All clear :-)

 

He's clear.

I'm clear.

Okaasan is clear.

The three of us have gone thru the Covid experience and come out safely. Thankyou science.

Following Sapporo city's current advice, I was out of self isolation after 5 days (with another negative test) and Dear Son was out after 7 days.

To be honest, our self-isolation was easy peasy. NOTHING like a hotel room, a government facility...or the horrendous experiences of Chinese people at the moment who are being barricaded in their homes by authorities.

We did our shopping online and had food gifts from friends/my students. We enjoyed our garden. We went for gentle walks at nighttime in the empty park near home. We watched TV (Suits Season 8 and Japan's version of Bake Off), read books, played with cats....

But still. It's nice to be out and back to normal life.

Now we can get back to hoping that sometime...somehow we will get to meet Okaasan. 

It won't happen soon, as new infection numbers aren't going down here and next week is Golden Week - a week of public holidays, events and travel in Japan. So hospitals are likely to stay closed for another month or more.

Maybe we'll get another online meeting with Okaasan. Let's hope for that.

Covid is IN the house :-(

 Yup.

Welcome Covid...you've, thankfully, been a long time coming.

Dear Son tested positive yesterday. I'm hoping to get tested today. Okaasan now has no fever, or any other symptoms. But she is still in isolation. 

So. On Tuesday this week Dear Son had a lot of pains and cramping around his chest/shoulder/left arm. He has a long history of some kind of heart condition - maybe angina? (Of COURSE he never had a Western medicine diagnosis of what...you know this family and doctors...). Hasn't stopped him with a full, active life.

Anyway this time the pain was repeated over several hours. So we went to the hospital for tests and checks...we were there hours and hours...sitting...waiting...tests...

Doctor finally said it might be a build up of plaque in the arteries due to high cholesterol...beer snacks and cheese and pizza and KFC....and to our slight shock recommended an overnight stay in hospital and then catheter test in the morning.

So we did all the hospital admissions paperwork, Covid test, list of stuff needed from home....sat there feeling a bit surprised. Waited a lot more.

THEN the nurse rushed over, grabbed his wheelchair and whisked us quickly out of the hospital and into a cubical in the Covid testing center in the parking area! His test had come back positive!! 

Now the hospital didn't want to admit him. Sent us home with meds to lower cholesterol, and nitro spray? in case he had a bad attack again. SIGH!

So it begins....a student who works at a drug store is going to deliver me some test kits later today (the hospital didn't want to test me because I had no symptoms, but I'd rather know, and so would two of my work places), and I've rearranged my work schedule....told people who should be told. We'll order in supermarket delivery. 

A time of gardening, Netflix and reading ahead. Spring weather. An enforced holiday. Hopefully HE doesn't feel bad again. A few plans all up in the air...

Where did he get it from? Kind of moot point, it's all over the place. He hardly meets anyone, so maybe I actually caught it and gave it to him? We've actually had a fairly quiet, not meeting anyone couple of days. Most people I met recently was a local guest house English Chat thing last Friday night. Masks, Screens...but coffee and cake. We've been to two restaurants, but mid afternoon with hardly anyone else around.

Ironically - the MOST crowded place we've both been to recently was the local clinic for our vaccination shots a week ago!!! And no - please don't start with the whole anti-vax thing all over my blog....I'm happy to support what health experts tell me to do, happy I got vaccinated. So don't even dare to start with that anti-vax nonsense here.

Anyway. There we are. 

Joining the pandemic...

 Okaasan has Covid.

No serious symptoms at the moment, but a slight fever. She's isolated, of course, and triple vaccinated...so we just hope she'll fight it off.

The call came from the hospital yesterday. Ironically, while Dear Son and I were battling through the 24 hours of post- booster vaccination side effects of headaches, exhaustion and sore arms. I managed to crawl to the computer twice for online lessons....and then back to bed.

Poor Okaasan. She had a slight fever, but that's quite common for the very elderly - I think? But they do regular tests in the hospital. And it came back positive.

It's a big hospital, and even without any family members visiting since last year there is, inevitably, a big traffic of staff in and out every day. So, not surprising.

New infection numbers in Japan are generally not coming down much, because March and April is the season when Japanese people end/start school or college, end/start jobs, move home...have a little party to say goodbye/welcome to someone. The same locally here, bars and restaurants are now open and events are at full capacity.

The schools, particularly the elementary schools, have the greatest number of cases. But they only test now if a child has symptoms because sending whole classes home for 10 days was paralyzing for education.

Anyway. Okaasan. Fight sweety, fight.