Friday 9/25/2020
Went to bed last night about 8:30, right after a phone conversation with Scott. He very sensibly pointed out that if my “back pain” was spine-related, I would feel it if I bent or twisted my back, which I don’t.
I had lots of sleep with frequent wakings. At 5am I got up. Temp 99.4, and feeling crappy, feeble, low energy as one does with a temperature. So I reported that on the morning report form, and ticked the box for “fever” as well — only that, among about 20 other symptoms. My sense of taste is fine, I thought, sipping coffee.
Lounged about mostly on the bed waiting for the staff to react. Feeling a little better after a couple of hours and temp down to 98.9.
At 10am I called the nursing desk. Valentina asked the usual questions about symptoms and said she’d be right up. I reported honestly that I’d been in a hobby shop (only 2 other people, both masked) and had walked through the Cal. ave. market Sunday. Neither got any reaction. She came to the door soon, asked more questions about symptoms, took my temp with an ear-gun. 99.2. She cautioned me about not leaving my room, and put the dreaded red dot on my door, meaning nobody can come in. I’ll be getting my meals delivered by a nurse. I know how that goes, from doing volunteer meal delivery. A special cart comes out of the kitchen, with trays for isolation units, before any other carts come out. A nurse comes and wheels it away.
Now, why did I not mention the might-be-angina etc? Two reasons. One, that pain has subsided to almost nothing during the night. There’s just a bit of sensitivity if I inhale deeply to expand my chest. Two, I didn’t have any confidence in being able to communicate with Valentina, who has a heavy Russian (well, Eastern European) accent, and is just a nurse, not a doctor and certainly not a cardiologist. If I tried to explain all that, either she wouldn’t get it or else would overreact and call 911.
But I really do have some kind of bug causing a temperature, could be a cold, flu, or COVID. That, she can deal with and has appropriately. She said the COVID nurse would come around for a test later.
No test was done today. I shall call the nursing desk first thing tomorrow. For the rest of the day I just flumped around the apartment, reading and napping and soaking up the sensation of having a mild fever.
On Rhonda’s 4pm call, it was clarified that of the seven AL residents infected, three have gone to hospital. All are expected to return “in a few days”. Some restrictions have been lightened, for example two residents can ride in the same car, if one drives and the other sits in the back, both masked.
Codgerville 