I got a message from a friend this morning. He was in recent contact with a positive covid case and we were playing music three days ago. Well that’s bad enough, but just last night my wife informed me that one of the people who live at the house she works at (home health care nurse, pediatric) has also been in contact with a positive case.
This thing is creeping in folks. If it has infiltrated my backwoods, redneck infested, Tennesee local, there is no place safe.
I contacted my family NP (Nurse Practitioner) and inquired as to my best approach. My possible covid interactions are only a few days in, I wanted to know if I should give it some incubation time, to give the virus a true opportunity to show up in a test if I am a positive case? The reply was “wait until you are showing symptoms, then come in.” Which I took as a yes to my question.
Both possible covid infectees are temporarily furloughed from work until they know the results of their tests. Which right now can take up to two weeks to get the results. So now I can quarantine my ass for a while I suppose. Being a potential maybe, it’s too dangerous, if I care anything about my fellow man, to go about my normal routines even with a mask.
I will have a small cussing spasm now, most definately invoking the stupendous fucking orange idiot and the passel of ignorant, self serving, callous, unempathetic, cold blooded, enabling, rat bastard, R senators and governors infesting our country. Just look the other way, it will be over soon.
Y’all stay safe out there.
Evidence Based Reality 
At this point I’ve begun calling the Great Orange Turd and his GOP sissified enablers murderers because THAT is what they are. Their lies and lack of action have killed Americans. They are traitors AND murderers. This mess being THIS bad is THEIR fault. Period. Fuck Republicans and fuck their voters! Two people I know have died from this damn thing! Fuck ’em!
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Murderers is an apt description.
I don’t see the virus as their fault, that could have happened to any government in power. But the way they have responded IS criminal. Right to the point of many of the deaths from this virus lying at their feet. Murderers indeed and for what? The fear of losing an election…
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Oh, I agree. The virus isn’t their fault. It’s their reaction or lack of one to it that is their fault. Murderers through negligence, lies and arrogance. Lordy be, but do I HATE ’em!
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So sorry to read this. DAMN! This virus is insidious.
The nay-sayers can proclaim all day and every day that it’s nothing to be concerned about … UNTIL their test comes back “positive.”
Please keep us posted.
P.S. I totally agree with your assessment of the “orange idiot” and all the others you mentioned. 🤬
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I was talking to a guy yesterday, I should probably inform him now that I think about it, but he was very cavalier about the whole thing. He was saying “how do humans develop antibodies?” “You have to catch it.” He compared it to the flu. I almost went into a rant about how they don’t normally have refrigerated trailers to store the dead at hospitals across the land when the flu is in town. But I let it slide…
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Oh, I will update as I can. Thanks for your concern Miss Nan.
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Sooooo… what I’m really hearing you say is that you’re tired of winning?
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As a matter of fact, yes. Yes I am 🙂
I could stand for a little losing at this juncture.
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Plus we are just learning that any immunity one acquires from catching it may be short-lived, as little as three months! And the complications from the disease are piling up. Do stay safe my friend!
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Not only short lived immunity, but long lived health problems associated with it too. Not to mention the whole being dead thing.
