September 2 Friday Update

I did it last week, I'ma do it again!

So there was an article talking about how mask mandates don't seem to lead to significantly lower COVID numbers, and after a little research they discovered that it was most likely because, well, turns out COVID is not in fact a respecter of when people need to eat and drink, and when people take their masks off to do that, these newer variants are contagious enough to spread during that time. (I've been suggesting this since day one but people keep acting as if the disease will kindly pause spreading when you need to take in sustenance.)

Since my work and life increasingly require me to be at things in-person, my standard currently is that if I'm out and about, my mask stays on. Period. If I eat or drink, it's in my car or in my closed office, some space where nobody else is going but me. During summer camp, I trekked out to my car to take some large drinks of water when I could.

I learned this week that this gets trickier when you're not staying in one location and aren't able to hop over to your enclosed space. I spent a couple days out and about with the in-laws when they came to visit, and found myself getting extremely sick in the latter half of the day. It wasn't until it happened a second time when I remembered, Oh yeah, my antidepressants make me more susceptible to heat problems.

It wasn't something I'd had to pay all that much attention to before. I hydrate fine when I am alone and can take my mask off and drink frequent water. Turns out, I DON'T hydrate fine when I have to find a place to isolate before every sip.

All of a sudden I have this new aspect of disability life to worry about. Somehow all the pieces hadn't come together to make it a problem until this week when I realized I was going to have to plan around it. It's just one more thing I have to add to my list of Things to Look Out For in our new COVID world.