Variolation, part 3: Negative
Nov. 20th, 2020 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[cw: illness]
(edit: part 2)
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Well, whatever that was, apparently it wasn't COVID-19.
(I kind of wonder if it's influenza. They say COVID-prevention measures also work against flu: perhaps they can render flu so-mild-as-to-be-barely-noticeable the way they can COVID. And my flu vaccination hasn't had time to kick in yet, so I'm still eligible for the top 4 strains.)
---
This *is* good news, I know. I expect that in the majority or at the *very* least the plurality of possible futures *weighted by likelihood*, I never get COVID-19, and those are better than the timeline where this was COVID.
Part of me, though, thinks about the other possible timelines. I'm back, now, to the uncollapsed probability space, where I still have a shot at the best futures but I also have a shot at far worse ones. I'm still facing possible futures with weeks of suffering; futures with chronic fatigue syndrome; futures where one day Mom starts having coughing fits despite not having left the house in several weeks, and my brother and I look at each other and share a single thought: it could only have been one of us.
(temporally nearby futures where everyone's efforts to prevent cross-contamination failed and I caught COVID-19 from the testing centre, futures where I caught it from the coughing dude on Sunday night and hadn't incubated it enough by Wednesday afternoon for it to show up on the swab)
In the timeline where I tested positive here, and where my ten-day legal quarantine passes without incident, the other me will write a variolation post subtitled "Silver Medal". She'll talk about how this is a large part of why masks are important, that even when they fail to prevent infection *outright* they can greatly reduce *suffering*. She'll talk about how there's a certain *pride* to be had here: that together, she and her mask-wearing neighbours faced the scourge of Earth, the wrath of a young but deadly god, and reduced it to half an hour of mild discomfort.
I might still win the gold. I might, if it comes down to it, still win the silver. I *might*.
---
When she got the email, Mom called aloud, "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
I walked into a part of the house I hadn't been in since Monday, and we hugged.
We're still going to have the fancy get-well-soon meal she was planning for tonight, but now it's a meal of celebration, and we will eat it together.
---
(edit: part 4)
(edit: part 2)
---
Well, whatever that was, apparently it wasn't COVID-19.
(I kind of wonder if it's influenza. They say COVID-prevention measures also work against flu: perhaps they can render flu so-mild-as-to-be-barely-noticeable the way they can COVID. And my flu vaccination hasn't had time to kick in yet, so I'm still eligible for the top 4 strains.)
---
This *is* good news, I know. I expect that in the majority or at the *very* least the plurality of possible futures *weighted by likelihood*, I never get COVID-19, and those are better than the timeline where this was COVID.
Part of me, though, thinks about the other possible timelines. I'm back, now, to the uncollapsed probability space, where I still have a shot at the best futures but I also have a shot at far worse ones. I'm still facing possible futures with weeks of suffering; futures with chronic fatigue syndrome; futures where one day Mom starts having coughing fits despite not having left the house in several weeks, and my brother and I look at each other and share a single thought: it could only have been one of us.
(temporally nearby futures where everyone's efforts to prevent cross-contamination failed and I caught COVID-19 from the testing centre, futures where I caught it from the coughing dude on Sunday night and hadn't incubated it enough by Wednesday afternoon for it to show up on the swab)
In the timeline where I tested positive here, and where my ten-day legal quarantine passes without incident, the other me will write a variolation post subtitled "Silver Medal". She'll talk about how this is a large part of why masks are important, that even when they fail to prevent infection *outright* they can greatly reduce *suffering*. She'll talk about how there's a certain *pride* to be had here: that together, she and her mask-wearing neighbours faced the scourge of Earth, the wrath of a young but deadly god, and reduced it to half an hour of mild discomfort.
I might still win the gold. I might, if it comes down to it, still win the silver. I *might*.
---
When she got the email, Mom called aloud, "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
I walked into a part of the house I hadn't been in since Monday, and we hugged.
We're still going to have the fancy get-well-soon meal she was planning for tonight, but now it's a meal of celebration, and we will eat it together.
---
(edit: part 4)
no subject
Date: 2020-11-20 08:19 pm (UTC)(Things I am *not* looking forward to when I go home, is having to worry about infecting my grandparents/parents. That was always in the pros column of staying away, even back then, and even if the overall balance has swung the other way in retrospect.)