Yet another article about the post-pandemic “return to normal.” I disagree with almost everything in this article except for one statement: we should not return “back to normal” in the sense that its” normal to come to work sick and not to wear the mask, either for the reason that you do not have enough sick days, or you need money, or that it’s a way to demonstrate your loyalty to the company.
Tag: health
Vaccination One More Time
They called me three times on Friday! First, to confirm mom’s appointment for Monday. One more time, because they forgot to remind me that mom needs to bring her ID to verify her age so that she won’t be turned down. And the third time – from her doctor’s office, because they didn’t receive that information yet, and they wanted to make sure we know about the vaccination. It was very touching, but I can’t stop resenting it took so long to figure things out!
On the same day, I received a message from my health care provider that the vaccine is available to the patients and that everybody will be contacted individually when there will be a turn for their age group. Once again – great, but why in the world it took co long?!
About The Vaccination
All this vaccination thing in the Northwest Suburban Cook County is so disorganized! I knew for several weeks that my mom is in the priority group 1b and will become eligible starting on January 25. The date was approaching, and nobody knew anything! All the officials were like, “please be patient!” And I am fine being patient, but I wondered why there couldn’t be a normal wait line like they have in Finland.
There was literally no information at first. Then, the Tribune published the URL where everybody was supposed to register “to receive updates.” In Lake County, everybody could see their number in line, and even in Chicago, it seemed easier to find a slot.
I messaged mom’s doctor in Access to Care, and they replied that they do not provide the vaccination yet and that I should try to sign up mom with Cook County. I did and received a UUID with which I could theoretically sign her up, but in both vaccination centers, all slots were full. At the alternative providers, the situation was the same.
Also, they had endless lists of Walgreens, Jewel Oscos, and Walmarts, which would have the vaccine, but once again, “all slots full.” And what I do not understand is why they can’t have some centralized place to sign up for all Oscos or all Walgreens. Instead, you have to try to sign up with each store individually, only to find out that there are no slots available.
On Sunday, mom received an email from the NW Suburban Cook County Health Department that they have more doses and people can sign up. My understanding is that they sent this message to everybody who signed up to be in line, without any priorities. Because when mom forwarded this email to me, and I tried to sign her up, there were once again no slots available.
In the city, the situation seems better, but you need to have a city zip code. Vlad, Igor, and I discussed whether we could pretend that mom lives with one of them :).
All of a sudden, today at midday, I received a message that Access To Care started to vaccinate and that mom can sign up. Which I immediately did, signing her for next Monday afternoon – the first appointment available.
Now, I am cautiously optimistic, but I will believe it when I see it!
Multiple Reasons To Be Upset
Over the past seven months, I was praising Metra commuters for wearing masks and keeping the distance.
However, tonight, on my ride back home, two middle-aged guys in the car were sitting in front of each other with no masks talking and drinking beer. I didn’t realize they were mask-less until I got up to exit. When I saw it, I told them: guys, you should wear masks on the train! It’s a requirement! They ignored, and the next passenger leaving the car said something about assholes, referring to them. Again, they didn’t care, and it was really upsetting.
Yesterday, when I talked to Mom, I found out that she forgot that I gave her Kindle for her birthday, and she even forgot what the Kindle is. Fortunately, she found it, and I took it home to copy a book she wanted to read. After work, I stopped by her place to return her Kindle and make sure she knows how to use it. We practiced several times, and she just emailed me, “thank you for your gift.” I am very tired and upset each time I talk to her, and I do not understand why. It does not take a lot to listen to her for half an hour, and I do not understand why it.
Also, it’s a lot of work at work! And I mean just urgent work, which needs to be done, I am very sorry that people need to wait for days for me to do small things, but I can’t squizz more in my days than I do now.
