D-Day is Here! (Defense Day)

Here it is... 8 years and change from the start, Bryce is leaving to go defend his PhD dissertation on Single Mode Distributed Feedback Lasing using some sort of photonic bandgap thingie. 

I am so stinking proud of his big brain!

You will notice I said "he's leaving" and not "we're leaving."

To my horror and dismay, I tested positive for COVID on Saturday. I started feeling crappy and sinus-y on Thursday, and tested before I came home. In the car. It was negative, but we separated (me in the upstairs bedroom, him in the basement bedroom, masks in the house). It didn't go away, and I went to school Friday because a) I was negative and b) it was the day before a break and c) I was masking. Thursday and Friday I slept for 3-4 hours when I got home. Saturday morning I didn't feel worse, but I didn't feel better, so I tested again... And it LIT UP. I was in such disbelief that I took another test upstairs half an hour later, no difference. If anything, that T line lit up faster.

There were tears. Bryce was convinced that he was going to have to cancel, that his graduation was at risk. That 8 years was going to fall victim to poorly timed COVID.

That rockin' headband is to squeeze my poor head

But, I quarantined upstairs, we kn95'd in the house, he left me food on a tray table on the landing, we spoke through the "peephole" to the living room.

IT WORKED! 

He did not get sick. He is off to give his presentation, and while I am heartbroken not to be able to be there to help and to cheer, I am thrilled that he can be there at all. Because the Universe has a sick sense of humor. 

I'm feeling better, this bout was very different. Mostly focused in my head, my sinuses, my ears, my throat... And it's only recently entered my lungs but not nearly as bad as in the fall. I can nebulize 2x/day and that helps. I am grateful for that. Asthma truly makes COVID no joke. It's sucked that my head has been so awful that I haven't been able to read until very recently. I am beyond pissed that I got it -- I don't know exactly where, to my knowledge I wasn't exposed, and I've been masking consistently for weeks and weeks in prep for the big day. 

But, Bryce is ready, Bryce is healthy, Bryce is out of this plague house and on his way to be Dr Bryce!

Handsome big-brained man, ignore the swamp creature to the left. Only way to get a picture together on this momentous occasion!