I had to post this, after watching a man on TV explain to the reporter who asked him why he was not cancelling his trip to Florida given the pandemic situation respond: “Well I’m going anyway, because I am healthy and my child is healthy”….(so what if we catch the virus?)
It is not about you, Mr. Airport Man. It is about the safety and well being of others. Don’t travel if/when it increases the risk of exposure to COVID-19, regardless of your good health. Because if you catch it you can spread it to others. Don’t slip out to the beer store if you are ill. Because there are people in the line in front of you and behind you, that have vulnerabilities that you cannot see or imagine.
Stay home.
I really wish somebody got that message 18 years ago when they sent their kid to school with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), That attitude “it’s just a cold” set in motion a train wreck that had serious life changing consequences. N was 6 weeks old when he got RSV and ended up in the ICU on a ventilator. Then it got worse – scar tissue formed in his airway from the intubation after he was discharged. At 3 months he went into respiratory failure, and somewhere in the chain of events that followed he became deprived of oxygen. Brain damage was the outcome and while mistakes were made here and there I cannot lay blame anywhere. But in my heart I wish that kid with RSV had stayed home.
The problem is, the consequences of ignoring illness and going to work or the beer store, or to school anyway, are rarely visible to the sick individual. The ramifications appear days later, weeks later, often to a stranger. Spreading your illness is simply stealing when there is no possibility of being caught.
My inner child would like to go back in time and inflict my anguish upon that mom and that little innocent kid with the snot that hug from nostril to knee. But that would not bring clarity, nor satisfaction, nor redemption. My empathetic self knows what it feels liketo be devastated.
But what did I do? I wiped the boys nose with a Kleenex, I wanted to help.
COVID 19. All I can do is tell you this story, and ask you to please, please
stayq home.
lifewithautistickid 