought up that
he might have COVID, but he brushed it off. We both went to work Monday.
Monday,
the thrift store closed at 2pm due to the lack of customers. Production
wasn't working, but I hadn't been told. I was told they would let me
know if I was supposed to come in Tuesday. On the way home, the empty
light came on for my car. Tuesday I called, found out I wasn't working.
Tek asked me to look up the signs of a cold. His symptoms had increased
to include dizziness and chills. When I read off the symtpoms, he said
"so I have a cold", and I explained that they were also all symptoms of
COVID. He called his job, they had him go in to get a test kit. He
didn't get it till late in the day, so we didn't find out till
Wednesday. In the meantime, I signed up to get tested at CVS on
Wednesday (Feb 17).
On Wednesday, I borrow Tek's car for the
COVID test, then drop it off to grab my car to go fill it up and then do
some more groceries. On the way to the gas station, Tek calls and tells
me his test came back positive. Everything I've read and heard has said
that it takes up to a week after exposure for the up-the-nose test to
show that COVID is present. It's also said that the incubation period is
up to 2 weeks. I let the manager whose number I had know, as well as a
couple coworkers. The one coworker I requested let everyone who worked
with me on Monday know. She asked if I had manager numbers, I explained
that I just had the one. She started a group chat with the other three
managers.
On Thursday, my test came back negative. On Friday, I
took the blood test. On Saturday, that came back negative. While I was
in the office for the blood test, the doctor explained that Tek was most
contagious from three days before he started showing symptoms, to three
days after. Which the last day of that period was Valentine's Day, so I
should get tested again on Monday the 22nd before going back to work.
Tek was insisting that he would not be contagious anymore Monday, that
10 days after symptoms start is when a person stops being contagious.
He's also insistant that the test shows it sooner than a week after
exposure, and that two weeks is how long a person is contagious. I got
my negative result back on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I went to work. I
didn't have the right shoes on. So I only stayed 8 hours. I didn't have a
drink for my station (I had milk, but I was out of kool aide to bring
to work), so I checked my bank account before buying one in the machine.
I had gotten my tax return. Yesterday, Feb 25th, I had pain in my legs,
so I didn't do the exercises before work. But I recovered in time to go
to work. I worked 8 hours.
More context. We got paid Friday, Feb
19th. In order to load the laundry card, the office has to be open. But
since I didn't know if I had it or not, I was trying to limit how much
exposure I had to other people. So I was checking mail at midnight.
Except I forgot until I went to do laundry that I still had to load the
laundry card. And I couldn't do that Saturday Midnight. On Sunday, I
called to find out the hours, the office is closed on Sunday. I figured
I'd wait until noon and see if they opened the gym (where the machine
is) despite being closed, but it was closed. So now I couldn't do
laundry until Monday. Except we spent Monday and Tuesday cleaning the
apartment, and laundry involves hiking down and up a flight of stairs (I
know, I know, only one flight. I have minor breathing problems!) So I
didn't get around to laundry until just before bed on Tuesday x.x So I
only did one load. He was expecting to go back to work, and I thought I
had enough to get to the weekend, so I did one load of his clothes.
Which was all of his clothes. Plus all my reusable masks that needed
washing.
Yesterday, Thursday, I used my last pair of crew socks.
During winter, I do the layers thing, and crew socks lets me tuck
whatever I'm using as long johns (might be leggings, might be actual
long johns, might be pj pants, might be yoga pants, and if it's really
cold it might be sweatpants) so they don't ride up my legs as I pull on
the outer pants. So after work I had to do a food run, then start a load
of my laundry after eating.
At 3:30 this morning (Friday, Feb
26th) with an urgent need to both pee and blow my nose. So I went to the
bathroom, and took care of that. And then I sat on the couch blowing my
nose until about 6am x.x So I scheduled another COVID test for 10:30
am, and I'll get the results back... hopefully tomorrow. I'll post them
as an update to this post, so check back in a few days to find out if
I'm back in quarantine kicking myself for spreading this viscious
disease.
As for Tek's progression, he did end up getting the
breathing issues, and he got the lack of smell/taste thing for a couple
days. He's been symptom-free for at least a couple days, but he can't
work until his test is clean. So he's messing around with a bot on his
test server and goading me to make a math tutor bot.
I hope all of you are well.
UPDATE:
Test was negative. Been really busy, it's kicking my butt x.x
