Thread by @annieelainey

Welp. I tested positive for COVID-19 and my brain is exploding.

I created an update video about how it all went down and my thoughts/feelings at this time, I’ll link it here and I’ll also be turning the transcript into a thread:

instagram.com/tv/CLAvtZzjvx0…

Video transcription:

So in about a month I will have been isolating at home for an entire year, I only left my house for necessities like walking my dog and going to the doctor and I have tested positive for COVID.

I live with my family, my sister is disabled and attends this community care center, and when they re-opened after the original lockdown, along with other schools in Florida, she HAD to go back because if she didn’t she risked losing that level of support entirely.

Throughout the week my sister had been showing cold symptoms and very quickly passed it on to me, and we’re coughing and I have shortness of breath, and because my sister had a runny nose I was like “ok chill, it’s a cold”

Even with just the cold symptoms, I really wanted my family to wear masks inside the house and they didn’t so I would like to warn that even if you see someone having allergies or cold symptoms you [and more importantly THEY] should wear a mask.

This middle part here is just an interesting coincidence; the community care center, they qualify as a “group home” so they’re eligible for vaccines.

My mom tried to get me in there, reminding them that I’m also disabled with health conditions;and they said that aid could give it a shot; I could arrive on Monday and see if they had any extra vaccines.

This news blew my mind! That I might have a chance at a vaccine!

I went through an emotional roller coaster about being so relieved but also just so angry that other disabled people are still waiting and are not being prioritized. I don’t really have words for that and I hope that it changes.

That same day that I got this news and I went through that emotional rollercoaser and thinking “I might be vaccinated as soon as Monday,” we get a text from the community care center that one of the patrons tested positive for COVID.

When we got that text my hands went numb in just terror, I guess, so yeah at this point, I am not feeling well & I have weak lungs. I have shortness of breath & coughing fits & I am losing my voice. So this is why I wanted to try to record this now before it goes away completely.

We got the earliest appointment for Covid testing and received results within 24 hours and my mom, my sister and I tested positive.

We have a program in Miami for multi generational household to try to isolate some members of the house when other members of the house have tested positive. So my brother is gonna do that.

I’m not sure what more there is to say, I have to take this now day by day and my families really scared because everyone in my house has some level of vulnerability and disability.

I will say it’s really hard to be on social media and watch people not taking this seriously and still having parties without masks and hanging out without masks and acting like the pandemic doesn’t exist when people are working so hard to protect themselves

and protect their families and sacrificing so much to try to make that happen and to protect their communities, to protect everyone. And people shit on that and that sucks.

I’ve talked about this before but it has been really psychologically triggering to witness this as someone with trauma that makes them feel like they’re responsible for everybody.

As well as triggers with constantly trying to voice some thing and feeling incredibly unheard or ignored or dismissed or Gaslit and yikes.

And the theme that I felt with my experience very loudly is feeling so close to the finish line and then breaking down right before.

Vaccines are available we have an opportunity to create heard immunity with COVID-19 and we’re so close to the finish line for people to be so reckless now.

Please be responsible and considerate and respectful, of yourself and your communities, and do your best to protect them. We’re almost there.