Before I landed in the hospital, I was living a staid and probably boring to many people life. This was during the pandemic, which meant I was pretty much a shut-in. I went out once a month to the pharmacy to get my meds. I had been opening up a little bit because I was fully vaxxed, but that meant going to Cubs twice and to pick up lunch with my brother once. In other words, I wasn’t going wild, by any means, but I was taking baby steps.
Then I ended up in the hospital and I suddenly didn’t care about the pandemic any longer. Or rather, I should say, it was no longer at the top of my list of things to worry about. Understandably, I had other things on my mind. Also, while I was in the hospital, I was constantly around people and I was not wearing a mask. Everyone else was, of course, but I was not. I had a breathing tube shoved up my nose for the first week and a half and then an oxygen tube for the next few days. I had to wear a mask when I was taken from room to room, but other than that, the pandemic was not visible in any way.
It also made me realize that I was…not overreacting, but focusing too much on the pandemic in my daily life. I spent a year-and-a-half shut in my house, fearing to talk to or see anyone. I’m not saying that was the wrong reaction because it was a fucking pandemic. But now that I’m vaxxed and about to get my booster, I’m being more realistic about the endemic. It’s not going anywhere. We’re going to have to live with it. If I get it, it probably won’t be life-threatening. It’ll be like the flu–getting a shot every year with a couple thousand people dying and the rest just being miserable.
Side note: It’s funny how the same question asked by different people can get a vastly different response. It makes sense, really, as the relationship with different people are, well, different. So something that is innocuous from one person is invasive from another. It’s just difficult to explain. I was trying to elaborate on this on Twitter about my father, using the example of him asking if I’m cold. I painstakingly laid out all the reasons it’s not just an innocuous question from him and there was still someone who was dismissive of my experience.