Thursday, August 26, 2021

and something else

 My mom called today: "I hesitated to call you, but...."

She tends to beat around the bush a lot, but I kind of knew what it was when she said she'd talked to my brother. 

He has a bad headache, a runny nose and cough, and a low fever. AFAIK no muscle aches, loss of taste, or GI symptoms, but.

He is fully vaccinated BUT he is NOT careful about masking in public. 

The good news, if there is any, is it's been two weeks since they were around her and his symptoms just developed today so I assume he picked it up somewhere in his hometown and not when they were running around Chicago at the numismatics show (and then went back to my mom)

The bad news, if this is COVID: his daughter is 8 so she can't be vaccinated yet. My sister-in-law is fully vaccinated (federal employee, she had to be, even if she hadn't already been eager to). 

I said about eight different times, "he needs to go get tested. He needs to go get tested." He is isolating in one bedroom but still. He needs to go get tested. (Also it might not be too late for the antibody treatment, if that's available to him?)

He does have a lot of respiratory crap - his asthma is worse than mine and he regularly gets sinus infections and I'm desperately hoping that's what this is, but....

he's five years younger than I am so that's what, 47, which is not in the most dangerous group, and this would be a breakthrough infection but still, I worry about my niece. 

I hope he listens to my mom when she calls back and tells him that someone with even MORE molecular/cellular biology knowledge than her (that is: me) said "he needs to go get tested."


But this sucks mightily.

If you're the praying type? Could I get some that this is JUST a sinus infection and that my niece isn't at risk?

1 comment:

Roger Owen Green said...

Yes, he MUST get tested. And, at least around here, testing is MUCH easier. Drive-in CVS, pop-up sites...