Saturday 14th March 2020
Today we went in search of soap in prep for the mid week self imposed lockdown. It seems toilet roll is just the first in a chain event and the current “must have” is now soap. That and ketchup, but we don’t care about that and the fact that ketchup has been wiped from the face of the earth, doesn’t really bother us.
After the soap expedition finally proved fruitful, we slow cooked a few dinners and meal prepped some “real” food to freeze, because unlike ketchup and dunny roll, it appears no one is actually buying anything remotely healthy. Which I find ironic because if all you eat in isolation is Pot Noodles, baked beans and biscuits, then surely you’ll be so constipated by the first week, that you wont shit anyway.
Greg decided to celebrate his last weekend of freedom to its fullest by “popping” to the neighbors for a “few” beers. That was almost 9 hours ago.
Meanwhile I'm preparing a “Sheep Dip” type concoction in my Thermomix to dunk him in on his return.
George is already bored shitless and moaning about how much he hates being in lockdown. I haven’t got the heart to tell him we haven’t started yet but rather I just couldn’t be arsed to provide any entertainment or go anywhere today.
Sunday 15th March 2020
Last night, Greg returned to base camp an impressive 9 and a half hours after setting off to the house two doors down. I endured a half hour drunken ramble about how him and his mates were all quitting drinking because they drink too much (no shit Sherlock) and how he only drank because life is so hard in our situation. This information was something that I gave no fucks about hearing at 11pm having looked after the kids all day on my own. Greg, having realised I gave no fucks, promptly passed out on the sofa with half a pizza on his lap and an unfinished beer in his hand. I went to bed with Alice, who'd been sat patiently at the end of her bed all night like she was waiting for a fucking bus. The bus of course being when Mum gets up to go to her bed and Alice yells "I'm reeeeeady"! and wobbles after me, uninvited, like an extra from Z Nation.
Next day we managed to squeeze in two final playdates for George before the world ends, so he was at least happy and whinging was minimal. Alice danced extensively and enthusiastically to The Wiggles as per usual, changed her T Shirt approximately 87 times and spent the rest of the day emptying and repacking my tupperware draw. Greg drank a lot of water and took the recommended daily maximum of Panadol and I tried to find an algorithm to calculate how much Nutella we need for the winter should it become a high demand commodity.
Monday 16th March 2020
Because I like to think I'm a fun and hilarious Mum, I started the day by bursting into Georges room with my hands cupped around my mouth like a mega phone and shouted in my best tannoy voice "We are entering Pre Lockdown. We are entering Pre Lockdown. This is not a drill, I repeat this is not a drill".
George briefly peered up from his I pad, with a look of part pitying smile and part "Jeez, I have months of this woman" and simply said "Have you ironed my sports shirt"? I left to get the ironing board.
Alice then bowled out of our bedroom (because thats where she ends up every damn night), she greeted me with a hug, told me I had a "fat bum" and that I was her "best friend". She still thinks Im cool, clearly.
I took both kids to their separate schools and Alice was greeted with the news she was no longer allowed to Hi 5 and she needed to learn the "Elbow Bump". Now anyone with a Special Needs child of almost any age will know just how important this type of greeting is to them. In fact a well reciprocated and enthusiastic Hi 5, versus a reluctant and half hearted one, can literally determine the outcome of an entire day. Not to mention that its taken forever to get Alice to stop hugging everyone and move over to the less invasive Hi 5 as it is. And when I say "everyone" I mean everyone, including random people we don't know, the homeless, stray dogs with mange, drug addicts, people with questionable hygiene, shop mannequins and so on. Anyway I thought Id let the school deal with this one and as I left I saw her using the palm of her hand to Hi 5 her teachers elbow for about the 5th time. Clearly the message wasn't computing.
Called into Woollies on the way home for a few non panic buying supplies and I set of an alarm at the self serve counter for trying to purchase 3 small tins of Arrow Root. Are you fucking serious? Even the checkout girl had no idea what bloody Arrow Root was. I explained that its a gluten free flour and thickener that no bugger ever uses but if you had a kid with either intolerances or an unhealthy obsession with Brazilian Cheese Puffs then it was a regular staple. And here was the flaw in my purchase, its a "flour" and therefore on the shit list of things we can't buy more than two of due to fuckwitted panic buyers. So in the blink of an eye, Alice can no longer Hi 5 and is on rationed "Cheesy Puffs". I suspect this new dietary restriction will be as well understood and welcomed as the Elbow Bump.
