And looking forward

 No, I don't have a shot appointment yet. Supposedly I am in wave 3, and they are on wave 2 here. Depending on which one I'm going to get, I may have to try to plan dose 2 on a Friday - have heard reports with the Pfizer vaccine that a lot of people have a day of exhaustion and malaise after the second shot and while I could take a sick day if I had to (I normally never do), I'd rather not.

Of course I might also be lucky and be one of the ones with minimal side effects. 

But I need to plan more things to look forward to. I had my telehealth visit yesterday with my doctor. Good news is she was *very* pleased with my bloodwork and said my hypertension seems back under control (my bloodpressure went up this summer, which she thought was maybe weight gain, but I wonder more if it wasn't stress). 

She also asked me - she said she was asking all her patients - how I was doing emotionally.

I dunno. Yesterday was a pretty good day and now that I'm back at work things seem a little better; I don't do well with idleness and no short-term goals (like: "need to prep for this particular class"). She did mention a lot of her patients were asking for either anti anxiety or antidepressant medications.

Maybe a couple months ago I would have taken her up? But now with the promise of not TOO many more months before a vaccine, and being back at work and all, I seem to be doing okay for now.

I did mention that I was feeling the isolation hard; that just going out to work/church/grocery store on a weekly basis made me feel a little cabin-feverish. I mentioned how in the before-times I used to go periodically to JoAnn's or the bookstore or the Kroger's in Sherman. And she kind of laughed and said yeah, she understood that - and advised me that if I masked up, and went early in the day (so: fewer crowds), that it would be fine. (I'm not going to worry about the remote risk of a car accident; again, if I go early in the day it should be okay; I am a pretty good driver - anyway, I did okay yesterday and I was out on 70,  which has some pretty bad drivers)

I don't really NEED anything much, though if they have some of the newer issues of the British craft magazines I sometimes buy, I could get those, and there are always bits and bobs (handsewing needles, thread....) that I could stock up on. And I want to go to Kroger's; there are things they have that nowhere else does and it would be nice to get some of those things. (And also just get out). Grayson County has a mask mandate (we do not) so it should be better than here. 

Maybe I just need to do something like that once a month, along with trying to get out and walk somewhere in the region every week or so, and that will hold me until I can be vaccinated and start going out a bit more freely. (Still masked, of course, that will be a thing for a while yet, but there are some early results from Israel's vaccine program suggesting the vaccine prevents *transmission* as well as *illness* - and if those results hold up, that is very good, because shutting down transmission means the pandemic shuts down faster and we can go back to living more like we did in the past. 

I know some people would be aghast at me doing that; I read other places online like Ask Metafilter and it seems that lots and lots of people are getting their groceries delivered and never leaving the house and....I can't do that. And my doctor seemed to think that preserving some emotional health was worth balancing vs. the small risk of getting exposed. (From what I have read, it's being in places around other people for LONG periods of time in close proximity - like eating a restaurant meal in a restaurant with someone. And actually, I set a boundary tonight - one of the members of the Pastor-Parish committee, who is trying to get us meeting regularly again, suggested "we could go to a restaurant and..." and I came back with "Maybe I'm being overly cautious, but with my asthma, I have decided I'm not eating indoors in restaurants for a while yet" and they accepted that, and said, "Maybe we don't need to have a meal..." or suggested carry out. (I think that would be okay, with us all sitting far apart in the Fellowship Hall; I just don't want to be in a restaurant with gobs of people that I don't know how careful they are being)

But yeah, right now things are okay. If they ever get really NOT okay, I can call my doctor back and she will prescribe something. I honestly would rather not, I take enough meds as it is and I dislike fighting through side effects (it took a while to get the blood pressure med dosing right). 

And anyway, there's the hope eventually of things being REALLY okay, when I've been vaccinated, when my mother's been vaccinated, when the pandemic finally recedes.