Tiny bubbles

By Nancy Black

The entrance to my house during the holidays was more of a revolving door than a front door. Throughout the month of December, I hosted little bubbles of people in my home. No large gatherings. Just a few select souls at randomly scheduled times. 

Personally, I was stricken with bronchitis before Christmas. By the time I finally made an appointment and arrived at my doctor’s office, I wasn’t taking any chances. 

I asked them to test me for everything: STREP, the flu, COVID, mono and pneumonia. I had none of those, but my serious chest congestion resulted in a round of steroids, which was its own unique experience. Who knew steroids made you so hungry? I didn’t, but I can guarantee you I gained weight during this round of medicine. And it wasn’t just because there were holiday goodies around.

Because of my bronchitis, I wasn’t able to join some family members who were in from Austin for a day at the Arboretum as we had planned. But they came over to my home beforehand and we had a lovely visit before I sent them on their way and headed back to bed. 

By the time my son came home from the Navy, I was feeling better, but he was just recovering from COVID, so our family distanced ourselves from him. His younger sibling wouldn’t even be in the same house with him for the first few days. They stayed at the boyfriend’s house. Oh, but wait. Now the boyfriend’s mother has COVID. Yikes! The shuffling around of college students and houses in our family was like a game of chess.

As we approached December 25, my sister, the doctor, and her wife arrived, but they, too, had to stay clear of our still COVID positive midshipman. Both have compromised immune systems due to various health conditions. They ended up driving back to College Station before Christmas Day because of the greater risk.

Dallas County recorded a new record number of COVID-19 cases during the last two weeks of 2021. Right now, about one in three COVID tests in the state are coming back positive, according to UT Southwestern.  

Fortunately, for the vaccinated and healthy, most cases are mild, or even 

asymptomatic. So, if you’re still not vaccinated, get vaccinated. If you’re vaccinated but not boosted, get boosted. This virus is not going away anytime soon. And to minimize spread to the vulnerable and ourselves during this spike, we should all keep to our tiny bubbles for a while.