Category Archives: personal

When introversion is an advantage

Posted on by

It’s a good thing I love my room or else I would have gone stir crazy by now. This is my 11th/12th day of isolation and all I have with me are my cats for company. I miss hugging my girls but I have to be careful just in case what they had initially was not Covid (but I seriously doubt that was not Covid because I got it from them). So being an introvert is an advantage during these times of isolation and hunkering down in place because we have logged 23,000+ new cases today again. I could amuse myself and live in this 10 (or 15?) sqm room and not feel resentful. Having 400+Mbps of internet is also a God-send during these trying times.

My kitties. They’re just happy being with me in the same room. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

We survived the weeks by ordering food via Grab and ordering groceries through the Puregold app. I love Puregold! They assign you a personal shopper and they call you when they don’t have stocks of the items you wanted and they call you again when the orders are ready for payment and delivery. It was so seamless. Now I just have to figure out how to buy fresh vegetables and fruits via this vendor on Facebook whose store is in Nepa Q Mart. I also need to figure out how to have the Monterey Community Market to deliver to me.

I learned that Southstar Drug delivers the next day, which is much better than Mercury Drug–my orders from that store never came.

I am also so thankful that we didn’t live in a condo. I would have gone bonkers with all that confinement if we spent the pandemic in a condo. Here in this apartment complex at least we have a small courtyard in front of our front door where we could sun ourselves if we wanted to.

Once I get out of Covid isolation and get better, I will fix my container garden and add plastic vegetable pots in our kitchen/cooking area that gets great natural light. I will tack them on the walls. Or have some in hanging planters.

Meanwhile, my kids are now regularly doing chores since one househelp left my household because she got pregnant and went to live with her boyfriend. Twin I can now cook simple stuff like instant noodles and fried egg. She and Twin A now regularly wash dishes and clean up after themselves. Twin A used to be very messy and her spot was a pigsty. When we transferred her computer desk under the stairs to be nearer to her sister, she cleaned up and matured a bit. In a blink of an eye they would be teenagers soon.

I’m thankful that it’s just the four of us right now (my girls and I and one househelp). Covid is manageable this way.

Slow road to recovery

Posted on by

So my sisters also caught it. Everyone in my mom’s household is sick and my brother is their runner. Covid is everywhere; you wouldn’t know when and where you’d get it.

Meanwhile, the worst of my symptoms are over but just when I thought I’m already ok, here comes the headache that would knock me out to sleep. I do nothing but sleep these days. I’m so tired and it felt like my body went into battle. Sometimes my back hurts when I cough.

I take one edit a day so I won’t be marked absent. I don’t know how long I will be suffering from headaches and brain fog. My boss in Japan knows I have Covid so I may be excused for not being fast and sharp these days.

I can’t be agitated like the other day (see previous entry). It just added to my headaches and slow recovery. All I should concentrate on are good thoughts and shallow stuff. Scrolling through Twitter makes my brain bleed.

One day at a time. We’ll all get better.

My worst enemy

Posted on by

It’s my mind. I’m on my 9th day confined here in this box. The previous days I have more hours sleeping than awake. However, I have more waking hours now but I can’t spend too much time scrolling through my phone or staying at my computer because it gives me headaches.

So there are moments I just spend staring at the ceiling and walls. And remember.

A few days ago I discovered some stuff that J left behind that I should send back to him. I could just burn them but I have no means to do that here unless I want to burn the whole apartment compound down. I needed to purge him from my life. For my peace. I needed to do this exercise, this act of purging. It’s like this is with finality: I’m done grieving over you. I don’t want to have anything to do with you. I don’t want to remember you, just like when you erased me and pretended I didn’t exist.

I don’t want to die with this bitterness hanging over me. How he treated me like I was just a servant, a sugar mommy, and how I just accepted a small nugget of affection, which I thought was love. In his eyes, if something was wrong it was always my fault. Everything was my fault. I get blamed for so many things even when I tried my very best.

