My 10 year old’s got COVID again. We signed the kids up for swimming lessons, which took a lot of courage because the last time we went to the pool here, we all got COVID and the kids were REALLY sick in the weeks and months that followed. Like, go-to-hospital sick. Really scary shit. And of course after years of avoiding it, we lasted two days before my kid got COVID. During what we thought was a ‘lull’ in numbers, even.
Looked at the her Garmin from yesterday and right when the blue disappears was when she woke up from hurting. She was in bed or on the sofa literally all day yesterday. Last night when she went to sleep her watch was telling her she needed 6 hours of recovery time, and after waking up this morning (again, in pain - this time her ear) it said she needed 10 hours of recovery time. Her poor heart has been pounding since yesterday and she's been hot and cold off and on.
If I could, I would transfer everything she's feeling to everyone that gives us shit for masking. Nothing is making me hate people more than seeing my kid suffer because everyone else want to believe that "COVID is over!" or "it's just a cold!". No, it's not "Just a cold", and anyone who has read any actual literature on COVID would know that. This is not a 'normal childhood illness' and anyone who isn't a moron should know that as well - this was not around when we were kids and the few years that it has been around has seen a lot more deaths and disability as a result of repeated infections and the damage they do to every structure in our bodies (which is *not* what a cold - or even the flu - does). And now my kid is on her second one. Because we wanted her to learn how to swim.
I'm just so tired of trying to give the kids as normal and full a childhood as I can, getting judged and shit on at every turn for the very basic protections we *do* use, and then watching my kid suffer when the people encouraging us to be more like them (e.g., back to "normal") get what they want.
Last time, after their asymptomatic infections, the kids were sicker than I've ever seen them in their lives. Their bodies were wrecked by an infection that *wasn't even immediately evident*. I'm absolutely dreading what's waiting for us down the road after this one, and especially knowing that our healthcare has not caught up to contemporary medical knowledge to help when a scary vascular issue develops, or something neurological like last time, or whatever else is coming later down the line.
Why does everyone think that an illness that was doing so much damage in 2019/2020 has suddenly been completely neutralised at this point, especially when there's so much evidence to the contrary? Do people really think we banged it into submission with our pots and pans and 'good vibes'? Or do people think that - because they want it bad enough - viruses just inevitably evolve to be harmless? What does it take to get people to actually understand what is happening? I get that the world is really dark and depressing right now, but is pretending everything is normal and fine really the *healthiest* way to deal with that?
