The Official End of Shielding

[Sunny Clouds]

You're not the only one that might have got scruffier during lockdown.  (Sunny does a knee-jerk check that her computer camera's not plugged in.) 

Because I've got a bit scruffier, I've been looking at others.  I think I'm also aware of it because I'd been making a conscious effort to smarten myself up clothes-wise in the couple of years before lockdown and then slipped back.  I think it's like hair.  It's not just about whether you can cut and/or wash it, it's about whether you got used to not bothering with it.

I ended up living in some very plain, unflattering jeans I'd had tucked away in the cupboard, unworn, for DIY, that literally wore through on the inner thighs, probably because I spent most of lockdown sitting at my desk and putting on fat round my thighs.

It's a funny old world at the best of times, but the pandemic has really highlighted stuff like this.

[Fiz]

So pleased that you had a lovely time with your grandchildren DD. 

I went to A&E this morning as I have been feeling so unwell with adrenal insufficiency and feel so weak and am breathless. I only mention it because there wasn't a single minute that I wasn't worried that the bed rails might not have been wiped between patients and there might be Covid on them, same with the rails I had to hold while having a chest x-ray. I was aware of everything that I had to touch in the hospital and tried to stay as Covid safe as possible and hand gelled my hands thoroughly on leaving the hospital and before removing my mask. I wonder if I will be that paranoid/careful everywhere I go?! I actually found the whole experience traumatic. 

I've no idea if that will be replicated when I go into other buildings. 

My church hire a school hall to meet in and the church pastor asked us to let him know our plans to return time wise as he doesn't want to hire the hall for 6 people thinking that they'll be 60 but he stresses there's no rush to return and everyone will have different timetables as to when they feel ready. I've emailed and said that my 12 weeks gap between vaccinations ends April 25th so I should have received my second vaccination by then and I plan to wait three weeks after that to gain maximum protection before going into buildings so I anticipate joining them mid May onwards. We'll see how my anxiety copes with that then. 

My daughter, partner and their girls are due here Monday to Thursday next week. They're my bubble. They're only using my home as a B&B so they can introduce my youngest grandbaby to friends and family who live locally here each day as no one has met the baby yet except me due to restrictions. I'm aware although they'll be visiting others in outside spaces that they'll be bringing into my home what they've touched and my grandbaby will be bringing in whomever has cuddled her. I do sound paranoid. I'm just hyper aware of everything and regrettably read a BBC article citing the discovery that people's antibody levels drop quite low 9 weeks after the first vaccination and boost right up again after the second vaccination so I am aware timewise I am not that covered right now and I am as weak as a kitten. I don't regret having my daughter and family here though. I will be as careful as I can be and it will be lovely to see them. Having my bubble here is the nearest I am getting to rejoining life until mid May I think!

[Sunny Clouds]

Fiz - based on your description, you're not paranoid, except in a colloquial sense, you're just aware of your poor health and trying to look after yourself and the anxiety of it is scary.

For ages during the pandemic, I thought I was over-reacting.  Then I told others how I've got anxious about all sorts of stuff, which for me builds on my ritualistic but dottily arbitrary pre-pandemic clean/dirty obsessions, and realised how many others are also anxious for lots of reasons, just in different ways.

I'm not underestimating or belittling your stress levels, I'm saying that from where I'm sitting, reading what you write, they seem to be understandable.

The only way I've try to work out what does or doesn't seem reasonable precaution-wise and for me (which isn't how everyone would do it) to try to map it onto my own peculiarities, which happen to be rather ritualistic.  I can't see that any of us could be 100% safe unless we climb a mountain and self-isolate.  Hmm, but what if a bat flew into our cave?  (Yes, my crazy humour is my own defence to this scary pandemic madness.)  You seem to be doing what you can.

Oh dear, now there's the thank you cards I bought to send to two people, but they're not cellophane wrapped and I isolate paper/card for three days before...oh, the advice has changed and we don't need to worry about paper?  How on earth do we keep up?

As I say, please don't take my use of humour as underestimating what you're going through.  Big, big hugs.  And they're virtual so I haven't sanitised them and you don't need to.