I promised a report on yesterday's naan. It was quite good; the recipe will go into the notebook to be used again. I made whole wheat oatmeal bread today. We buy bread only when life's surprises keep me from making our own. Tomorrow is the ice cream I mentioned yesterday. The recipe says to let it freeze for at least six hours, so I'll be making it in the morning for dinner dessert.
As I walked this morning, I was thinking of the toll the pandemic has taken on relationships, not relationships of the heart, but plain old friendships. I have two friends who had surgeries this summer, in one case a knee replacement. I was able to loan her some of the post-op requirements--high toilet seats, a bath chair. a shoe horn that is somewhere between two feet and three long. We passed those off at a distance. It would have been nice, though, to go see her when she went home. We've traded messages, but it's not the same as relaxing together over coffee or tea. Another friend had back surgery last week. I would have liked to have been able to help her husband out after she came home. They're both in their 80s. I wasn't able to help celebrate her new grandchild with her either.
And now a friend from my Internet quilting group, the woman in Boston who I mentioned had been hermitting for a week longer than I had, went into the hospital for appendicitis which led into gallbladder infection, which led further. After several surgeries, her kidneys are failing, she's been on and off a ventilator, and they're arranging palliative care. I saw her in February; our biennial gathering was right before the virus publicly erupted. Even with no pandemic, I couldn't really do anything for her or help her family, but the pandemic makes it cut a bit deeper. It hurts more than it would have under normal circumstances. The helplessness I feel about so many things gets amplified with something like this.
Should the FDA give emergency approval to a vaccine that has not finished a complete Phase III trial? I agree with those who say that if doing so backfires, the case for vaccines against anything is set way, way back. Saying that has nothing to do with getting it done before the election. It has to do with wanting them to get things right. I would support having laid out a plan for vaccine distribution by the end of October, but I would not want to see that plan enacted until a vaccine or vaccines had finished successful Phase III trials. When Dr. Fauci tells me a vaccine is ready, I'm willing to look into getting it.
In the meantime, I messaged my PCP's office and asked whether I should get a flu shot if I planned to continue playing hermit. They said I should, so come late this month or early next month, I'll break out and go to CVS for a shot. I could go to my PCP's practice, but that would mean exposure to a host of people whereas at CVS, it might be as few as three or four if I time it away from the early morning, mid-day, or late-afternoon rush periods.
More books are on shelves now than were there this morning. I may possibly have brought up the last bankers' box containing books from the basement, but I would not guarantee it. Keeping busy helps me not to dwell on the bad stuff, something I've been fighting on and off. So does repeating the mantra "we're fucked," as long as I don't do it too loudly if the husband is Zooming with students with the door to his home office open.
No comments:
Post a Comment