After the boys got their second vaccination, Andrew asked if they could stop wearing their masks to school. He's been a trooper wearing a KN95 all school year. I told him it takes two weeks after the last shot before your fully vaccinated and that would be 3 days before Christmas break so let's wear it through the end of 2021 then we would discuss it for 2022. Well then Omicron came. We continued to wear our masks and everyone upgraded to a KN95 mask. I like to wear a mask to protect us but mostly so if we end up getting sick I feel like I did something to slow the spread because you're contagious 2-3 days before you start showing symptoms.
Ellie has still been recovering a little from the cold she got over Christmas break. She came home Thursday, Jan 6th and said her lungs hurt a little which made me worry about COVID and I had just scheduled her and Lila to get booster shots that evening. I told Steve I didn't want to take her to get the booster if she had COVID but I was running Andrew to violin lessons. While driving I thought let's drive by the testing site and see how busy it is because we've heard the lines are crazy long right now. When we drove by there were only 5 cars so I called Steve who hopped in the car with Ellie and she registered on her phone while they drove. When they arrived 1 car was in front of them but they must not have registered so they had them pull to the side and Ellie got tested. They only had rapid tests, they were out of the PCRs. We typically like to do both, but this type we could only do the rapid. It came back negative so we went ahead with boosters. We stopped by Fiiz drive through to get a fun drink on our way. The pharmacy was slammed but we were able to get them both boosted and out within 30 minutes so I was happy. Lila was a trooper and didn't even fret or flinch this time.
January 8th, Saturday afternoon I got an email from Andrew's violin teacher that her and her daughter started feeling sick Friday morning. They got tested Saturday and one tested positive and one negative but she is assuming they both have it since symptoms are the same. Fortunately we wear our masks everywhere still and we had both worn KN95s on Thursday for his 30 minute lesson.
Tuesday morning, January 11th Lila wakes up and says her throat hurts. No fever, no headache, no cough, nothing else really. I just had a feeling so we pulled out one of the at home rapid kits I bought in November and tested her and it came back positive. She was very upset about it. I told her not to worry about it. It is literally everywhere right now and it was just a matter of time before we got it. It wasn't her fault we have all been cautious and wearing our masks and are up to date on our immunizations so we'll just get through it. She was bummed that it's the end of term and she won't get to see her friends or teachers in some of her classes again, but her grades are good so I told her just to think of it as a vacation she gets to stay home watch movies, read books, drink gatorades, and miss everything without any guilt.
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| Lila's positive at home test |
This week has seen 10,000-13,000 of cases every day and guidelines have been ever changing. Just at the end of December they changed it so that if someone tests positive in your household and you are fully vaccinated you don't have to quarantine they just ask that you wear a mask for 10 days and watch for symptoms. The person who tested positive is supposed to isolate for 5 days then if they are fever free for 24 hours without meds they can start going back to school/work etc wearing a mask for 5 days. I support the change in the guidance with so many cases things are shutting back down because of ill workers and there are supply chain issues again. So our plans were to continue sending the other kids to school with masks and watch for symptoms. I did cancel extra curricular activities for all of the kids like birthday parties, tennis, sewing, and violin was online. I texted our elementary carpool friends and asked what they wanted to do and we made adjustments accordingly. I was really trying to do the right thing for all involved. And I know most people are trying to make the best decisions they can for their families and situations during this crazy time.
Wednesday I scheduled tests for the rest of us on January 13th, Thursday afternoon. They say if you don't have symptoms to wait a few days. At this point they also start saying if you're sick assume it's COVID and stay home. So I worried about continuing to send Ellie to school but her symptoms were almost gone and she had tested negative the week before and it was the end of the term so I continued to send her wearing a mask and told her to distance herself at lunch and to keep her mask up as much as possible.
Thursday the boys didn't feel like going to school. Every morning I check for a fever ask if their throat hurts or if they feel stuffed up and they say. "No". And to be honest this is the healthiest they have been in months which is a little tender mercy to give me confidence in our decision to continue to send them to school. But for some reason they just didn't want to go to school and I don't know how you make them when COVID is in your home and maybe they're feeling something and just don't know how to tell you. So they skipped school, it was an early out day anyways so I figured why not.
The boys and I went at 2pm to get tested. The appointments are nice because the lines are not long. With the test shortages we were only allowed to pick one test. Previous times we've always done a rapid and PCR - rapid gives you an idea quickly and the PCR is more reliable. However when Ellie went to get tested last week they only had rapid available so she only had rapid done then. I chose PCR knowing that was the best option since we didn't have symptoms. Then we could choose a saliva test or nasal swab. I could not imagine getting the boys to spit in a vial and they think the nasal swab tickles so I chose that. The tester was nice and said that we would get our results back in 1-3 days which I thought was optimistic because I had heard that PCR results were taking 5 days to get back.
