Pears. In a pear tree.
Over the weekend, I read a post from a friend who is on the local hospital board. They had a board meeting last week to discuss the rising rate of cases in our county. We're doubling every 7 to 10 days, which is not great. One of the key takeaways from the meeting was that 37 percent of the new cases were people age 19 and younger, and most of the rest were family groups connected to those kids. Put a pin in that information because it will be relevant later on.
Yesterday afternoon, I had to take Liam to the doctor. It's the first doctor appointment for any of us since the pandemic started, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Here's how it went: I called the doctor's office in the morning and gave them a brief synopsis of the issue (he has extremely thick skin under his toes that cracks and bleeds and makes it hard for him to get a full range of motion bending his toes; it's not a new problem, and he has seen this doctor for treatment for it before). My brief synopsis wasn't enough, so I had to answer a lengthy series of questions both about the specific problem and about Liam's general health (any coughing, fever, exposure to anyone with coughing or fever, etc.) and answer similar questions about the rest of the family too. The nurse wrote everything down, then submitted my request for an appointment to the doctor. I asked the nurse to tell me about the process, and it turns out that for now, they can make appointments for well visits (physicals, vaccinations) without going through the request process, but anything else, the doctor has to approve personally. "But," he told me, "the good news is that July 4, the governor says everything can open back up, so we will be able to schedule appointments regularly again!" So we hung up, and about an hour later, a different nurse called to say we had been approved for an appointment, and that we should come in 90 minutes. We had to pass a temperature screening to get into the medical office building, and they had masks on hand for anyone who didn't have their own. (We wore our own masks.) After that, the appointment was pretty standard, except there were only three chairs in the entire waiting room, each one spaced far apart, and everyone working there was wearing a mask.
Funny side note: The nurse we had was shorter than me by a lot, and she tried to take Liam's height by having him stand against the rule on the wall where you lift the bar and put it on the kid's head to read his height. Which was great, except she had to stand right against the wall on her tiptoes to get the rule bar to go high enough, and then she couldn't read the result because of the angle she was standing at. For the record, he didn't stand particularly straight or extend to his full height, and the official reading was 6 feet, 4.5 inches.
After the doctor's office, Liam and I had to drive to the pharmacy to pick up some prescription cream for his feet, along with Epsom salts for foot baths and some other supplies. We were the only customers in the store wearing masks.
In the evening, Mike took Liam to register for the abbreviated summer tennis season. When they arrived at the courts, there were about 15 or so people around a couple of tables signing kids up. Mike and Liam were the only ones wearing masks. Mike asked the woman who runs the program what plans they have for protecting the kids against spread of the virus. He explained that our concern isn't the matches themselves (because one kid on either side of a tennis court is PLENTY of distance to lower risks) but all the drills, team huddles, and just general times when sweaty athletes breathe hard near each other. You'll never guess what answer he got. "Tennis doesn't start until July 6, and the governor says that everything goes back to normal July 4." Mike: "So there's no plan then?" At that, all 15 of the people there turned to stare at him. And not in a friendly way. The lady sarcastically told him, "Well, we can't keep the kids from touching the same balls or anything like that."
It's pretty much a perfect encapsulation of how things feel to us now. We feel like we're the only holdouts still worrying about the virus, while everyone around us is carrying on as normal, having parties, doing sports leagues, going on vacation, flying on airplanes, planning cruises (for god's sake!), interacting in large groups, and just generally acting like there's no longer a pandemic killing around 800 people per day in America. And not just that, but actively being upset and/or disappointed in us for not going along with it. Listen, I love my siblings, and I admire the hell out of my brother for being a frontline healthcare worker. But we can't be around him because his exposure level is much greater than our risk tolerance. I love my baby sister, and I want her to do the things she is comfortable doing, but if she plans to go on a cruise right before Christmas, we won't be with her to celebrate the holiday because that's way too much risk of exposure for us. Same with everyone else. Johnny and Erin are going on vacation to Florida soon, and cool, that's within their risk tolerance, so I wish them well. Godspeed. But that means we will have to continue to distance from them. That's just the way it goes. We don't expect anyone to change their plans or preferred activities in deference to us, but we DO expect people to respect that our assessment of the risks is much different than theirs.
Which brings me back around to that 37 percent figure. I am terrified of Liam playing tennis. I'm doing my best to balance his real love of playing tennis against my fear of exposure, but when I hear that 37 percent of new local cases are kids who then end up infecting their families, it's hard to square that. And I don't know what the school year will look like either, or how we can mitigate those risks, or if there is any way to stay safe.
People think I'm overreacting, but look, I've been a fat person in America my whole life. I've been a fat adult in this health system for 27 years and counting, and I know firsthand that medical bias against fat people is real. I know exactly what it's like to contract a lung infection and, when it didn't heal quickly enough (even though pleurisy is pretty much characterized by slow healing), to have the doctor tell me that the real problem was that my fat was crushing my lungs and that I should get some exercise and everything would be fine. I know what it's like to explain to that doctor that I had just trained for and ridden a 30-mile bike event the week before I developed the infection, and to have the doctor respond that I must be lying, and that I was definitely noncompliant and that he just couldn't help me. I know exactly what it's like to have a hernia bulging out of my midsection, and have the surgeon talk directly to my husband instead of to me as he explained that the real treatment I should get is not a hernia repair but bariatric surgery. I know what it's like to then have that surgeon refer me to a bariatric surgeon "because they're used to dealing with bodies like yours" and to have him also decline to fix the hernia because my weight might increase my risk of the repair failing by 3 to 5 percent (not a typo, 3 to 5 percent) over the risk of repair failure for a thin person getting the same surgery. That doctor also offered to do bariatric surgery, or to put me on a liquid diet of 600 calories per day until I lost enough weight so he would be comfortable fixing me. Nevermind what would happen after I lost the weight, had the surgery, and starting eating solid food again.
So let's be real: If I get COVID-19 and have to go to the hospital, it is highly likely that I will not be treated like Holli, human being, mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, editor, writer, lover of books and birds and parks. I will be treated as a risk. A complication. A comorbidity. A person who should just lose some weight and then everything will magically be better. A person who will be the lowest priority if there is a ventilator shortage because other people have much better chances of recovery. A person who might be worth fixing if only she were thinner. What do you think my chances are of getting quality health care in this system? Are they higher than my chances of never coming back home to my children and my spouse? Would you roll those dice in my shoes?
Tell me: Is it worth the risk? But what if the event is outdoors? But what if people promise they're not infected? But what if the damned governor says everything is safe again even as 500 new infections happen across the state every day? But what if, what if, what if.
For me, the answers are easy: No. No. No. And definitely no. And everyone else is just going to have to live with that, because my primary goal in life is to see my children through to adulthood, and I won't risk that for a cookout, a vacation, a family party, or anything else.
Nationwide cases: 2,127,745. Deaths: 116,700.
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