At church this morning, the children’s pastor asked the kids how their first week back at school was. In my mind, I couldn’t comprehend how it could have only been one week. So much as happened since the beginning of the year.
Obviously, the pandemic and election are holdovers from last year. Like a sequel in popular fiction, the second book is usually an exaggeration of the first. 4000 Covid deaths per day and a flash mob in the Capitol building—calm down Suzanne Collins!
Our personal situation is more extreme too. During the last episode of season 2020, you’ll recall Tim’s work abruptly announcing that they were not paying for health insurance for the girls and I. If we wanted to add in it would cost $1400 per month with a $7,000 deductible. Basically we’d spend 16k a year before seeing any of it back. So crazy!
We are not entirely without resources. We still have Tim’s health savings account and some our own savings accounts which built up during the forced quarantine last year. Think about it, if we bought the insurance, we’d be paying the equivalent of one ER visit per month. Who goes to the doctor every month?
We do. Remember how this first page of 2021 is trying too hard? Thursday evening after getting some fresh air, Ivy had a slight fever. A little after midnight Friday, Eliana woke me to tell me that her little sister was as seizing. Luckily we still had emergency medicine from before and it worked to relax her locked-up, tiny body.
The rest of Friday was pretty chill and Tim took a sick day and helped Elian with her online school. Maybe he can figure out third-grade math. By Saturday, Ivy’s temperature was almost down to normal, but she woke up from her nap holding her ears and crying.
Okay, we will go to the doctor, I mean Urgent Care because it’s the weekend. Tim called ahead, there was a 2 hour wait because another other local hospital had massive Covid-19 outbreak and everyone else gets sick on weekends too.
They got us a private room right away where we waited a couple hours, even with screens it goes slow. During the wait, Ivy’s temperature returned to normal, and her ears cleared. Even the Covid rapid test came out negative. The doctor sent us home with two thumbs up. We returned to the house exhausted, but my lovely friend Shawna showed up on the porch with dinner. I cried a little.
The babysitter showed up at 6:30. Oh yeah, date night. Since Ivy now had a clean bill of health, the sitter agreed to stay. But where would we go? What is even open in Hillsboro at night any more? The local drive-in only has one showing per night and we missed that. We ended up getting take-out donuts and wandering around the Goodwill until it closed. Tim bought me a yellow purse and the day ended better than it started.
I don’t know what’s happening on your page of the drama, but I hope all the main characters are hanging in there. Hold on to the good stuff and try not get too overwhelmed because we’ve got 51 more weeks to go.
