Blog – Top of JC’s Mind

Pfizer vaccine approval

Today, August 23, 2021, the United States Food and Drug Administration has announced the full approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19, for people aged 16 and up. People aged 12-15 are still being immunized under the emergency use authorization. It is also expected that, in the coming weeks, Pfizer will apply for emergency use authorization for children aged 5-11. Research is ongoing on children 6 months-4 years. Also, most adults will become eligible for a third dose to boost immunity, given from 8-12 months after the second dose.

Meanwhile, both Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, the other two vaccines available under emergency use authorization in the US, are continuing their research and applications to expand their age ranges and gain full approval, too.

It’s possible that, for some people who have been reluctant to be vaccinated, the full approval of the Pfizer vaccine might be enough to convince them to receive it. The US has seen many more shots being administered in recent weeks as the delta variant has surged and people realize that nearly all the people being hospitalized and dying are those who were unvaccinated. Unfortunately, it takes several weeks to build immunity from the vaccine so the delta surge will likely continue into the coming months.

The other expected impact of the full approval of the Pfizer vaccine is that more employers may mandate that their workers be immunized before returning to in-person work and more businesses may require immunization (or alternatively a recent negative test) for their patrons.

As regular readers may remember, my spouse B, daughter T, and I are all part of the Pfizer Phase III trial for the vaccine. B and T were lucky enough to receive the actual vaccine in August 2020 while I wound up being in the placebo group. When the vaccine received emergency use authorization, the study was unmasked so that people in the placebo group could receive the vaccine, which I did in February 2021. I will continue to be followed as part of the original study through August 2022. B and T, meanwhile, have entered into the third dose phase of the study. They will be providing data for the continued study of how much immunity boost occurs with the third dose and how long it lasts.

I continue to mourn for all those who are suffering as a result of the pandemic. Please, everyone, listen to the public health specialists in your area, receive the vaccine as soon as it is available to you, and mask, distance, and wash hands as directed. Please, do everything you can to protect the health of yourself, your loved ones, and your community.

SoCS: blogging mode

A few days ago, I posted about going into a new blogging mode.

I shouldn’t have.

While I did manage one post in line with my new mode, a complication has arisen with Paco’s health. I’ve had very little sleep and no real idea of what today will bring.

This is where I would usually say something like “stay tuned” but I have no idea if it will be a few hours or a few days or longer before I have an opportunity to post again – about Paco or anything else.

I’ll be heading over to the nursing home as soon as we get to a reasonable hour – unless the phone rings before a reasonable hour arrives…

*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “ode or a one or two syllable word that rhymes with ode.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/08/20/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-21-2021/

New York State update

The first topic of my (hopefully brief) updates is the state of affairs in New York, where I live near Binghamton.

Governor Cuomo is resigning effective August 24th in the wake of an investigative report from the attorney general about allegations of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment. While the governor still contends that he did nothing criminal, he has decided to resign rather than face impeachment by the State Assembly and a trial in the State Senate.

Cuomo has almost no support from any Democrats in state or national office. He actually hasn’t had their support for months, as I alluded to in this post from March. Now, though, the outcry is even greater, so he decided he could no longer be effective as governor, and thus, resigned, giving two weeks notice, which allows time for Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul to prepare to take over the governorship.

In practical terms, the state is in a better time to transition to a new governor now than it was in March. The budget is in place and, while the delta variant has driven up case numbers in recent weeks, New York is in a much better position than many other states with lower vaccination rates. Lt. Gov. Hochul has been very actively involved in policy against the pandemic, particularly in her home region of western NY, and has long been “on the road” for the administration, visiting all sixty-two counties every year. She has often represented the governor’s office on economic development issues.

She will be the first woman to serve as New York’s governor and is known for her collaborative style of leadership, which will be a stark contrast to Gov. Cuomo. Unfortunately, she is taking over the governorship in the third year of a four-year term, so she will almost immediately face having to gear up a campaign for the Democratic primary next spring.

