I had so many plans for this blog- and for my life in general- this year. Unfortunately I've had to put aside all of them- but especially the Half Century Housewife Challenge that I've been so diligently working on for nearly 4 months now.
I know I've talked about it here and there on the blog before. But in mid September of last year my entire household unfortunately contracted Covid. As best we can tell, it was likely from a rogue Home Care Nurse for my Mother in Law who was diagnosed earlier in the year (prior to Covid's announcement) with Cancer, and has been undergoing treatment throughout lockdown; she was the first infected, and my Father in Law, Husband, and I all contracted it after having to be in extreme contact with her while trying to get her into the car to take her to the emergency room when her case got too bad.
While we all thankfully survived (unlike so many), I seem to have been hit with several severe post-Covid complications now, 4 months after the fact. One blessing, at least, is that I don't appear to be included among the group with Long Covid, which is only just emerging as a complication that seems to be an issue. None the less, however, my complications have left me completely bedridden and unable to function at all on most days.
I don't know how long it will take us to find a diagnosis- or if there is one at all; there's still so little we know about Covid itself, let alone any of its short or long term effects on the body after the fact. Likewise, I don't know if or when I will recover enough to continue blogging. But I do hope to see you all again some time eventually.
But before I go:
When a vaccine finally becomes available, I would like to remind everyone here that it is your patriotic duty as a self professed "Vintage Homemaker" to get yours; there is to be no ridiculous Anti-Vaxxing in the Vintage Community if you profess to call yourself a Vintage Homemaker (especially if you profess to be one who believes in solid 50's values)... Don't believe me? Let me remind you, momentarily then, of the Polio Campaign:
As 'How vaccination became 'hip' in the '50s, thanks to teens' writes very clearly about the intersection of vaccination, the development of teen culture, and the Sock Hops that are now so ubiquitous with our nostalgic image of the 1950's:
It was a Saturday night in Albion, a small city just east of Battle Creek, Michigan, and teenagers lined up for a dance at the school gym.
The price of admission? A bared arm.
The year was 1958, and this was no ordinary Saturday night social outing: Billed as a “Salk Hop,” it was only open to young people willing to receive a jab of the polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk, or show proof of vaccination.
The dance was part of a five-year war on polio vaccine hesitancy, a campaign that brought together the scientific know-how of public health experts with the burgeoning energy, creativity, and even sexuality of a powerful new presence in American society—teenagers [...]
Before the turn of the 20th century, teenagers weren’t recognized as a social group of their own. Subsequent changes in American society, including the rise of the automobile and compulsory education that kept children from entering the workforce early, sparked recognition of teenagers as a distinct U.S. demographic [...]
In response to the vaccine lag in teens [...] a polio non-profit that distributed funds raised by the March of Dimes, recruited directly from that reluctant demographic. In 1954, the organization began inviting select groups of teenagers to their New York offices, interviewing them on their perceptions and reservations about the vaccines, and equipping them with talking points to promote Salk jabs back home.
Mawdsley says the teens were motivated by personal experiences with polio survivors and victims, a desire to support causes they cared about, and a search for social empowerment.
"They were in a phase of life where they wanted adults to respect them", he says.
If there is one thing I have faith in, it is science. And not only are our scientists are working tirelessly around the world to find one, we have mountains of data available from other SARS variants that have cropped up over the last decade to make it even easier. Additionally, vaccine and pharmaceutical technology in general has improved significantly over the last decade. And so I do fully believe one will inevitably be available soon. When it does, from a more personal standpoint, I do genuinely urge everyone reading this to get vaccinated.
Having unfortunately contracted and survived Covid-19 myself, trust me when I tell you that whoever claimed it felt like the flu is a liar (or, at least, had a minor case by pure luck)... You do not want this illness. It feels nothing like the flu; it was legitimately the worst and most horrifying thing I've ever experienced in my life- and my Husband and I had what were deemed "mild" cases that required no hospitalization, unlike my Mother in Law.
I felt, with no exaggeration what so ever, like every cell in my body was being shredded on the atomic level. My skin on my back- despite looking and feeling perfectly fine when examined- felt like I had the worst sunburn of my life, and should have been blistered to hell and back. My muscles hurt. My very bones hurt. And every single bit of pain I experienced, no matter how small, was amplified by a trillion- and even something as small as typing hurt. It was like my body was being ripped apart.
And that was just the pain. That doesn’t even begin to touch on the hallucinations I had, or the dissociation. The dizziness, and wobbliness, and jitteriness. My inability to control my body temperature at all... I felt like an addict going through withdrawal all over again. The breathing problems were severe, as to be expected when you have asthma and contract what was supposed to be a respiratory illness... But the diarrhea, and the projectile vomiting? Completely unexpected- and uncontrolable. And there was so, so much more that I had to experience in waves and cycles, with no recourse.
My Husband and I did everything right. But one single person’s lack of care put our entire household in that situation, and actively jeopardized our lives. So you might think that forgetting your mask even once isn’t “a big deal” but I am telling you it is; it’s so easy to catch, it just takes one wrong move even on someone else’s part. So please be vigilant. Please take all the measures you possibly can. Do the social distancing. Avoid public spaces. Do pickup instead of shop or dine-in. Wash your hands. Decontaminate everything before repeat exposure. Wear your masks everywhere. Be violent to protect yourself if you have to, when it comes down to it... And when the time comes, and the vaccine is available, please get vaccinated.
Nothing will protect you one hundred percent of the time, but of course that's not (and has never been) the point in the first place despite people acting otherwise... The point is that any protection is better than none at all- and the more protective measures taken, the higher a reduction of the chances of contraction. And vaccines not only reduce the chances of contracting the illnesses they're designed for severely, but also reduce the severity of the illness itself if you should contract it; washing your hands and wearing your mask reduces the chance of exposure, but vaccines are little blueprints that tell your body how to deal with something well before you are ever exposed to it, so that when exposure may inevitably happen? It's faster at, and has a much easier time with, identifying and dealing with the illness and getting it our of your system. They are but one important step in the entire hygienic routine- but they are the most integral.
And so I urge you again and again to get them when they become available. Because this is not a joke, and I cannot stress that enough- especially typing this from bed, just 4 months later, bedridden from post-exposure complications: You do not want to contract this.