A Timeline

 Sunday November 1st

Last Friday, one of my favorite students who is rarely absent was gone. I took note, but this did not concern me. People miss school. On Sunday evening, I received word that my Teacher's Assistant (TA) would be out for a few days. It did not cross my mind that it was Covid-related. People are entitled to miss work. 

I relate these banal details in order to create a complete timeline. For the sake of easy reading, this blog will be only one continuous post.

Monday November 2nd

My day started as usual. My student who had gone missing Friday was back with a doctor's note that deemed him "able to return to work". I sent the note on to the school secretary and didn't think anymore about it. Soon after, the nurse cautiously asked if that student had returned to which I cheerfully affirmed. She seemed to take this grimly and inquired about the note. I relayed it was with the school secretary. 

Within the next 30 minutes my building principal confirmed to me that both the student and my TA were positive for Covid. I was asked who might have been a close contact for the student in my room and came up with 4 students. My classroom is burdened with bulky tables that take up a ton of space. I had unsuccessfully lobbied my principal to inquire whether or not I could get desks before the students ever returned as this would have allowed greater spacing. I never heard back. 

The notion that we can socially distance in the most social of environments (schools) is laughable. At the beginning of the year, I measured the square footage of the room and divided that by pie r (radius of 3') squared. My results showed that 5.62 people can socially distance in my room. Round up to 6 and we have room for 5 students. I have the two TAs that come and go from my room as well. My homeroom has 7 students in it. I have had upwards of 12 students crammed in my room on more than one occasion this year. In fact at least 2 of my classes have 11 or 12 students assigned to it. I am hesitant to relay this information because I feel like I will be blamed for this. I think blaming victims will be the norm as managers grow frustrated with the impact that Covid has on their operations.

Weirdly, I was informed that I was NOT a close contact because I wear a mask and was never within six feet for more than 10 minutes. I wish it were that simple. My classroom has the architecture of a Nazi gas chamber. An ugly cinder block job with one small window that barely opens onto a courtyard. We had been told that the district had upgraded the HVAC system at the beginning of the year and that the new air filtration system would make fresh air unnecessary. Knowing a little about how HVAC systems work, I can only imagine that installing HEPA air filters is what happened in reality. I never saw new equipment or technicians aside from the filter team. If true, this is another example of more information we were given that was inaccurate. 

I was advised nothing, but I began to feel a deep sense of foreboding. I have a wife and 3 children and parents and in-laws who are obviously senor citizens to wort about. I feel like the emotional toll that this crisis has taken has been greatly ignored by my district. For the entire duration while our students sat in isolation, while other districts made counseling available and addressed the social emotional damage, our district's website offered no solace. 

I went to the Walgreen's site and applied for a rapid test and was told that I qualified., but would have to wait for a confirmation email. I felt confident that I would get that email, but I never did. I made plans to attend the Sedgwick County Mobile Outreach Clinic the next day.

Tuesday November 3rd

Today is the day that true patriots will hopefully get the vote in to remove the scourge responsible for this crisis. Voting lines are long and so are Covid testing lines. The one I waited in was a slow moving 300 footer of hacking communicants clad in pajama pant and flip-flops. When I finally got to the front, I was administered a nasopharyngeal swab way up each nostril and held for ten seconds. The exit was the entrance and as I moved through the throngs of gray faces to get back to my car I saw the line had nearly doubled since I had joined it. I felt bad because while I was getting tested, I overheard the site manager say that they had already tested more than they had planned to and that they were going to have to turn at least 80 people away.

I went back to work. I let others know that I was tested and why. I thus began to monitor myself in earnest.

Wednesday November 4th

I woke up feeling fine, like a million Euros: better than ever. Multiple temp checks starting in the morning never see me break the 98 degree range. Because our building staff now has one teacher out with Covid and two others quarantined, we begin to shuffle remaining students between remaining teachers. Never once have I thought that Covid-19 is a hoax having said that, never once did I think that I would get the virus. We have been tasked with applying a spray of alcohol on our students hands when they enter the room. I began spraying the product all over myself and into the air. I ultimately know that it was futile, but what the hell. I continued all sterilization of tables, touch points and computers. I was determined not to get sick. I managed to get a rapid test scheduled for Friday at 8 in the morning. I knew that the test from yesterday would take up to 7 business and I was determined to find out sooner. If I was going to be positive, then I wanted to protect others. I had already advised my parents and my wife's parents to keep a wide berth until we knew what was up. 

That 

Thursday November 5th

I woke up feeling normal but I could feel a glow about me. I checked my temperature and it was 98.8. I went to work and went through my morning incantations and all was well until lunch time. I felt the glow return. I went to the nurse and checked my temperature: 98.8. I worry because I have an issue with psychosomatic illness. If I were to watch a documentary on ovarian cancer, I would undoubtedly begin to worry that I had the disease as well. Growing up, my mother was a hypochondriac. I remember her crying she had cancer in the mornings as she balefully looked at hairs she had brushed out collected in the sink basin. I would worry for her. It wasn't until later that I found out that hair loss is caused by the treatment for cancer, chemotherapy, and not by cancer itself. I struggle with a morbid fear of the medical field. I prefer to take care of myself with real and imagined healing folklore. Yoga and spring water seem to me more of a convincing cure than any prescription drug. I do not take drugs and hope to never be pushed to that point. I just don't see the benefits of chemicals with dozens of side effects. Feeling poor? Go for a jog. No co-pay.