Having lived through Covid gives me a new perspective. Choose people who choose you. I now realize many people love me. They kept sending me food and medicines. They’ve been sending me help. One friend even offered to look after my kids if I’m taken away by the LGU.

I don’t have to beg. I don’t have to fight so hard for it. Love that is not freely given is not worth fighting for. This person, J, is not even worth fighting for. That person is not worth remembering.

For months I’ve grieved for somebody who didn’t even grieve for me. Who never regretted hurting me. I nearly went out of my mind because of somebody who was not even nice to me.

I asked this here one time: if I no longer exist in memory, do I no longer exist? Now I flip it: Yes, if he doesn’t exist in my memory, then he no longer exists. He does not deserve to occupy precious space in my head and heart and I must make more space for more beautiful memories with people who genuinely love me and who would fight for me until the end.

Positive

Posted on by

I knew all along I was positive for Covid the moment I lost my sense of smell. So when I got the RT PCR result today, it was not a surprise that there it was, in glaring red font, that I was positive for Covid.

So what else to do? Nothing really. I have my teleconsult tomorrow and I will just have to wait for the barangay health officers to contact me. And convince them that home quarantine is the best because viral loads in isolation facilities are higher and I would have to share a room and bathroom with somebody sicker than me. And besides I have zero contact with the rest of the household.

I’m putting too many tablets and capsules into my mouth that I’m fearing for my kidneys. Damn you, Covid.

On my 8th day since my symptoms started. More than 48 hrs without fever. I still get sleepy throughout the day but I’m getting better.

To make matters worse

Posted on by

My mom is Covid positive. Just today.

She’s suffering from a really nasty flu and she has fever–the works. She initially didn’t want to be tested, saying it was her allergies acting up. But when she started having a fever, my older sister put her foot down and dragged my mom to the hospital to get tested. There you go.

She is fully vaccinated like me but I’m scared for her. She’s 72. I pray that she doesn’t get super weak and that she has no trouble breathing.

A high school classmate who is a nurse in one Metro Pacific hospital in our hometown said there are cases where the patient is fully vaccinated but still succumbed to Covid. That doesn’t sound reassuring. I can’t sleep because I worry about her.

I still don’t have my result. The good news is I’m on the mend; it’s been 24 hrs without fever and headaches. Just weak. My body just wants to sleep. And sleep some more.

Well-meaning friends sent me this. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Some friends sent me boxes and boxes of this TCM. I asked my colleague in Singapore what do these do and she said that’s for respiratory ailment and in China and HK they used it to fight Covid. She said it won’t hurt me. Then ok, I took 4 capsules every 8 hrs. A high school classmate swears by it and he said it was what saved him when he got Covid in June.

I don’t know when this nightmare will end.

The long wait

Posted on by

So I got tested today (thank you, Zennya, for being prompt and the most affordable home service testing in the market). The result will be sent to me within 24 hrs and then… Kaboom. The nurse who did the checklist with me said I had ticked off all of the symptoms (and that moment I had a slight fever) so it’s like 90% I am positive for Covid.

If I am positive, the lab will inform my barangay and the barangay health officials will check my household. They will see if the kids and my househelp would need to be tested (they should). Considering that the symptoms started with my kids but they recovered.

I would have to be taken away to a government isolation facility for 14 days! If I could convince them that there’s nobody else left to be isolated from since they had been sick already, then maybe I can stay home??? I need to work.

I asked my cousin to drop by and teach my househelp how to withdraw money from the ATM. I gave her my prepaid ATM/debit card so in case I’m carted away by the LGU, they have money for basic necessities. Problem is some decision-making in this household still rests on me. I wonder how they will manage while I’m away.

Covid is tough for single parents. If the parent gets sick, who will look after the children? That’s why daily wage workers don’t want to get tested because as long as they’re not registered as Covid positive, they can still continue working. It’s much harder for single parents because when they’re taken away by the LGU to an isolation facility, who will feed the children?

Such is the plight of the poor with this type of government that doesn’t give a single fuck to such matters.