And a vaccine. The disorganization is above and beyond anything I saw before. With Mom being eligible, I still can’t sign her up. I know that I need to start taking her to places because otherwise, her brain will die. But now, that vaccine is so close; you do not want to expose her till she is vaccinated…
Also, one of the very important Postgres people emailed me about our “not enough” licenses on our data sources in the postgres_air database, and I spent the rest of the evening (after mom) putting these licenses together.
Why is it that objectively, I am on the peak of everything, but subjectively I feel really exhausted?
About a Major Crisis
Today, on January 11, we finally have every chapter of our book submitted. Out of the total of eighteen chapters, including the introduction and conclusion, four are still being reviewed, but they are really small ones. Even if our technical reviewer would suggest some changes, there won’t be massive rewriting. I am doing a final walk-through with all examples, ensuring everything works as expected, and creating the source code files in the process.
I feel very good about this accomplishment, and if there weren’t a major crisis, everything would be in place a week ago. I know that I kept my friends uninformed, so here are some details about my family’s happened in the past two weeks.
For three weeks, we were going back and forth about Christmas and what is safe. Finally, we decided on a hybrid solution.
Continue reading “About a Major Crisis”Flue Shots
My mom does not have any medical insurance, because she is only in the country for two and a half years, and when somebody comes on a sponsored green card, they are not eligible for Medicare/Medicaid until they are in the country for five years. She is enrolled in a charity program for Chicago Northwest suburbs called Access To Care, which allows her to see an assigned family doctor and takes care of some of non-emergency needs.
As for the vaccination, the coverage varies. One year, she had to pay twenty dollars for a flue shot, next year they said they will do it for free if we come to one assigned pharmacy, located extremely inconveniently for me. So I ended up taking her to Jewel Osco and paying seventy dollars (she needs a stronger vaccine since she is 86).
This season, the Access To Care sent out a newsletter where they said among other things that they encourage everybody to take a seasonal flue shot soon, in order not to add it to corona, and that you can do it in any pharmacy for free, if you present your Access To Care card. The good part is that when mom sees any mail from Access To Care she takes it as an order :).
On Saturday, we went together to Walgreens (which is, by the way, way more friendly to uninsured people than CVS) and got our season flue shots. I had it as well, since because I won’t get to my annual checkup until a month from now anyway. The funny story was, that she got it for free and I had to pay ten bucks 🙂
Something Good I Never Mentioned
I wanted to end the day with something good because my only post in two days sounded like “life is horrible,” and it is not at all! Sometimes during the day, I stop for a moment and enjoy this feeling – everything is great!
Perhaps, it’s a strange feeling during the pandemic, but I feel that there are so many things going well in my life, despite the pandemic, no matter pandemic or not. I feel lucky in so many ways, to the point of being guilty of being so lucky.
One good thing about which I was reluctant to write for a while is that I can walk substantial distances without major discomfort. It was already so many times after my back surgery that I felt things are better, and then they turned for worse again, that this time I was taking time to make sure they are better indeed.
I attribute this time’s progress to the two factors. One is that I am doing my stretches and rolling twice a day, no matter what. The other is that in May, my physical therapist told me that she thinks that my left leg is a little bit shorter than my right and that this might aggravate my problems. She suggested I try the heel elevator, and I did, and it worked, and I was putting them in all my footwear since then. Gradually, it worked a miracle.
Make no mistake, I will be aware of my back for the rest of my life, but I can’t even describe how much my quality of life improved in the past couple of months.
BIking Accident
I just saw that I forgot to hit “publish” on my yesterdays’ post. Now there will be multiple in one day:), because I am still going to publish that one.
So, for the last two hours, I am trying to write down what has happened to me today. It’s embarrassing, but here is it: I had a really bad bike accident this morning. And it was not even the long ride. It was my shortest biking routine, the one I do these days after the strength workouts – just to add some cardio. It’s less than 30 min ride.