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Shell, I really empathize with you Brother. I am right there with ya all the way; I’ve been doing EVERYTHING the epidemiologists, virologists, healthcare workers, doctors, etc, etc, et al, have been urging us to do… and THEN SOME, and now these last 3-days I have had these 4-5 symptoms:
• Fatigue (though it subsides when I don’t do anything strenuous)
• Body aches, muscle soreness
• Sore throat
• Coughing (though it has greatly subsided today)
• Fever — between 98.1 to 100.8° (today normal temp so far) and at night chills-to-clammy and back again, repeat
So yesterday when it was all the worst—I felt horrible all day—I searched and searched and searched for available appointments at Test Sites within a 15-mile radius of my residence… and NOTHING was available until Thursday, July 16th in late morning. 😔 This Friday I go out of town to my Mom’s (80 yrs old) and her partner (82 y/o) three hours away for 4-5 nights. Well, that’s the plan or tentative plan now. 😡
And THAT is exactly my dilemma too: my results will most likely not be returned to me until July 23 or 24. This delay—caused by incredibly shitty preparation, management, and government leadership going back to Jan-Feb 2020—is due to healthcare workers, test sites, and labs are SO BACKLOGGED, overwhelmed, over-worked, that 7-12 day delays for results are F*CKIN’ NORMAL times now! 🤬
And the only reason I might have contracted COVID-19 Shell is simply because I am surrounded by way too many ignoramuses, as you described, that don’t give a fuck if they walk inside my 6-ft safety zone, that they don’t need any mask on or gloves when out in public doing or getting ONLY dire necessities for Staying At Home, as ordered (AGAIN!) by experts and officials. You are familiar with how horrible CV-19 cases and hospitalizations have been in Texas since just prior to Memorial Day Weekend and quickly after (R) Governors, Lt. Govs, etc, reopened everything way too early. 🤦♂️
And Shell, we have MANY County Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs here that blatantly defy orders to issue $200 – $500 fines to those not wearing masks in public or ignore gatherings of 10+ people… also without masks. The stupidity here is beyond astounding! 🤯😔
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Wow. Just… wow.
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First off it sounds to me like you better stay at home. You have too many symptoms and an unknown test result to be out visiting. Oh, and take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning 😉 I’ll send you a bill…
Yes, I am well aware that Texas is getting hammered by covid right now.
Stupid, unfortunately appears to be a universal constant, inside the heads of so many seemingly normal people.
I sincerely hope you come out of this with a near miss and a negative test result.
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Thank you Sir. If all goes well today—and so far today normal temperature, no soreness, fatigue, or coughing—and tomorrow, i.e. no symptoms whatsoever, then I feel fairly confident I do not have COVID-19. 🙂
My Chinese girlfriend, who’s here with me now since last Saturday, she and I will decide Friday AM whether to travel down to my Mom’s. That visit has been planned for many weeks because it is a critical visit and discussion about several life-changing decisions that must be made very soon. Like this month soon! One discussion of which determines whether I move from Dallas to Austin (with Qin – girlfriend) this month to be closer to Mom to help take care of her… if she is leaving her partner real soon to live alone. 😬 Or if the move might can wait until August or September. Either way, big big decisions NEED to be made asap.
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Are local physicians doing any testing? Hospitals? Clinics? Or are they only available through mass testing facilities?
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This is what the Test-site staff told me yesterday…
Because test kits are running thin in Texas, especially Dallas area, and testing staff, clinicians, etc, are overwhelmed, over-worked, strained from 8am to 5pm, 7-days a week right now, and labs are heavily backlogged… people like myself who do not exhibit Emergency consideration yet (and quicker results) must make an appointment at regular/normal testing sites and therefore wait 7-12 days for their results.
Nan, our “High Priority” victims/cases of CV-19 are dominating our testing sites, labs, doctors, and hospitals. Of course MANY of these victims/cases were the July 4th partiers and rebellious ignoramuses along with the now innocent bystanders infected by those same arrogant rebels. So… this is what I am stuck with even after 5-6 months of doing EVERYTHING I was supposed to be doing! 😒
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Yet isn’t that always the way? Good guys finish last.
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That’s the story-line, yes.
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Damn that’s messed up. A backlog creating a cascading condition where testing has to be reserved for the sickest, and where many who are just showing symptoms in the wings unable to test, and the hospitals overwhelmed, with beleaguered staff, and I must presume the dead piling up like fire wood. This is a self replicating scenario that could continue indefinately without a proper fix.
Scary times. Especially when you consider the murderers we discussed earlier, with this blood on their hands, who will never see a call to justice.