I wish her well with the New York State motto “Excelsior” which is usually translated as “ever upward.” Despite the challenges of 2021, I look forward to her tenure as governor and to her leadership as we continue to deal with the pandemic.

an update and a plan

I have been posting less than usual over the last couple of months as we have been dealing with health difficulties with my father, known here as Paco. He had a couple of falls in June, resulting in some cracked bones, which have been healing well while he has been in a rehab program. Unfortunately, he also suffers from dementia, which has worsened, and from a number of other health conditions, which are not unexpected in a 96-year-old but which have necessitated remaining in a nursing home rather than being able to move back to the assisted living floor where he lived previously.

It has taken a lot of time with in-person visiting and inordinate amounts of time dealing with paperwork and red tape. My sisters have been coming into town to help, but I am still not finding time to write as much as I would like.

On Monday, I’m happy to report that the UK contingent of our family – our daughter E, her spouse L, and their two children 4-year-old ABC and just turned 1-year-old JG – arrived from London for a two week visit. It is our first opportunity to meet JG in person. She is adjusting to our actually being flesh-and-blood people rather than images on a screen. It’s amazing that she is able to deal with being a different place with different people after being in lockdown so much of her life, especially when you consider it took two large airports, a plane, and the longest car ride of her life to get here. Also, five hours worth of jetlag. It’s also amazing how much ABC remembers from when she lived with us, given that this is her first time back here since she moved to the UK in October 2019.

Because of the delta variant’s prevalence, we haven’t ventured much from the house over these last days and probably won’t be taking the children to many indoor spaces, given that they are too young to have been vaccinated. We do plan a visit to Paco later this week. When the weather is better, we will also be able to go to the parks and take rides on the carousels for which Broome County is known.

My younger sister is here visiting and helping with Paco and my older sister and her spouse will arrive next week for a few days. My plan is to carve out a bit of time for some posts which will update topics about which I frequently post; I’m hoping to be brief, which is always a challenge for me!

Let’s see if I manage to follow through with this plan…

One-Liner Wednesday: power

Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/08/18/one-liner-wednesday-cinnamon/

SoCS: luck

I’m not sure I believe in luck anymore.

Or maybe I only believe in luck, given that no amount of thought, planning, and preparation seems adequate?

Hard to say…

Was it lucky that Paco, after literally months of not being able to even remember how to even answer his phone, suddenly remembered how yesterday?

I thought that maybe he was recovering some brain function that we thought had been permanently lost in his falls in June.

Or was it unlucky because he called me at 12:45 AM to ask about a dental appointment that was on his calendar that he didn’t remember going to?

I called the aide station and asked for them to remove the receivers from his room. I also hoped that he would go to sleep. It was odd that he was awake at that hour because he hadn’t slept much during the day, either, and lately he has been napping extensively and sleeping all night.

At 1:45 AM, my phone rang again. It was Paco, calling to tell me that his phone wasn’t working. The aide hadn’t realized that there were two wireless handsets and Paco had found the second one, most likely the one on the homebase that was hidden behind his television.

I called the aide station to ask them to get the second handset out of there, which they presumably did, but I, who had only slept maybe an hour before the first call came in and not since, still couldn’t go back to sleep so I got up and did a bit of correspondence and finally went to sleep sometime after 3:30.

Of course, I was awake by 7.

On Saturday morning, the nursing home has a singalong at 10:00. Singalongs are by far Paco’s favorite activity, so I had planned to stay at home this morning and spend a few hours finishing touch-ups and a cover letter to submit my poetry collection to a press for consideration, but I don’t know if I have enough brain to do it.

Stream of consciousness blogging is one thing; editing poetry and following detailed submission instructions is another. I’m not sure my brain can handle the second.

It’s too bad I don’t drink coffee.

Or tea.

Or anything with caffeine.

Or that my body doesn’t seem to have the same effects from caffeine that most people do.

So, if I’m lucky, at some point this weekend, I’ll have enough brainpower to get the manuscript sent out.

If I’m really lucky, Paco will retain his phone calling ability while regaining his sense of night and day, which seemed to have failed him yesterday even as his phone skills reappeared.

But, yeah, it’s not really about luck, is it?

It’s about dementia and its progression and my worry and the taxing of my coping skills after so many years of caregiving for a succession of people with myriad needs.

