You know. It was quiet. We managed to get through almost 3 months of school with nothing.
To be honest, even I got overly confident. Hell, wife and I were planning a winter trip. She got that urge to roam, so we were going to do a bit of travel at the end of the year.
Cases were going down. Vaccine for kids is right around the fucking corner.
Then, all of a sudden….it happened.
Got the call late Sunday afternoon from my son’s school. Someone he is directly interacts with (they never will tell you who) tested positive for COVID-19. Prior to that, we were having a great weekend. Got his haircut. Did some last minute halloween stuff. No symptoms of anything during that whole time. High energy, big appetite. Feeling good.
Hey, do you even know what the current quarantine protocols are, if you have no symptoms? I sure didn’t.
Now, the interesting part of this, my school district does NOT enforce any of this. If you have been exposed, you can send your kid right back to school. Only if they become symptomatic do they enforce it.
And as stressed before, it’s a decision that the parents shouldn’t be the ones making. People should fucking care enough to stop the plague.
But the choice is in fact my wife and I’s. So, I could have sent my son back to school. I didn’t. To be honest, I think my wife would have, just from a stress perspective.
But, if I can stop the rona spread, I will.
So, we kept him home till we got a test on day 5.
Speaking of things I didn’t know, I didn’t know you can get a test at your pediatrician now. So we booked it for day 5 (wednesday).
Pediatrician recommended a PCR (which will cost us an extra day), but apparently, her experience is that they were less reliable if you were asymptomatic. And she wanted to make sure my son was in the clear. Fine. No problem.
Now….I did tell my son in advance what was going to happen…he was not ready for for the sensation. He’s good with shots and such. But…the second that stick went up his nose…
He came about 2cm from slapping the nurse in the face. Just started flailing. I had to hold him down to get it done.
Once it was over, he calmed down pretty quick. I used it as a learning opportunity, “Do you see why we wear masks? Wash hands? Socially distance?”
Anything to keep the stick out of his nose he was fine with.
And all of that shit……and the PCR was negative.
I know I did the right thing for society. I did what I was supposed to. We will catch up on his school work. Its not like he missed a ton of time, but it was enough to annoy me.
And I am really hoping we are at the 2nd half of this thing. But, I still have the same lingering thought: when is the next time I will have to do this?
I’m sure it’ll happen again. As long as people don’t care, which seems to be the constant, it will happen again. That was the risk we balanced when chose to send him to school in person. I just hope we get a little luck for a change. Maybe. We will see.
All I know is, first chance I get, my son is getting his shot. Hopefully enough parents agree to the same.