As Expected

 This was supposed to be a happy post that came out last week.  Writing about being excited, doing something important, and getting to do things that would help bring back some sense of normalcy.

But, y'know, with my family we couldn't possibly have that.

On March 23rd I managed to get myself an appointment for the covid vaccine.  Not the easiest feat where I am, but got one near my home, and after booking mine, actually managed to book one for a nearby time for my mother.  Half the house starting to get vaccinated, all in one swoop.  Squishy was practically vibrating from happiness, and I was elated.  Honestly, just having an appointment hit me incredibly hard.

And even though I spent a month trying to get an appointment, showing excitement and relief from the chance at finally getting my vaccine, my mother was acting like this was an annoyance.  Like a horrible obligation that she didn't want to deal with, when she works with the public on a daily basis.  Her lack of care irritated me, as did the fact that she did absolutely no work in trying to get her own appointment.  Showed no interest in even trying.  And her lack of care for it shows in what happened.

All that week she was complaining of allergies.  Almost every time I looked at her, she was taking antihistamines, tylenol, and cough medicine.  Drugging herself to where she could ignore anything that was happening with her, and I'm sure you can already see where this is going.

She went out every single day that week.  Running from store to store, or out with friends, or off to work.  Or even to our vaccine appointment, where I noticed she was coughing an awful lot, and kept pointing it out, only to be told that it was just allergies.  

Good news, we got our first stab, and two weeks after our second is mother's day.

The morning after our first dose, my mother goes to work, and comes home about an hour afterward.  One of the other girls in the shop got a rapid test the night before, as she's been taking care of her family with covid, and came up positive.  So, the shop closed down, and everyone needed to test.  We're sitting on the porch talking about it, and suddenly my mother is talking about how she's been exposed to covid a handful of times in the last two weeks.  Like it's nothing, and she shouldn't be worried about it, that she was in close proximity to people she knew were covid positive, and all week has had to pump herself full of drugs in order to be functional.

At this point, I knew what was going to happen.  I was angry beyond belief, and still am at the complete lack of concern for those around her.  I made her an appointment to get tested, because she wouldn't have otherwise, because she was still trying to claim that she just had a cold.  To no one's surprise, she was positive for covid, and by the time she got her results, everyone else in the house was symptomatic.  My father, with a fever, and talking about how he felt horrible, was still trying to say she would get a false positive on her test due to the vaccine.  After a year of denying covid, even as he sat there with it, was still trying to ignore it.  He eventually had to go to the hospital for antibody treatments, because it hit him so hard.

My mother would ask me how I felt, and rather than actually listening, would just ask if I took some number of meds to mask the symptoms.  As soon as I would tell her I didn't, because I wanted to actually be able to keep track of how I was doing, she would tell me I was stupid.

I'm sorry, I guess I should just pump myself full drugs so that I can ignore the moral and ethical issues of my actions and claim that I'm fine.

Whenever people call her on the phone, she has a carefully structured story that makes herself look like she was innocent and had no idea what was happening, and she tried to do all the right things.  It's like I'm not allowed to stop being angry with her, because she's trying to just keep doing worse things.

As of writing this, she's well outside of her ten days from symptoms first appearing, and I'm on day six.  Squishy is fine, but a little run down, I have dregs of a headache and congestion, and my father got home from the hospital at five in the morning.  My mother, who should be completely back to normal still has some level of symptoms, and is exhausted.  I can't even accurately tell how she's doing though, because she keeps taking a handful of different meds like clockwork, then claiming she got better so quickly.

I'm grateful that I'm making it through this, but if this isn't telling of how shitty my parents are, then I don't know what is.