Day 5 - St Patrick's Day

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Daoibh! ☘️ It was Peter’s idea to wear our Ireland jerseys today, which I happily got on board with! Any excuse for a bit of light relief from the scary situation that we’re surrounded by.

There wasn’t too much to report from the first half of today anyway. I slept the least out of any night so far since my chest congestion started on Saturday. I feel like I was tossing and turning all night, sometimes trying to clear my chest, but most of the time just trying to get back to sleep. It all became clear in the morning though, when I read that the steroid tablets I’ve been prescribed for my chest can cause insomnia, and that they should be taken in the morning. Eight tablets at 10pm last night so probably wasn’t the smartest thing, in hindsight!

My phone also decided to pack it in during one of my bouts of wakefulness. Cue me spending over eight hours today from 8am trying to reboot the phone without losing all my saved photos etc. After hours of going from phone, to laptop, to verification code in some email address that I don’t have the password for etc, I finally got the phone going, although it’s been reset to 2017 unfortunately!

During this time, my stress was unknowingly mounting. No working phone meant that I was uncontactable by the covid19 testers, and I really didn’t want to miss that. The rising stress did make me shout at Peter once, before calming down again. However, on the bright side, the stressful shouting seemed to kickstart him into all sorts of action and he was a busy bee for the following hour or so doing all sorts of household chores!

Damo arrived in from Donegal this afternoon too. I’m going to try an avoid meeting him at all around the house, as much as possible, but we’ve made a plan together for how to keep our house as clean and safe. Peter, Damo and I all seem to have the same chesty cough at this stage, but we’re still going to follow the guidelines. Damo’s actually staying off work for the rest of the week as a result of my symptoms and imminent test. I’m delighted to hear that he won’t be heading out and potentially bringing the virus into the house!

At 9pm, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar gave one of the best political speeches I’ve ever heard. His message was stark, but it made us feel calm, rather than panicked. He got the balance perfectly right. He also covered all angles and had lots of lovely, little messages throughout. At one point he thanked teachers and lecturers for keeping the education of our students going and, while me and Peter were whooping in response, Damo was laughing and saying “oh, hmm, this is awkward!” He wasn’t specifically thanked, even though he works in pharma, making lifesaving drugs! He also didn’t specifically thank accountants - I can’t wait to text Fiona about this! Haha!

I feel great going to bed now - much improved, both physically and mentally! I’d a good old laugh with Peter, when I got giddy just disinfecting the tables before going to bed. It suddenly was hilarious to go crazy trying to disinfect all sorts of random things! I’m really starting to realise the huge importance of being able to laugh, at least once a day, throughout this.

Now here’s to my first good night’s sleep since Saturday hopefully!もっと詳しく