I am still not sure what exactly happened. I was going downhill, probably faster than I should have, but the hill was not that steep. There were some small branches from the Monday storm on the ground; they didn’t look dangerous; I rode over similar small branches a lot in the past several days, they were everywhere. And the next moment, I felt that I am going down. I tried to brake and tried to put my feet down on th ground, but I could not fight gravity.
My next thought was that my whole face is smashed, so I was delighted to find out that I had only a couple of cuts on the face.
Unfortunately, I wore glasses. These days, when my vision is tons better than before, I usually put the contacts in after the shower, and do my exercises in glasses. But this morning, for some reason, I was intensely thinking: maybe, I should put the contacts in before my bike ride. And I didn’t.
If I would, my new glasses won’t break. And I won’t have an extra puncture of my skin close to my right eye.
There was a lot of blood, and also my bike chain got off, so I had to stop the blood at least a little bit, and fix the bike, and then get home. I did it all, and I am very proud of myself.
The injuries bother me, however. First, I thought that I hit my right shoulder but turned out it was just a massive scratch of the skin. And the same goes for all other parts of my body. The cuts are not deep, but they are everywhere – hip, leg, knee, hands, elbows, fingers. Annoying like I do not know what.
I so-so-so hope it will heal soon!!!
Flying Back
There are way fewer international flights than normal these days, and the ones who are operating are pretty crowded. At least, the European ones.
My flight to Frankfurt was at 6-30 AM. Usually, I am trying to avoid that flight, because it is way too early, but this time it was the only option. In normal times, Boris would insist that there is no reason to arrive at the airport before 5-30, even if I want to shop duty-free, and even if I need to drop off the luggage. Oh, and about the luggage. I had a “light” airfare, which means – carry-on only, and as I’ve mentioned, I came to Helsinki with an almost empty suitcase. I thought that even if I buy some clothes, it will still fit. But then, I ended up buying more for my girls. It was a gradual process. First, I was not even sure whether I will do any shopping, then I did some, and then I thought that god-only-knows when I would be able to come again, and then I thought that I could buy en extra luggage :).
Boris favored that idea, and we ended up buying a very nice duffle bag, which could be converted to the backpack. I used it to pack the clothes, and also some yogurts. I started to smuggle dairy products from Finland in my luggage some time ago, which worked great.
I tried to check-in online, and as expected, got the message that the boarding pass could be issued only at the airport. We agreed that we will plan to be there at about 5-10. That meant getting up at 3-45 and taking a cab, but that would be unavoidable in any case.
When we entered the terminal, we saw a huge line. People were trying to maintain the distance, so the line became very long and spiraling.
Continue reading “Flying Back”Eyes And Travel
do not think I wrote in detail about my last eyes-related updates. After my visit to the LensCrafters, things only got better. Fist, I got my multifocal eyeglasses. They work almost perfectly, which was especially important during my air travel. It was the first time I traveled without any worries about the contact lenses and them being in my eyes for way too long. The only thing I find slightly inconvenient with them is that the reading part of glasses interferes with going down the stairs and looking in the direction of the floor in general.
Also, I tried the multifocal contacts, and that was a life-changing experience. It’s very close to what I was hoping to achieve after the cataract surgery. I still need the reading glasses, but only when I type or look at a really small print, and then it is +1, not +2.75. The doctor reduced the strength of both my glasses and lenses, which helped a lot.
What it has to do with my travel? First, as I said, I was able to travel in glasses. Second, it is unbelievable how many more things I can see now!
I am still learning to use my vision, still learning to look both further and closer. I was biking a lot all these days, and I was way more aware of my surroundings than before.
Also, although I still have my double-vision, it is now localized to a very specific distance. It’s precisely the distance where I need to see the cars in front of me, so I still need my driving glasses. But first, I think that now the prisms can be reduced, a second – now I feel that this can be corrected.
My all eyes ordeal started when I went to the doctor to correct my double vision. After all these surgeries, I thought that I do not want to do anything for a while. But now I think that it may be a good time to try to fix it.
Hettie's Reflections 