Luck has little, or maybe even nothing, to do with it.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “luck.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/08/13/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-14-2021/


SoCS: a week

What a topsy-turvy week it has been with my dad!

I can’t bear to go through the details but I will say that things appear to be on an upswing at the moment with some hope for stability on the horizon.

There will be a rare event to end the week, though, as B and I will be attending the wedding of two of my poet-friends this afternoon.

Best wishes to the happy couple!

*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “wee”. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/08/06/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-7-2021/

A normal-rare event

On July tenth, there was a rare island of normalcy.

Or an almost normal version of a rare event.

I participated in a live poetry reading in conjunction with the Empty the Inkpots exhibit at the Vestal Museum. The reading was part of the Summer Art Festival, a collaboration of the Museum and the Vestal Public Library. Several of the poets from the Binghamton Poetry Project who have work included in Empty the Inkpots read from the stage/deck at the Museum with the audience arrayed in scattered chairs and benches and on the lawn. It was the first time in many months that I have participated in a live-and-in-person poetry reading. It had been even longer since I had had to read with a microphone. The amplification was useful because the museum is near a busy roadway.

I chose not to read the poem I had on display, which is about the early months of the pandemic; it is available at the link above. Instead, I read three poems from my manuscript about the North Adams, Massachusetts where I grew up. “Conveyance” appeared in the spring 2021 anthology of the Binghamton Poetry Project. The other two poems, “North Adams Public Library” and “Monroe Bridge Mail”, are currently unpublished so I won’t share them here.

I was very happy with the reading on a number of counts. First, there were people in the audience who came at my invitation, including one who saw my Facebook announcement of the event. Second, though I was nervous before, I was reasonably comfortable during the reading, even managing the microphone adjustment without much trouble. Third, the reading was well-appreciated by our audience. We had six poets, with diverse styles and viewpoints, represented. We read in alphabetical order. Uncharacteristically, I was not first, which was helpful for me. I like to read early in the order, but I’m better at reading second than first. I was also grateful that the most experienced poet and performer was last as it gave a strong finish to event. No one should have to follow J. Barrett Wolf at a reading!

Lastly, I was pleased to receive personal compliments after the reading from family and friends, some of whom are also poets. What was most heart-warming was that a woman that I did not know came up to me afterward and told me how much she enjoyed my poems and asked where she could find my work. Of course, I don’t have any books of my own out, but I was able to give her my paper copies of my poems, which included my bio for the exhibit and the address for Top of JC’s Mind.

The reading was an island of normalcy not only because of the pandemic but also because most of my time these days has been wrapped up in dealing with the care of my 96-year-old dad who is currently in a rehab/skilled nursing facility after a fall and ensuing complications. It’s why it has taken me so long to post about the reading.

It’s also why, for the first time in years, I am not registered for the current sessions of the Binghamton Poetry Project. I am usually visiting my father in the early evenings. Even if another family member is available to visit, I can’t predict if I will have any creativity/brainpower left late in the day.

It’s made the reading that much more important as a reminder that my poetry life is still there, waiting for me to go back to it when things are more settled.

Someday.

SoCS: blue

Since I was a child, my favorite color has been blue.

The color of my eyes and my mom’s and dad’s and sisters’.

The color of the sky at midday.

The color of some of my favorite clothes, although not jeans, which I never learned to like wearing.

I still like blue. I’m wearing it today.

But today, thinking of blue makes me think of how I’m feeling.

Blue.

Most of my #SoCS posts in recent weeks have been giving updates about my father, who is struggling to recover from falls, broken bones, infections, and we aren’t totally sure what else, while dealing with dementia and the wear and tear of ninety-six years.

I am doing everything I can to keep him as comfortable and content as possible and he is doing much better than he was ten days ago. We finally have the rest of his things in his skilled nursing/rehab room.

His Irish-themed banner and plaque are on his door, which makes it easier for him to find his room in the hall of similar-looking doorways. We finally got a temporary phone number working, although he needs help to answer calls and we aren’t sure if he can re-learn how to dial.

Baby steps.

It’s just hard for me not to feel blue. As much as I understand that this is just the journey we have been given in this last period of his life and that we are doing everything we can for him, I can’t help but feel sad.

All the time.