By the time work was over my lower back had begun a dull throb. Trump, the cause of this scourge was down in the polls and it seemed like a righteous comeuppance was on the horizon. Why do I blame Trump? I know he did not create the Coronavirus, but I blame him for criminal negligence. Let me tell you my knowledge of this virus. Back in November of 2019 I was hearing reports of this flu that was making Chinese officials prepare to seal off a town called Wuhan. I thought this was curious and wanted to know just how big this city was that they were sealing up. I imagined it being the size of Wichita and still thought that closing down a town of half a million was crazy. When I saw that the population of Wuhan is over 11 million I became intrigues. What ever the hell this thing was, it had to be serious for China to undertake such a feat of social engineering. 

We don't need to rehash the timeline of ineptitude. The public record of the president's denial is well preserved. I say that Trump did not set the house on fire but he first chose to deny the fire was there even when the nation was being choked by the thick yellow smoke that rose from the flames. Then he chose to throw gas on the fire by politicizing the whole issue of masks and social distancing. Thus exacerbating the issue. Then, the tyrant politicizes the safe opening of pubic schools all for the sake of propping up an election time economy. As heart warming as it was to have President Qanon equate public schools as the babysitters for the children of America's fry cooks and cashiers, his motives were obvious. Open the schools, pretend normalcy, keep the country acting as if nothing was amiss while the death toll climbed day by day. 

I usually dream a dreamless sleep, but this night I had recurring nightmares that I was walking in the night through an abandoned city carry a backpack full of electronics. I kept getting stuck behind endlessly long strip malls and box stores. Shadows shook the tall grasses. In reality, the blankets laid on me like sheets of iron and I perspired heavily. My wife said that I sounded terrible all through the night.

Friday November 6th

Drove through the city to get to the Walgreen's on South Broadway. On the way I was halted by a speeding freight train. I had never been so delighted to be stopped. The graffiti cars caromed by like a manic art show soon leaving only a fading clack-clack. The gates rose and I continued through the morning fog. The mobile testing was already backed up into Broadway and I was early. I put on my hazards so as not to get rear-ended. The test was easy, five circular swabs of each nostril with the results promised in a few hours. I went back home and ate some ramen noodles and watched the fall leaves clatter down off of their limbs in rains of gold and orange. 

I fell into an irresistible sleep and awoke after a few hours to read my positive tet results. It hit me then. The realness, the severity, the timeliness of history. I called my wife and got the voice mail so I texted her: "I'm positive. Come home" then I fell back asleep. I was awakened by my caring wife who announced that she felt fine. An intense coldness swept over me and I could not get warm. I stayed in the bed wearing a jackets beneath all of the covers. I spent the entire day sleeping on and of wracked with chills. When I finally stood, my body screamed out in richitic agony. I coughed a gravely mucous from somewhere near my heart and the first bolt of headache pain crackled across my brain. I could barely stand. so I felt little shame going back to bed.

The day passed super slowly, like a 90 hour day. By 6pm I was sweating, shivering, coughing, gasping all in a tight fetal position. I tried to entertain myself with television but could not keep awake. My brain swam to make sense of the plots and I dimly wondered their relation to real life. I could think of none. I think I did two things right: first I willed myself to stay calm and not think of the headlines that reported so many dead. The second is I meditatively stifled my coughs. This allowed the accretion to build up until a gentle rumbling exhale would bubble out gelatinous flu. This helped keep my lungs from getting irritated. Usually, I always do battle with colds hacking and horking up the sinews of my offending respiratory system. I was up all night with myself. It was nice to spend some time together considering everything. 

Saturday November 7th

I watched my kids through the window and my heart felt glad. Eventually, I took a bath to try and rid myself of the cold currents in my body. I tried to read in the bath, but it was hard to follow the book or have an inner dialogue about what I was reading. I got out of the bath incredibly hot and walked back to bed naked and laid on the rumpled blankets steaming. Eventually, as I cooled, I got dressed and back beneath the blankets. The chills, congestion and a mad headache eventually gave way to the first temperature of 101.4. Afterwards my body temperature never did spike above 99 again. This is weird because a fever has been used as the first indicator of Covid, but using this parameter is faulty for the obvious reasons. Even with a full viral load of corona pumping through my sweating pale flesh, I had been mostly fever free. 

Sunday November 8th

Starting in the early hours, my head began to split in half and the slow calving of my cerebral hemispheres cashed in my skull. The pain pushed in my eyes and made a slow burn from my temples to the crown of my head. There was no relief in sleep. I juggled positions before finally getting up and trying a simple yoga pose. I could not stand up straight and I was afraid that I would fall over in the middle of the night and awake the others. I was up all night. I could not look at the telephone as the light from it, even set on the lowest brightness level, was piercing. Aside from the worst headache, the chills and body aches continued coursing through my body. I easily let this entire day slide from the calendar of my life while writhing in my bed. 

Monday November 9th

Today's symptoms include muscle aches, headache, feverish feelings, and a queasy achy body. The day was spent sleeping. Deep dreamless sleeping that left me tired and ravaged. There is no doubt at this point that my wife has picked up the sickness. While this is upsetting on one level, it is nice to have some company. Unfortunately, my wife seems to have the cough that I have avoided and her constant hacking is making my headache worse. 

Tuesday November 10th

The election has been called for the rightful winner by the media and I celebrate with a swollen throat, major back pain, dull headache, strychnine muscles and despair. I have been keeping this journal if you will in a way to track the course of the illness