This week started promisingly enough. I finally connected with Lemon's doctor by phone. Based on the results of the bronchoscopy, he thinks that what is going on with Lemon is largely inflammation in the lung. He felt that the 2 weeks of augmentin should have killed off the bacteria that were found, so our next main challenge is to get the inflammation under control. Of course, the main tool to do that at the moment is azithromycin, which we're pretty sure gave Lemon a bad rash. However, the doctor thinks that true azithromycin allergy is rare, and that the rash was a coincidence caused by something else. So, he assigned us a home allergy test, where we first gave Lemon 3 very tiny daily doses of azithromycin. Since he didn't react to that, we are now on our first of 3 days of a slightly higher but still small dose. If he doesn't react to that, we are supposed to try going back up to full strength and see what happens. We shall see.
Meanwhile, as I'm sure you can imagine, we have been as careful as we possibly can to avoid exposure to COVID-19. Lots of hand hygiene, barely leaving our property, and I've only been in a store twice since Wisconsin issued its "safer at home" order. Nonetheless, somehow, Papa Bear contracted something. He had a high fever, was generally exhausted, body aches, etc. We were very concerned and he called the state testing hotline, but as we expected he did not qualify for a test since he wasn't sick enough. So, we had him self-isolate in the bedroom and hoped that it somehow wouldn't spread to the rest of us, particularly Lemon.
Lime and I somehow managed to avoid catching it (or, at least, we didn't have any symptoms), but Lemon caught it and woke up on Saturday morning feeling wretched with a high fever. I contacted the pulmonologist on call, who told me to call the state testing hotline, the same one that Papa Bear had called a few days prior as it turned out. I figured that with a high fever and an underlying diagnosis of CF, Lemon would be a shoo-in for testing. But no, not at all. No test for him, either. I was floored. As the pulmnologist had said, knowing whether it was COVID or not would not have changed how we treated him--the advice would still have been hydration and Tylenol. But, the idea that at this stage of the epidemic, and with his pre-existing condition, that we would be denied a test is astonishing. The tiger in the Brooklyn zoo can get a test, though.
Fortunately, both Lemon and Papa Bear are now feeling much better. They are fever-free and back to normal operating parameters. This morning I basically picked the house up by its corners and dipped it in a vat of Lysol in an attempt to kill off any remaining viruses or whatever might be lurking on any of the various surfaces. So, at this point, we will never know what it was. I guess the main take-away here is that this is exactly what "community spread" means. You can do everything in your power to protect yourself, and yet somehow, something will creep in past your defenses. Be careful out there, everybody!