It’s hardest when I am with him, although I have a really good game face and manage to be cheerful – or seem cheerful – when I am interacting with Paco. He is sleeping quite a bit, which is probably good. Most of the time, he isn’t really aware of how much he has forgotten, so he is not blue, which is a blessing.

I am blue for both of us.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is to use “color/colour” as a noun or verb or choose a color to write about. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/07/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-24-2021/

SoCS: more on covid and vaccines

Here in the US, we are facing another wave of COVID. I think it is considered our fourth wave, but that has become pretty hard to define over the many months of the pandemic. What is different this time is that this wave is almost exclusively confined to the unvaccinated population, at least in terms of serious illness, hospitalizations, and mortality.

In New York State, where I live, the Northeast in general, and a few other states with high vaccination rates, you are seeing case numbers climb somewhat, largely because the delta variant is causing more breakthrough infections among the vaccinated, but you aren’t seeing extreme impacts on hospitals being overwhelmed and lots of serious illness and deaths.

In states like Missouri and Mississippi, with low vaccination rates, we are seeing conditions that look like the early days of the pandemic in New York, with hospitals overflowing with very sick patients, more than they have space, equipment, and personnel to handle. While in the first-wave, most of the very ill were elderly, now we are seeing that most of the very ill are younger adults. Even in these low-vaccination-rate states, the elderly are the ones most likely to have been vaccinated, so they are less impacted by this current wave, even with the delta variant making up a larger and larger share of infections.

As people who read Top of JC’s Mind from time to time may recall, I, spouse B, and daughter T are all part of the Phase III trial of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. B and T both were in the original vaccine group and were vaccinated last August. They are now both enrolled in the follow-on study of booster shots and their efficacy. Like the original study, it is double-blind, so neither the participants nor the researchers know who received the actual booster and who received the placebo injection.

However, B and T are both having side effects similar to their other doses of the vaccine, so we are pretty sure that they got real booster shots, not placebos. For the record, last August, I got placebo shots. When the study was unmasked after the emergency use authorization was approved, I was offered the real vaccine, which I got in February. I remain in the study as part of the design to follow participants for at least two years. I don’t know if I might, in the future, wind up participating in a follow-on study for boosters as well. It will depend on how the results of the booster study that B and T are now in play out and whether more data is needed. It’s also possible that Pfizer may re-formulate in response to current and future variants and need a pool of test subjects for that. My family will continue to participate as long as we can be of use to help advance the science and protect public health.

It is so very sad to know how many people are suffering from COVID, especially now that we do have good vaccines available. I’m sad for people in countries or regions that don’t have access to the vaccine. I’m upset that there are so many who do have access but still remain unvaccinated, often because of misinformation about COVID and about the vaccines. Choosing to remain unvaccinated doesn’t just impact the individual’s health if they get infected. It also impacts public health, giving the virus more opportunities to mutate and create new variants. It also can spread the virus to others, which is especially dangerous if those people are also unvaccinated. Sadly, we are seeing an increase in hospitalizations of children, who aren’t yet eligible for vaccination, and teens, who are eligible but still have low vaccination rates in many states. Earlier this week, the state of Tennessee announced that it is ending all vaccine outreach to teens. It would be bad enough if this was just COVID vaccine but they are also ending outreach for other vaccines, like TDaP, HPV, hepatitis, and MMR boosters.

It’s appalling.

Please, everyone, remember that we are still in a pandemic – and will be until we can get COVID under control globally. If you have access to vaccines, please take them for your own good and for the good of others. Everyone needs to be vigilant to following public health and infection prevention measures recommended by public health professionals in your region.

COVID doesn’t care about your political views or whether or not you believe it exists. It is a virus that is just looking for a host to make it possible for it to replicate as many copies of itself as possible. If you are infected, you might be lucky and have mild symptoms, but you could pass it on to someone who might become seriously ill or even die. Or you might be unlucky and become seriously ill or die yourself.

The virus won’t care.

Your loved ones will.

*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week was to base your post on your least favorite word. I don’t often think of having a favorite or least favorite word, but I thought that COVID definitely qualified as being my least favorite entity at the moment. If you’d like to join in with SoCS, you can find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/07/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-17-2021/