Shit's getting real.
Tuesday 17th March 2020
I had an epiphany last night. I realised that my world is now becoming everyones world. The Normals are suddenly having to walk in shoes of The Onlys. I have decided to name us and those like us, "The Onlys" because Im sick to fucking death of hearing how COVID19 is not a big threat because "It only kills...". We are part of The Onlys and we can hear you.
But anyway back to the epiphany. Yesterday our esteemed leader announced that for the next six months (quite possibly twelve) life would be thrown in "chaos" and we should expect some pretty significant disruptions to all that we hold dear. This chaos and disruption included, no air travel, no foreign holidays, no socialising, no concerts, parties or festivals and no attending big sporting events. It means isolating when ill, making sure we had plenty of medicines on standby, it means we have to take our health and hygiene far more seriously because we are now all the position of knowing that this years big illness is highly likely to land us in hospital and there is the gloomy possibility it could even kill us.
This "chaos and disruption" IS OUR NORMAL. Its the normal for a lot of people, its our every damn day. For years. Sorry but I feel the need to say that again, EVERY DAY, FOR YEARS. No air travel and no foreign holidays? How sad. No parties, concerts and mass social events? You poor lambs. I make no apologies, but this is not chaos, it a minor fucking inconvenience for "Normals" and with each day its apparent just how many will do anything they can to avoid suffering a minor "inconvenience" for the benefit of "The Onlys". in fact, the one concert/festival we will all be seeing for sure this year is an event I like to call Pestilence 2020. But the good thing is its a free gig, we are all invited and for once, we are in this shit together. So get out your wellies and your hair garlands, stay the fuck at home and watch the show.
In other news, I saw Alices teachers for a sign off this morning. She is by all accounts making fantastic gains and our biggest concern was that after 6 weeks straight of nothing but improvements, we were going to loose momentum if shes out of school for an extended period. But, it is what it is and now we just hope I don't loose my shit and bury her in the back garden, trade her on E Bay or donate her to medical science during lockdown. Fun fact though, she correctly elbow bumped all her teachers this morning.
Chased up the buyers of our house this morning. If they back out or cant get finance then we have to pull out of our purchase. Much as I'm dreading celebrating Pestilence 2020 in The Shit Shack, we really need this sale/purchase to go through. At this stage its all still going ahead but we have six days to completion and more than ever in our lives it is
clear that A LOT can happen in six days. Watch this space.
Collected as many of Alice's meds as we could, but the pharmacy is over run so we could only get a months worth and they'll get the rest to us next week. One month of meds for Alice is still A LOT of meds. This is just her Sodium Benzoate. It doesnt include he twice daily Dextromethorpham and her once daily Lovan, plus the huge amounts of Vitamin c that Im forcing down the throats of the entire family.
Wednesday 18th March 2020
And so it begins, our first day of full lockdown.
Hmm so far its not going to plan. Alice asked to go back to bed at 9am and slept till 10am. She ate morning tea, allowed me to do 30 mins of her laser therapy (something I will explain in depth in a separate post on "Therapies"), then promptly got the arse with me and demanded she go back to bed. She collected up 9 toys for companions, including two beer holders, Peter Rabbit, Special Agent Oso, Daddy Pig, a pair of swimming shorts, a large inflatable ball, a rainbow coloured Poo Emoji cushion and an empty water bottle and slept for another hour. By 3pm she was asking for yet another nap and slept for an hour and a half. Now in NKH excessive sleep almost always means an illness is on its way, so I'm partially awaiting the onslaught of an illness but hoping she's just exhausted after 6 weeks of trying so hard to keep up with her peers in her new school.
George was a trooper and did all his home studies unattended, while I spent most of the day in bed with his sister sleeping across me. We did however manage to fit in a brief Nerf battle during her few wakeful hours, but a ceasefire was called when we realised that Alice had used the distraction of war to throw handful after handful of stones in the swimming pool.
