Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

I’ve had The Clash stuck in my head all day today. Probably this is because I am struggling with a decision. I tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday, and my district wants me back tomorrow. Clearly, five days is all anyone needs to have and recover from this disease, right? Maybe it is. I don’t know. We came late to the covid party and my whole household got it for the first time this month. I do know that my husband, who is never sick, and even when he is, rarely stays still for more than a day or two, was flat out for seven days and then was able to be up and about doing a few things. He nearly collapsed one afternoon because he overdid it by working quietly on his computer at home all day. All that sitting and thinking wore him out to the point that he actually admitted that he felt really sick again and went back to bed. So five days does not sound great to me.

Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble…

I am still testing positive, although the line is very faint. I am coughing very hard and very frequently. My brain fogginess is such that I forget words, where I am going, and how to use household implements. I tried to make my son some tacos for lunch, could not remember what oil was called or what I needed or why when staring into the cupboard – directly at the oil. I drifted around with the tortillas in my hand, wondering where I was supposed to put them. My husband took the tortillas and gently pushed me back toward the bedroom. I am lightheaded and slightly off-balanced. Everything feels like it is canted to the side and I bump into things. My head has pounded for several days. I cannot concentrate for more than half an hour. Trying to look at a screen blurs my vision, which shifts to double vision within an hour of attempting to “work through it.”

I know perfectly well that I am in no condition to drive anywhere, let alone do something really dangerous like wrangle an overstuffed classroom of very challenging 8th graders. I know that I need to stay home.

And if I stay it will be double…

I have not worked at all this month. Well, I’ve done the unpaid, answer crisis email and write lesson plans and apologize repeatedly to my principal thing, but I have not been to school. At all. All month. My district requires a doctor’s note for any absence more than five days, so I am probably already in trouble, since I missed three days with my sick family, two when I was symptomatic, but testing negative, and three more once I had tested negative. I will definitely be in trouble if I miss one more day. Even worse, the district requires a doctor’s note that I am clear to work before I return. My doctor’s office will not schedule appointments for patients who have covid, so either I am going to have to do two virtual appointments, if they still offer those, or go to urgent care instead of resting and somehow get them to write me an absence note for work. I have no idea how to get urgent care to write me a note that says that I am ready to go back to work. Can you go to urgent care to prove that you are healthy?

(I assume that my mom writing me a note explaining to the school that I am sick won’t cut it.)

(Even if I am being treated more like a student than a functioning adult who is responsible, hard-working, and good at her job.)

Worse still, I have already been gone a lot since Winter Break. And I mean A LOT. My son’s health suddenly took a nose dive on January 2, and he randomly vomited nearly every day in January and the first half of February. We went to the ER twice, and the doctor twice, and had countless phone consultations with his pediatrician. I spent days on the phone and email, orchestrating patient care, prescriptions, follow-ups, asking questions, corresponding with his school and his teachers, and so on. In January, in the middle of this, I also got sick and missed a couple of days. In February, I got sick again and missed another couple of days. I was not sleeping much, eating less, and lost 16 pounds in six weeks. Halfway through February, things started to look up, and my son managed to go back to school for a few days. Then he had a seizure, and we were back in the ER, this time in an ambulance. Then he caught what I had been struggling with. He rallied for a Thursday and Friday, then got sick again on the weekend, continued through Monday and Tuesday morning, rallied again on Tuesday afternoon and felt better than he had since December. That Tuesday was February 28, and the last day of my authorized intermittent leave.

Then Wednesday morning, he woke up with Covid-19. So here we are.

In January and February, I missed 24 days of work. That does not take into account the three holidays, two professional development days, one comp day after parent-teacher conferences, and two snow days that also happened in those two months. I was at school significantly fewer days that I was gone.

And now it is March 12, and I have not been to school since February 28. Not one day this month. My classes are in chaos, I have had about 30 different subs, my room was trashed on February 28 and will be worse now. The majority of my students will not have done any of the work that I laboriously prepared. My grading is behind. I have had new students added whom I have yet to meet. My curriculum timing has been tossed out of the window. I think I have over 100 emails.

If I miss even one more day, the entire cobwebby network that is holding my teaching, and possibly my actual job, together will fall apart. If I go back to work, I risk exposing people to covid (even with my N95 mask on), which is indefensible, and I risk making myself a great deal sicker, in which case I would miss even more time and everything would get even worse.

Should I go or should I stay now?
Should I go or should I stay now?
If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?