My well established bad blogging habits have continued, but for some unknown reason I have the writing craving again. Does anyone still read blogs in 2021? Maybe because of the pandemic we’ve all reverted to pre YouTube days… Reading? What is reading? Anyways! For better or worse I’m going to give this another crack and we’ll see how long I last.
My last post was in 2020 and I feel like it might’ve been pre-pandemic time. It’s kind of hard to imagine pre-pandemic time isn’t it? I don’t think any of us really knew what we were in for when we first saw COVID 19 flash across our screens. I was just like anyone else at the time, I thought this was just another flu like sickness that would come and go with no serious consequences. To start out with I was pretty brazen about it to be honest with you. I figured, well I have a good immune system and I only get colds once or twice a year that last three days so, I’ll be totally fine. Reality quickly slapped me on the face when my brother-in-law, who is a high level nurse, and my doctor informed me of the gravity of the situation. You remember my dear friend, Twisty the Spine? Well Twisty treats me pretty badly, he reduces my lung capacity in nasty ways. So I was basically told that if I got COVID, the consequences would be life threatening and most likely fatal. Not to mention at the time there was concern about having enough ventilators for those critically ill with COVID. I was abruptly told that if there was a shortage and it came down to me getting a ventilator, or an able bodied man in his 50s who smokes, they’d still give it to the able bodied man because well… He’s able bodied. Nice to know society values the lives of people like me right? I could go on a rant about that but I’ll spare you and my hair, which falls out when I get stressed. I lost a lot of hair in 2020….
Obviously my COVID risk was a huge shocker for us, so we had to make some pretty drastic changes. Keep in mind this was when we didn’t know much about COVID. My doctor felt that me living in an apartment with 30+ people wasn’t a good idea, so I abruptly moved into Scott’s house with him. Because my caregivers lived in shared housing, we felt the risk associated with that was too high, so I had to lay off most of my caregivers and just have Scott look after me. I have to take a second here to talk about how amazing Scott was and has been throughout this whole fiasco. He didn’t hesitate to move me to his house or become my sole caregiver, just to make sure I was protected and safe. He looked after me with little to no breaks for close to six months before we brought in other caregivers again. I have to say he truly was a hero, and he certainly deserves a lot of respect for what he did. I know a lot of people who felt they didn’t need to consider others who are less strong, so him stepping up like he did should really serve as an example of doing the right thing.
The pandemic has really affected the disabled community a lot more than people care to acknowledge. For six months I went without having any of my regular treatments to deal with my chronic and sometimes excruciating pain. My Chiropractor’s office closed for a while, and it became increasingly difficult to even get appointments with my doctor. Most of the services I would normally use were shut down. There were so many people, especially in Fernie, who didn’t think COVID was real or that people like me who are immune compromised should be protected. So even leaving the house to go anywhere came with a certain level of anxiety. I honestly barely went anywhere for close to six months. Which is probably why I gained 20 pounds… We basically lived off takeout…
I noted a few things during the pandemic that I thought were really interesting from a disability perspective. Firstly, services or even jobs that previously “could not” be put online were now suddenly online. So all those times I was told, “no we can’t accommodate working from home” or, “no we can’t offer that service online”, the pandemic just magically made that all possible. It’s amazing what can happen when it’s the able bodied community being affected as well… Secondly, it’s funny how the government has always said they can’t raise the disability income rate above $1000 per month, but then COVID hits and suddenly they’re able to pay everyone and their dog $2000 per month. Didn’t they just prove our point…? They CAN raise the rate, but again that only affects us so why would they? And lastly, I love how so many people bitched and were outraged about mandatory masks and that they couldn’t enter stores without wearing one. I haven’t been able to enter stores with steps my whole life, but ask an able bodied person to wear a mask to enter a store and suddenly you’re taking away their rights. I barely get to function as a normal person in society at the best of times, so watching people complain about wearing masks or not being able to do certain things was really quite comical. I’m sorry but it was… I just wanted to scream WELCOME TO MY WORLD PEOPLE!!
Well that’s some pandemic perspective for you in a nutshell! I’m signing off for now, but join me again if I decide to actually make this a thing and do another post…
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