Just Press Pause

This blog post will serve as an advisory board.

On what not to do when you get Covid. Read it like the Grinch is shouting it to you from the top of Mount Krumpet, and pay attention. School teachers especially, but other people too, who are also human and and full of emotion.

When you get covid and you and your family have been around quite a few people. You will feel a lot of guilt.

The guilt will make you want to jump right into your work responsibilities, to be productive and also to distract you from the anxiety and the cough in the back of your throat. The hard part of that is, you will hop on a google meet and there will be a ton of staff who have had to rearrange their work schedules and their family routine in order to make a new normal work. You will look at all of their faces and the weight of it will hit you like a brick. You will search their features for signs of symptoms. The ones you spoke too. Are they coughing? Do their eyes look tired?

I’m not going to tell you that you will have a panic attack because maybe you won’t.

Maybe you have Terminator-like emotions and good for you. But if you don’t. This part is hard, and the more meetings you have, the crappier it will get. So my advice to you, is to take a day, maybe a few days, and take care of yourself and cry to a few people on the phone. Avoid the faces. They probably aren’t as mad as you think they are. A lot of them will call and email you right after and say I’m sorry you look so busted, but just to protect yourself, to get yourself better. I would take a day off from work and just be.

Put on your Christmas pajamas.

Lay back in bed and pull the comforter up around your face, but not too tight, because your chest is tight. Just enough to feel good. Put your phone on silent, only answer when the CDC calls and things like that. Sip the tea, all the different flavors. Let people drop off meals if they want too. Fill the dishwasher up half way and then take a break. Let the kids have too much screen time. Fire up Schitts Creek. Only play your favorite scenes. Let your body rest AND let your mind rest and LET your spirit rest. Staring at a screen and scouring the faces for possible symptoms is not helpful or healing right now. Neither is trying to plan for a job that is changing every six hours. So take that day.

Other tips?

From the Grinch of Terri Lane? Nebulizers help, so do emergency inhalers. Flovent is a miracle drug. Zinc and vitamin c are a must. Cold air and short walks are not helpful, warm air and short walks are better. If you have multiple adults in the household, I have found that the virus doesn’t chokehold both of you at the same time. One of you will get some respite, while the other will be in charge of letting the dogs out and the misfiring technology and the laundry. Covid is one miserable b-, but she does take turns, Thank God.

If you are being truly stubborn and a guilt-o-maniac. I can give you the phone numbers of a few good nurses to call. You can cry on the phone to them and they will tell you, enough is enough. It’s time to take a day pass. They will listen while you vent and cry and shake. Then you will dry your eyes and thank them, because really they are nurses for little people and not for teachers, but mother f if we aren’t all in this together.

I hope this advice helps. You don’t have to tell me if it does, but please reach out if you need more of it. No one should suffer in silence, especially if you’ve been isolated to your own cave. Just press pause. You will be glad you did.