Being useful

 

One of the many challenges of these past nine years of living through two cancer diagnoses and their consequences along with pulmonary disease is that, most of the time, I feel relatively useless. This past year has been frustrating for all and downright painful for many, and has only added to my sense of being a person who takes far more than she can give. That was never the person I believed I was.

But today, for a change, I was actually able to do something helpful. Both of our daughters are teachers in Massachusetts. After many months of showing rather poor support for their educators, the state finally did the best thing any state can do right now: they opened appointments to teachers for vaccinations for COVID-19. Just one problem: booking appointments can require quite a lot of time on-line with a system that opens each day at 8:30 am, when most teachers are engaged with students. This provided a unique opportunity for Barry and me to step in and offer to help. So, this morning, we had 3 laptops going in an effort to log in to the site and find appointments. The first one Barry was able to schedule was over an hour away from Sharon. But then we managed to get on to the site that included appointments at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, about 6 miles from their homes. And from there we were able to schedule an appointment for each daughter, both on the same day but a number of hours apart.

And now, we see that Massachusetts has finally lifted travel restrictions for those who have been fully vaccinated:

Individuals who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for at least 14 days are no longer required to quarantine or have a recent negative test result upon arriving in Massachusetts, under a new exception quietly made to the state’s emergency travel rules this week.

The updated rules — which apply to most people visiting or returning from states with high COVID-19 rates — say that asymptomatic individuals who have gotten both doses of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine or a single dose of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine more than 14 days ago do not need to quarantine for 10 days or have a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival in Massachusetts.

Why was the exception “quietly” made? I cannot answer that.

With all of this combined, but admittedly continuing to err on the side of extreme caution necessitated by my underlying pulmonary disease, we are hopeful to be able to travel to Sharon when the weather is warm enough for us to remain largely outdoors to visit with our children and grandchildren. This is the first time we have actually even been able to seriously consider doing that.

And that is indeed happy news.

Love,                                           

Rebecca