By Thursday evening Lila was feeling a lot better. She got a little congested Tuesday afternoon while she was home and through Wednesday but Thursday that had cleared out and her throat just hurt a little. She never took one Advil or Tylenol and said, "I felt better during this than I did with my cold in November." We explained that that was due to the fact she was up to date on her vaccinations and healthy. We truly are grateful for modern medicine and that we only caught a minor case of COVID.
I received a text at 6:30am Friday morning with Andrew's results negative. And then Marcus and mine came back around 11:30am negative also. At this point I was feeling pretty good about things. Ellie and Steve went to get tested later in the afternoon so their results took longer and it wasn't until late Friday night we got their results and Ellie's came back positive. At this point with all the new information coming in I figured she probably did have COVID and the rapid test failed us the previous Thursday and the guidance to stay home if you are feeling ill didn't come out until a few days later when she was feeling better. All in all I felt a little bad we had been sending her to school, but we made our best decision with the information we had and she was wearing a mask at all times.
Amidst all of this, cases in schools have been skyrocketing and the local high school performed a test to stay with rumors that the junior high would have to do one next week. Unfortunately it revealed several positive cases which people had assumed to be colds. I know several young people experienced anxiety about getting tested and I heard that they were not very good about telling those that tested negative that they were cleared to go back to class. Thankfully we're coming up on a long weekend so we can all just chill and hopefully get back into a groove next week. Then late Thursday evening the governor sent out a letter pausing all test to stay programs because of the shortage in tests. He also allowed the schools flexibility in remote options for the next couple of weeks. So the school then sent out an email saying even if you tested positive today you are welcome back to school. Then an email was sent really late Thursday from the superintendent saying if you tested positive or opted out of the test you could not come to school on Friday but to wait until Wednesday, January 19th (there is no school Monday the 17th or Tuesday the 18th for end of term) so they would only really miss one day of school. Once again you just have to breathe and realize everyone is trying to do their best.
In a press conference Friday, January 14th the Governor also asked people not to get tested unless they were immuno-compromised or going to visit someone who is because of the lack in tests. So then I felt kind of bad that we had gone and got tested, but once again we were working off of previous info and doing our best. Knowing our results helped us know what we could do this weekend. Steve and I attended the 2nd hour of church wearing our KN95 masks to teach our primary classes. I did let the Steve take Ellie, Lila, and Andrew skiing Friday (Marcus didn't want to go because he can't miss school on Friday's it's when he has PE, Art, and STEM) which was the only thing we did inside Lila's isolation period, but they wore their thick gators over their faces and it wasn't busy so they were never on the lift or in the gondola with anyone else or even within 6ft really. We had wanted to go to Nordic on Saturday but postponed that until Monday then Lila would for sure be out of her isolation period. We spent the weekend doing fun things together. We made home made pizzas on our smoker so yummy and we're getting the hang of it. We rented Sing 2 and watched it 3 times over the long weekend. We got a few house projects done. We went skiing at Nordic Valley on Monday, January 17th.
Then Tuesday, January 18th, as we were cleaning and preparing for school to start back up we got an email that Shoreline had hit their case limit and would be going to remote/online learning for the week, Wed Jan 19-21. I know online is more difficult for some students so I hope for the short week everyone will be able to adapt. Lila is ok with it. As a matter of fact on Friday when she was doing some homework she saw her Shark Time teacher had started a teams meeting so she logged on and her teacher was like, "oh great Lila has joined our meeting so we can show you how some of the features work." And Lila was like yeah this is how I did school last year so I know how to do this. So her and her Shark Time teacher did a little demo.
I also received an exposure email from Andrew's school teacher Tuesday evening. They're no longer doing contact tracing just sending exposure letters to whole classes. And the recommendation is if you're not vaccinated to quarantine for 5 days. And the whole class should be wearing masks because of the exposure but of course they can't "enforce" it. I wonder how many kids are actually going to be at school.
It is a crazy crazy time again. I'm hoping 2022 is getting it all out of it's system now and then we're done with this! It's so hard because you adapt and think ok we know what we're doing now we can do this and make 2022 great and BAM! There are a lot of funny memes out there about 2022. I think I'll post a few here just to reward all of you who have read this long post. I felt like it was important to document this last week and all the feelings and changes that have been happening. Most importantly I want to testify of the peace I have felt this week. I know that the Lord is in control and I know that as a family we have done everything we can to protect ourselves and slow the spread (vaccinations and mask wearing).
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