It’s A Struggle

While I was listening to my little dude jabber to himself yesterday (he was tired but teething and didn’t want to nap), I thought I might write a bit.

This virus and consequent quarantine has taken a toll on all of us. And even though it’s not required anymore, we’ve continued to do it for the most part because of Kam and other family members we’re around. My mom’s household and Darryl’s mom are around us on a regular basis to help watch Kam while we work, so in the interest of protecting both us and them, we don’t go out much and don’t see many people. I get the majority of our groceries using Walmart pickup. Kam’s WIC items require an in-person purchase, so I get them from Kroger where there usually aren’t as many people. And anything I can’t get from Walmart, I order online, usually from Amazon because I have Prime and get most things quicker that way. That’s become the norm.

We don’t see as much of our family as we would like. We’ve had to put off doing a lot of things we wanted to do with Kam that we thought we’d be able to by now. It’s so hard thinking about how much we wanted to be able to just take him anywhere and everywhere and show him off to everyone, but with the current health crisis going on in the world, that just doesn’t feel safe right now. 

And it’s not just disappointment I feel, but a profound sadness. Most people understand our decisions, but some don’t. I know that some judge me, and there are some that do that are people who are close to us. Normally I wouldn’t care, but with everything that we’ve been through since Kam was born, my skin is not as thick as it once was. I’m worn down. I’m tired. I’m mentally and emotionally exhausted, and my filter is damn near gone. I cry on a pretty regular basis over the smallest of things because I’m just at the end of my rope, and sometimes any little thing feels like a monumental task or a huge hit to my self esteem and confidence. 

For those who don’t know, which I know would probably only be strangers to me, Kam was diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot when he was 8 days old. It’s a congenital heart defect that does not repair itself over time. We were told he would have to have at least one surgery, possibly more, to repair everything (this CHD has multiple things involved) before he was 6 months old. At that point, we decided to sort of keep to ourselves for the most part until his heart was fixed, because if he got sick, not only would it be more dangerous for him than for a normal baby, but it could delay his surgery if he was even just slightly sniffly on the day of. Our “quarantine” wasn’t as strict then as it is now, but we did have basic rules in place and limited our contact more than usual with people and places.  

He ended up being diagnosed with RSV the same day they had offered us a surgery date that would have been shortly before his 5-month birthday, and with that diagnosis, his surgery was delayed at least 6 weeks. If not for the RSV, he would have had it March 18th (a week or less away from the day he was diagnosed with RSV). But because of the delay, we were looking at April 28th, his 6 month birthday. Then, almost immediately after scheduling that, COVID hit, and due to the hospital’s restrictions, we were delayed once again. 

The hospital started allowing elective surgeries again less than a week before April 28th, and they called to tell us the surgery was still on. So on the 27th, we went to Morgantown and didn’t get to come home until a little over a week later on May 5th. It was one of the scariest, most stressful weeks of my life. I only saw Darryl for maybe 10 minutes each day because we could only be in the hospital one at a time. If Kam hadn’t been the age he is, we wouldn’t have been allowed in at all. But we assumed 12-hour shifts with him, and we only saw each other on the way to/from the hotel because we only had one vehicle with us. 

Since then, Kam has done amazingly well. I know that Darryl and I still have some mental/emotional effects from the stress of it. But we’re all healthy, and that’s the important part. 

But COVID isn’t over, and it won’t be for the foreseeable future because finding a vaccine and a treatment takes time. Our area started having community spread recently. As of yesterday, the active cases have come back down from what they were, so I’m hoping maybe that particular “outbreak” is contained, but who knows. So many people still think it’s their fundamental right to not wear a mask or follow the guidelines presented to them (that are there to try to provide at least some protection for the community as a whole if everyone would do it), that I have very little faith that we won’t see more spread. There are still people gathering in groups. There are still people from different households congregating and talking close together, no masks, no social distancing, nothing. And then some of those same people travel. So who’s to say they won’t attend an event that starts a major spread and then, whether they live here or not, that they might travel through my area. It’s on the way to a lot of nearby tourist destinations, and a lot of people stop to eat or get gas here on their way to a lot of other places. Even if our particular community followed the guidelines to a T, it’s not a guarantee that we’ll all stay safe.

I know there are no guarantees to start with, but with all we’ve been through in the past 9 months already, I’m just not comfortable with a lot of things or with seeing a lot of people right now. I’m already at work 5 days a week, where I wear a mask, so in theory I’m somewhat safe. And I’m not “living in fear”, but I am scared. And I’m tired of people thinking it’s ok not to respect my opinions and choices, even when it’s behind my back (because guess what, some of that gets back to me). As I said earlier, I’d normally just let that go and move on, but it’s not that easy right now. I’m barely hanging onto my sanity as it is. So when I hear that someone’s been spreading lies and making something I said or did into something much bigger than it was, it’s really painful and makes me really not trust much of anyone. I’m tired of it. And I’m just plain tired. 

I could go on and on. But honestly, talking about how stressed and sad I am, just makes me sadder and more stressed. So instead, I usually just try to take each day as it comes. I try to remember that no matter how important someone might have been before, that if they can act the way they do, maybe they shouldn’t have been that important, at least to me. I try to remember that overall, my family and friends support me. I try to just focus on Kam and Darryl. I try to focus on things that I enjoy, like playing with and teaching Kam, crocheting things for our family, trying to get my garden to grow, researching what to do with the gobs of veggies that I hope we’ll have once these plants are ready, and how I can get a head start on next year’s garden so I can do more stuff then. I try to focus on keeping my house clean (3 cats, a dog, a baby, and 2 adults make quite a mess every day) and improving it in some way a little bit each week. Those are my outlets, and it’s what I try to focus on so I don’t have to think about the negativity. 

I hope if you’re reading this that you’re well. I hope that maybe if you were feeling this way and feeling isolated, maybe you know that you aren’t the only one. I understand. And if you haven’t felt this way, I hope that you won’t ever have to, but I hope it provided some insight into how those of us that feel this way, actually think and feel. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m trying to do what I feel is right and safe for my family. I hate not having the contact that we used to with other members of family and friends. I can’t wait for the day that we can go back to some form of normal. But in the meantime, I’m struggling through.

Have a good day, friends.