How is everyone in the current situation? General Chat

No it's a long way from me too and I was into the fun stuff rather than competition

I hope everyone is keeping well, and those who have been hit by the virus are now feeling better and on the way to recovering. And Carole, I hope Eddie's eye is a bit better now.

Here, as from 7am tomorrow, the previous recommendation to wear a face mask will become law and everyone must wear a mask when leaving home, with the exception of children under the age of six, people with emotional, mental or medical conditions that would prevent them from wearing a mask, and drivers alone in their cars [must put one on before getting out of the car].

Masks can be homemade, makeshift, or bought, the latter being just about impossible as there are no masks anywhere to buy - except from China - but the problem then arises as to when, or even if they will arrive.

I do not know about mail deliveries in town but we are only getting letters, all packages being held at either the Israeli Postal Service main place near the airport, or if sent on, ours are held at the nearest Mobile Sorting Office which is in Ashdod. They are usually sent to whoever delivers mail on the various Moshavim and Kibbutzim in the area but our guy has not delivered anything for weeks now, just letters send from Israel. Not even letters from abroad, let alone packages, however small.

I'm not looking for any short term improvement with Eddie's eye. I just wish this ulcer would clear so I can start treating the real problem - his inflamed conjunctiva!
I haven't seen anyone wearing a mask here - apart from the lady that called from Community Support.
I ordered some CBD oil for Eddie, when he was having the initial irritation with the nodule. It arrived - yes, from China - last week. He has a little on his food, and it does seem to have helped with the swelling. Doesn't half stink though, but he doesn't seem to object to it. No wonder poor Beagles end up in labs., they are just too tolerant!

One month since Juli started this thread. I just reread the first page. Wow have things really changed.

I hope all who’ve been effected are starting to feel better and that everyone else does their best to stay safe.

Today while I was washing dishes and listening to an interview of singer and songwriter John Prine, who died last week from coronavirus, I started thinking about my parents, who live 3000 miles away. I do wish they wouldn’t insist on going out shopping and to the pharmacy. It’s unnecessary, as my sister only lives 20 minutes away, but they are stubborn. If something happens to one or both of them I won’t be able to be there. If something were to happen to one of them, who would even be able to hug me.... Sorry to be so depressing, but this really shook me.

And then later I spoke with an old friend who also lives 3000 miles away, who has been having on and off health issues with her heart. She had open heart surgery maybe 6 years ago to replace valves that were damaged when she was a teenager being treated for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Now the right side of her heart isn’t working, her chest is filling with fluid. They drained it a few days ago but it filled right back up, and she’s not a good candidate for a transplant because of the damaged valves from the cancer treatment. And she can’t see her daughter or her parents, and I was going to talk with her about how I was feeling, until I heard what was gong on with her., and she said she just wants to know how long she has. It’s hard for her to breath, she goes to bed sitting up. She is being so brave. During this crazy, scary time, she has something completely different threatening her life.

And then tonight I got good news, from another old friend 3000 miles away. He has a serious drinking problem, and is a single father. He had been sober for 3 days. He already sounded better. He had been getting ready to check into a rehab and have his mother look after his daughter, but as the crisis get worse, he pulled his daughter from school, before they were closed, and didn’t want to risk being in a facility during this time. He had to dig deep to do this on his own.

So today I was reminded by two people how to be strong in difficult and unprecedented times.

Rollercoaster day in a crazy world

A month already? I had been wanting to say something before then but was not sure whether I should and was not even sure whether I was doing the right thing even then, but the elephant could no longer be ignored.

Being so far away from everyone and only knowing what is going on in the world outside the little bubble that is my life from what I had been reading in the media - not knowing whether things really as they said they were, I worried how if and how it was affecting what I like to think of as my "Breedia family".

As you have just said, Marc, how things have changed in this last month. Now, instead of the media being full of stories, pictures and video clips about people fighting over toilet rolls, it is full of numbers. Statistics. And somehow it all seems too much to take in.

And yet the MAMILs and covidiots carry on in their selfish way, blithely ignoring the situation and flouting government instructions, and I worry about you all even more.

I hope everyone is well and that those who have been ill are recovering - and as always I send you all cyber {{{hugs}}} and love.

Thanks again for starting this thread. It’s nice to have a place to share, to vent, to hear how others are doing.

We are all in this together, and the only way we bring anything close to normal back, is by being conscious of how are actions affect others (would be a much better world if it didn’t take a pandemic to teach people this...). We can only be as strong as our weakest link..

Sorry Marc, I was typing responding to your first post when you posted a second time, so did not see it. You are like me in being so far away from family, although unlike you none are in contact with me, and one by one I lost contact with the friends I had back in England - people moved, died - and I also lost contact with work colleagues here when I had to stop working. Most of them lived in or around Tel Aviv where I worked and I was living hours away in Ashqelon, so we did not have social contact. And because of working 5½ days a week, with 5-6 hours travel each day I rarely had any contact with my then neighbours.

My dogs, first Lexi, then Pereg, and now Tikva - they, and my computer family, are really all I need. And speaking of the latter, this seems to sum it all up for me...

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We are a 'distant' family too, having all moved to new pastures when we retired. I do wonder how kith and kin were able to maintain close bonds before the internet. Just tended to stay put I suppose. Of course, we did write a lot more letters, but there were big gatherings for hatches, matches and dispatches - perhaps why these rituals became so important to us, - though personally I have told everyone that I DO NOT want a funeral!

In the absence any test, I don't know what we have had, but we are definitely improving. It shouldn't have been bog-standard 'flu as we were both vaccinated. I put leads on my dogs yesterday and walked them to the end of the road to have a snuffle on some different grass - only 50 yards, but it's the first time since I struggled to get them back home at the end of March. I'm now wondering why I picked a spot on the crest of a hill when we moved here?
I'm really glad for the help we have had, but can't wait to get back to normal. Pleased that nobody else here has reported feeling unwell. We are living through interesting times.

