Tired of Living in a World Where the Question Is..."Is It Allergies, or Is It COVID?"

I have had a nagging headache for the past several weeks. It comes and goes but is usually sinus in nature and gets better when I change my head position and all that. Now, I am allergy-prone. I am allergic to all sorts of strange things that other people don't seem to react to (and will argue that I am not allergic to those things - like they know my body better than I do - snort!). I have some sniffles and some coughing that happens occasionally as well. The problem? This is usually when my allergies get pretty bad and turn into pneumonia, so I am living in a world where I cannot tell if I am COVID sick or allergy sick.

I have been fully vaccinated and boostered. My students are going through COVID right now and have been since we returned to school two weeks ago. Local school districts (but not mine) are closing down because there aren't enough healthy teachers to teach students. We had 14 of our 26 day students gone yesterday because schools were shut and kids have active COVID cases. Staff are strongly encouraged to be at work and folks do not want us to go get tested. As soon as we know results, we have to follow CDC guidelines. If we do not know, then we can continue to work as planned.

I am torn.

I ordered my 4 at-home COVID tests yesterday from the United States Post Office. I will take one as soon as I get the set just to see if what I am feeling now is allergies and my usual thing or whether it is this virus that everyone else has. I will save the other 3 until there is a need for them, but the first one has to be done because I have doubts.

My sister recently tested positive for COVID and is finishing up her first week out of the classroom. She had spent time with a person who was diagnosed the day after they had been around each other - masked and 6 feet apart. She had a lack of taste and smell but thought it was because of some new allergy medications that she was on. She had sinus headaches and denied that there was a problem - just like I am at the moment - she finally went for a test and was identified as positive. She had, on the insistence of the superintendent, returned to her classroom and worked for most of the time between her initial thoughts that this was COVID and her results - five days of contact with her students. Her class is down many kids, but has been since they returned from winter break, so she knows that she did not expose those students. Other though, have been exposed to this virus through her. She has been out of her classroom since Friday and will continue to be out for at least two more days as they test her sample to see what it says now. She feels fine. She has had no more headaches and seems to be doing well - though she is sneezing and coughing a bit more on the phone with me. I may, though, be projecting a bit. My brother and my mother got tested yesterday as well. Apparently, my brother has been sick for quite some time. Now we will know whether it is this virus or something else.

I can tell you this.

I, like so many other people, am exhausted. When you hear about stories of people leaving the education setting, realize that the story is understated. There are so many openings in education right now that my state has waived the education requirements for substitute teachers to at least 18 years old and with a high school diploma. They still cannot find enough warm bodies to sit in classrooms. 

Our legislature and governor have decreed that schools cannot go back into full virtual learning situations and get funding from the state. Our schools have to offer an in-school option to all students. Districts cannot opt to go back to distance learning even if there aren't enough teachers, substitutes, maintenance personnel, or other warm bodies to provide supervision to students...so, it is better, in the view of our legislators, to have kids sitting in classrooms without having any sort of learning going on, than it is to provide teachers and other staff members with chances to stop the spread of this virus.

Wow, today is a ranty sort of day, isn't it? Sorry. I have a headache.

I am tired. I do not like to hear people complain about how hard it is to work from home. Now, I've worked from home, and I know that it is not the thing for me, but a forced quarantine with time in my own place sounds really nice right now. I would like being able to start my work day at 4am when I wake up and then work until noon when I could take a nap and do home things for the rest of the time. Alas, music therapy is not really one of those professions where you can do lots of things without the direct cooperation of other humans, so I am required to be present at all times.

I think I may want a hamster ball that allows me to navigate the world with a set personal space and ability to filter out all of the germs and the allergens. It would have to include a keyboard and a guitar as well as remote controls for all of my devices, but I think I could use Velcro and various buckles to make it all work. I would have to hire a chauffeur and get a different house and car, but it might be worth it to live with less doubt. 

But, with my luck, I would be allergic to the plastic of my ball. 

On that note, I will be heading to work on this cold morning to do music therapy with students and to talk to my intern who has finished her training and is now getting ready to start her journey into leading session elements. Intern #34 accepted a position yesterday, so I have some tasks that I need to do to get the next two interns ready. I have to let the academic faculty member know of the acceptance as well as the AIAC representative, and then I have to inform my current applicants that I no longer have a June start date - it will have to be pushed back to August due to the requirement of only having two interns at a time. I also have made lots of progress on my visual aid system (check out last Friday's post), and the storage boxes arrived yesterday, so I will move forward on getting that system finalized. Our day will end with supervision and our group meeting. After today, there are only five more groups of the therapy week - there are also six more individuals, but individual sessions are less therapist-intensive at my facility than group interactions.

Well, I am going to take some Tylenol and move forward into the day. Happy Wednesday!!

Stay safe and healthy out there. We need you!