The bar and party crowd should all be seen at the same place. A faux door leading to a cliffs edge, where they are directed to go for testing. I don’t really mean that, but I think these things at times. Would make a good editorial cartoon…
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True on that Shell. Yet, if the current Administration stays in office in November, the only REAL “fix” that will get pushed, promoted, and backed will be something that turns a profit. Mark my words. 💰💰💰
That it is GREAT cartoon Shell! There must be a way to turn into a “carnival ride,” yes!? 😈
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I’m thinking of you both and hope your tests come back negative. I’m in Florida, so there’s no lack of trump stupidity here plus a governor that has his head up trump’s ass. They are going to start schools up with no precautions and trump is threatening to withhold funding if they don’t.
We forget along with trump and the republicans, are the greedy, stupid, ignorant, obnoxious far right often religious zealots base. They are every bit as much to blame and they are going nuts because Walmart is requiring g all customers to be masked all over the country.
The US is failing and it’s time as a leading country is over. It was inevitable when you have greed, poor education, extreme income inequality and religion weasel their way into power.
We are on our own…
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Oh dear Mary! Florida is getting hammered BAD due to the July 4th partiers/college students, etc, out on beaches, resorts, etc. Our Texas Gulf Coast is suffering from the same stupidity, but nowhere NEAR the level Florida is suffering. Geeezzzz.
Please be safe Mary. Be overly anal, OCD with all the sanitizing of hands, surfaces, etc, and quite possibly the super-light aerosol particles of COVID-19 entering ventilation systems, A/C units, etc. Wishing you all the best Ma’am! ❤️
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Thank you maryplumbago.
You are indeed in the thick of it as well. I know those people you describe, they are all around me here. Dangerous dangerous people in a pandemic.
We have literally been hung out to dry by our federal government. We are on our own.
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this is scary
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I’m less afraid right now, I’m more pissed off. I’ll have time to be afraid later when me and my family begin contracting this damn virus.
I have accepted my initial fears with covid. Which is we are going to have to survive it. I had some hope we could squeeze by and maybe it would pass us by. But look out the freaking window man. It’s a rampaging Godzilla and it’s everywhere.
History will show we had a chance to curtail this thing early. Our leaders failed us. Which was inevitable, the orange idiot isn’t even good at pretending to be a president. His enablers are just as guilty for letting this presidential fiasco perpetrate.
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Hello, friend!
May this humble nurse epidemiologist offer you some words?
I think you have relatively (that’s the key word here) little to worry about at this point. If the only people you were in close contact with were *other close contacts* that isn’t terribly worrisome. Unless those people test positive or have specific symptoms, being a contact to a contact isn’t a huge cause for concern. At this point pretty much everyone is a contact to a contact.
People who become infected are contagious for the 48 hours prior to their symptom onset, so just because someone you know was around someone who got covid doesn’t necessarily mean they were around them within that window in infectiousness. And even if those contacts that you were around DO test positive or develop symptoms, you’re really only at risk if your last contact with them was within the 48 hours prior to their symptom onset.
The virus takes up to 2 weeks to incubate, but that’s on a bell curve–the vast majority of people will seroconvert in the middle of that.
If you really want to take precautions, you and your wife should maintain social distancing within your home from each other; disinfect everything; wash your hands.
Stay safe and stay healthy!
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Hey Ryan! I’ve been really busy the last 3 days and only now saw this comment.
That is some really good info. We did have the kids staying clear of us, using the back door, and wearing masks in our presence. Only need one more negative test result so we can let our guard down a bit.
My bass player buddy was in close contact with his visiting brother who turned out to be a positive covid case. My wife was in contact with two people where she works, the husband/wife that live there, and both of them were in a room with six people who tested positive.
As it stands right now, I just heard both the husband and wife both tested negative. Great news, the wife can go back to work. albeit hesitantly and cautiously. These people aren’t exactly heads of the class, and are clear RWCRFM’s. (Right Wing Conservative Republican Fucking Morons) So what is good news today could easily be bad news tomorrow…
My bass playing friend, I haven’t heard the result of his test yet, so I’m really hoping we luck out there too.
Even if we luck out this time, it’s lurking just outside the damn door. We all should stay safe and stay healthy. You too man.
I know you aren’t getting around the blog thing like you used to, thanks for stopping in.
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No problem. Stay healthy and safe, amigo!
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