To be honest, there's no wonder it's spreading.

My daughter works part time for a retail store. They gave her 7 days off for isolation when she came down with all the symptoms. She phoned yesterday morning to tell them she's still coughing and breathless and they insisted she go in to work. The threat was losing the job.

Big retail store and she restocking the shelves.

That is so wrong Chris - it is not only disgustingly unfair on your daughter, who needs time to get her health and strength back, but it is also a threat to all their other employees and their customers as she could possibly be still infectious.

As you say, no wonder the virus continues to spread.

I'm absolutely fuming about it. To be honest, I think she will be leaving now that she's seen the level of compassion this company shows, not to mention their complete disregard for the health of their customers and staff

Very unfair all round. However, I'm glad Karen is showing signs of recovery. One worry less for you @Chris.

It's a major relief, Carole. We have been so very worried about her because it hit hard, but, thankfully, just for a few days. I think it will take her some time yet to get rid of the rest of the symptoms, but hopefully she is now over the worst

This just seems unconscionable. How can they be so stupid and callous. Truly unbelievable.

Can I add obtuse, dangerous, possibly/probably illegal, certainly immoral.

I did some shopping for myself and two neighbors today, after getting new tires (but not an alignment, because it unfortunately wasn’t that simple..., other repairs needed first).

The first couple, having not been out for over a month, don’t fully get the 6ft social distancing.

The other set of neighbors scared me. She wanted to give me a hug to thank me for picking stuff up for them. This is a friend who I’ll often share a hug with when I see her. I backed away, and she kept moving towards me. Eventually gave me an elbow bump, which brought her closer to me then social distancing would suggest. She kinda laughed about people wearing masks when she went out.. Asked me if I “believed all that stuff”. And they go out some.

I am not living in the same world as them. This is a person I like and generally have respect for... I’m just in disbelief, flabbergasted.

I wear a mask while I’m at work, almost the whole 10 hours a day. There are certain situations I have the opportunity to not have to wear it. I wear gloves too, at work. I wear gloves and mask when I go into a store doing errands. I like to keep the six feet distance, and already feel uncomfortable if someone comes too close. I already don’t like it when I’m in a store and someone isn't wearing a mask (I think to myself, how selfish) . . I keep a spray bottle with rubbing alcohol in my truck. If I touch my door handle with a not clean hand, I spray it, same with my keys and steering wheel and gear shift, and hands. I spray my shoes when I get home. I don’t take the dogs into all the places I used too. It is a whole new freaky way of going thru life... This could make us all OCD, certainly feels like that to me, depending on how I look at it. I’m just trying to be safe and smart and respectful, do my part. I don’t like it and I fear it’s going to be like this for who knows how long, and permanently alter... leave a scar on humanity, certainly me..

Looking out of the door at the moment there are maybe five or six people, definitely not from the same nuclear family, all walking in a close group, not only ignoring 2m social distancing but also the no more than two people group rule.

You should read some of the comments in Israeli newspapers Marc - the number of people who still insist that it is just scaremongering by the media and none of it is true.

The tragedy is that we are living in the same world as them, however much they try to deny it.

I do not go out, obviously, the furthest I go from my front door is the couple of paces to my wheelie bin, which is never moved. The binmen run down, lift the lid and take out the single tied bag of garbage I put in it and I have always wiped where the lid is touched so that is not something new.

Nobody touches my front door handle, they never have, and with no door bell people just rap on the door with their knuckles, so that is something else I do not have to worry about apart from the usual wiping the handle, and since the lockdown began I will not let anybody inside my home. Not even Amit, although of course he can get in in an emergency. Deliveries are put on the floor just inside the door while I reverse as far away as I can, and drivers have all been wearing masks and gloves since even before the lockdown, and I have been lectured by Amit that I must not pick anything up unless I am wearing gloves.

Life is not the same as it was and I frequently wonder whether it will ever get back to the normality we once knew.

I do not think it will.

I think things will change for a while but will gradually slip back to normal, though I can see more being overly obsessive about hygiene after all this, I also think rates of agoraphobia will be higher as there'll be tons of people too anxious to leave their house after this is all over.

I'm trying to stay positive, and not banging my head on the wall yet, I'm keeping myself busy in the garden (weather has helped) I’ve stopped watching the news and reading everything about it in the media, as I don’t want to become paranoid, don’t wash my hands excessively ect:

I am very disappointed in the neighbor who seems to think that masks and social distancing aren’t really necessary, or whatever it is she thinks. Honestly I don’t really want to know exactly what she thinks. As far as picking stuff up at the store for her, It seems to me she just didn’t want to wait in the line outside, because it’s “inconvenient”, rather than trying to limit her exposure. She is about to turn 70, her partner is 75. Ugh

I have become more relaxed about hygiene than I was before I became ill. It's not easy to have rigid rules when you are not the only one in the house. I always did wash my hands fairly frequently anyway. I wipe the door handles, flat surfaces and the taps with a spray, but I ran my car yesterday and never thought about that!
Today was the third day, I am back to walking my dogs again! OH is not joining in though, and I sense that he may be opting out of exercise for good. Though I am seeing more walkers, with and without dogs, than previously, we are all keeping to the rules and allowing lots of space - and I am seeing far more dogs on leads, which makes life with Eddie easier, as he can't stand Retrievers.
I am feeling that I would like to start doing my own food shopping again - just at Aldi, which is only at the bottom of the hill, and doesn't seem to have had much of a queue when I have passed by with the hounds. OH is being grumpy about it, and says I am not considering him - so I'm not sure what I will do. I really don't like having to ask others for help now I am fit again.