I whipped up three jars of homemade Nutella that I reckon will last us all of a week or two. The shops are worryingly bare, no bread, no meat, still no loo roll and limited soap products. The continued fuckwittedness of the majority of shoppers is clearly showing no signs of slowing up but my anxiety has eased a little as Woolies is now doing priority food delivery for the elderly and disabled. For once there seems to be a minor advantage for our situation.
Other than that we all survived Day One relatively unscathed.
Ticket Sales for Pestilence 2020 Australia as of today is 568 with 35 people from Western Australia (WA) signed up for the event.
Thursday 19th March 2014
My Facebook Status This Morning:
Imagine a world with limited or no socializing, no air travel, isolating when sick, the constant threat that a cold or flu will kill your loved ones every single day. Imagine having to stock pile meds and knowing if the supply runs out you could die. Imagine not being able to hold down a job or leave the house for most of your life. Imagine the mind blowing levels of stress and anxiety and fear 24/7, forever. Now imagine that but no one else having to do it and therefore not understanding. Congratulations you now have a child with NKH.
We are only two days in and Alice is already telling me shes a cat called "MeeMow" and is wearing her T Shirt over her face. George was seen at one point holding a metre long piece of card board tubing that he found in the garage, in front of his undies shouting "Look at my weiner" and even Venom the pet snake is feeling the pressure and has sunk her fangs into George's hand for the first time since she came to live with us in September. And to think we risked our lives to venture to the pet shop and panic buy frozen mice for her. Perhaps a Wuhan inspired snake broth will be on the menu before the winter is over.
Saw on the news today how the internet its going to shit out on us imminently because it can't take the strain. With everyone working from home, on line learning, on line shopping, on line panic buying, or kids just caning the shit out of the internet by spending hours on You Tube watching other people play Fortnight, it will apparently buckle under the strain before too long.
With this thought fresh in my mind I decided I'd better Facetime my Mum in the UK. We are supposed to check in on the elderly after all and she is already in self imposed isolation as she's acutely aware that she's in that group that will just be left to die and decompose at home if this shit really goes down. I'm actually very proud of her for taking this REALLY seriously, which is ironic because my Mum is not they type of person who takes much of anything seriously. She tells me shes ran out of wine because she's upped her alcohol intake considerably in an attempt to make her body as inhospitable as possible to a virus. So thank you to her friend who restocked her with no human contact and kindly left wine outside the door.
In a slightly spooky end of the world type way, the internet connection was shite, I could see her but she couldn't see me and several times she looked very pixilated. Or maybe it was pickled. I cant be sure.
Ticket Sales for Pestilence 2020 Australia is today at 709 with 52 people attending from WA.
Friday 20th March
My day at 6am with a closed fist flying punch to the eye from Alice. This is one of the unspoken joys of having a child who sleeps in your bed but has a raging movement disorder. Much like those video clips you see of people with Parkinsons, before and after they take their meds (or smoke a joint), Alice has very little control of her limbs on waking. Once medicated things calm down but she cant take her meds until shes eaten so the first half hour of the day is a time of falls and flying punches.
She did however tell me as I clutched my face and swore into my palms, that my hair looked "fab-oo-loss". We have a strange relationship for sure.
We are only onto our third day of home education and George has already worked out exactly how he can get out of doing most of his study. If he plays with and entertains Alice, then I can actually get the washing hung out, the beds made, dinner cooked and if I'm lucky I might even shower, or tidy up. As such I don't pester him about his study schedule being completely ignored. Right now its a bit of a win win situation all round, so I'm letting it go, but even at this early stage in the game, its glaringly apparent that my idyllic image of homeschooling my kids and George actually catching up to his peers is really rather unrealistic.
Still no news on the buyers for our house and now both me and Greg are getting nervous. He has until 4pm on Monday but is already suggesting he needs an extension. Under normal circumstances, its no big deal, but in an imminent apocolyse situation its kind of vital that he pulls his finger out. If we cant get The Shit Shack in a livable state before Australia grinds to a halt then we really are up shit creek, in a shit shack without a paddle. And you just know the shops will be out of paddles in the next month.
786 cases Australia wide today but still only 52 in WA. Thankfully Pestilence 2020 is looking less popular over here than in the Eastern States. But then as any Aussie will tell you WA is behind in most things, so gives us time and Im sure we'll catch up.