i am incensed

living with a C+ patient is obviously not going to be easy, but living amongst parents who are so unmindful and irresponsible makes my blood boil. i wasn't going to blog about it, maybe only talk about it to a few close friends, but now - I'm decidedly irate and I am going to write about it. 

call me disrespectful, heck, call me an ungrateful child, I've heard it all - but don't disregard my perspective of this entire situation. 

obviously, I have never been the most filial child and yes, perhaps I have been rebellious most of my life, I've been known to talk back to my elders and not be the "better" person and step down. I am a firm believer in never taking the "high road" if you are being punished unfairly, even if it means being disrespectful to your parents. Fuck the high road. If it's an unjust situation, I will debate the hell of it out with whomever I have to. 

don't give me the "they have taken care of you your entire life, they are older and not exactly educated the same way you all are," or the "jesus, they are your parents, you can't just say stuff like that, they gave you a roof over your head." 

I'm not going to sit back and pretend I'm not grateful, but I'm not gonna sit there and let anyone gaslight/guilt trip me for anything.

so here's the case; my mother, unfortunately, got covid two days ago and my entire view of them as mature sensible human beings has been flung right out of the window. Singapore doesn't have a proper protocol for what to do if a close family member has covid. There are various rules and regulations out there, floating aimlessly from various alternative journalism sites to the CDC site. Whatsapp messages with "what to do" situations are shared from boomer to gen z and some do get lost in translation. 

from the very moment my mother had a fever and a sore throat, she left the house for breakfast and went to an exercise class -  but let's just chalk that up with the complacency we have had for these 2 years because none of us has ever gotten the virus - when she woke up after her multiple long naps, the thought to take an ART test did not ever enter until someone mentioned it. That is HOW complacent we've gotten. 

two red lines, that's how it started. that's when everything went out of hand. 

immediately there was trouble trying to find a self-isolation room. 

literal first rule was: 

And that was the first problem. You see, my parents have a shared master bedroom, with conveniently comes with an attached bathroom - obviously, that's the best pick - has her stuff in there plus an attached toilet. Unfortunately, my dad wasn't too excited about letting his room go and sleeping outside in the living room (where my mom usually sleeps). 

He said he wanted to continue to SLEEP in the now self-isolation room but come out to do his work. It's fine, he says, I'm vaccinated, covid is totally mild. The HIGH-risk patient says this. Obviously, I fight back and say, there is a MOOT point if you go into the self-isolation room and go outside (AND THEN GO BACK TO WORK). There is no point having a self-isolation room then, we might as well just all walk around maskless and go out for dinner together as a family. 

We had an entire argument until begrudgingly the high-risk patient agrees to do as he's told but he throws an entire tantrum trying to bring his things out. When his children ask him if he needs help, he passively-aggressively says he cannot just take his things out because he can't remember what he might need for the next three days. He will only take out minimal items and go back into the self-isolation room to take whatever he needs when he needs it. 

When suggested that we (his lesser health risk kids) go in and help him take what he needs, he throws another tantrum saying we can't help him because he has to describe what he wants and we might not know. 

So fine. We give in. Whatever. 

I tell him to at least minimize the interaction. He ignores me. Thrice. He goes and folds the clothes instead of taking his clothes inside. I tell him again, please minimize the interaction, he throws an entire tantrum at me like a child saying I'm annoying and overreacting. ALL I wanted was for him to say, "yes sure, I will minimize my interaction." Instead, he tells me I'm lying to him about the possible repercussion and that his friends had covid and were all fine. That was the last fucking straw. 

My brother and I leave the house after finally securing my mom in the self-isolation room and forcing them both to wear masks. We get the disinfectant surface spray and Clorox wipes and come home only to see that my dad has "disinfected" the place with an air freshener. My brother spends a good 5 minutes trying to explain that what he used wasn't disinfection spray. 

So second rule:

Guess who couldn't follow the simple rule? After disinfecting the entire house (my mom had walked around coughing prior to her self isolation), cleaning the floor and wiping every possible handle and surface with Clorox, we were exhausted as hell. I realised the self-isolation room door was still open WIDE with the standing fan right outside her door OSCILLATING. I tell her to please either wear a mask or shut the door. "But it's hot," She says. "Don't need to close the door." Dad says, "Stop overreacting." 

I'm tired so I just let it be. I help collect whatever my mom needs - lozenges, cough meds, fever meds - and finally go into my room to retire. I hang out with my brother on call until I hear sounds from the kitchen. My dad is snoring awAY and my brother is on the call with me so I immediately jumped up and went to check, only to find - guess who - my mother in the kitchen, MASKLESS. I shout and ask her to either go back into her room or get a mask and 
"WHY ARE YOU IN THE KITCHEN? literally me & my brother are still awake if you need something you can call us, we SAID THAT." she looks at me sheepishly and says she just wanted honey (and coughs). I don't know how long she has been in the kitchen, so while she sheepishly hurries back into the "self-isolation" room I CLEAN the entire house and wash the clothes.

The entire night, the door to the "self-isolation" room was wide open - again with a standing fan oscillating throughout. 

The next day (i couldn't sleep), I helped my mom call the doctors to make an early appointment because she wanted antibiotics - she went out and I decided to tell my dad (whom I spotted walking in and out of the "self-isolation" maskless) to try to take as many things as he can remember to avoid walking around the high viral load.

AGAIN, he does the eye-rolling and sighing, ignoring me as he pours a drink for himself. I tell him again that if he needs help, I can offer my help before he does an entire tantrum run again and tells me to stop annoying him. 

I go back into my room feeling extremely enraged at his childish behaviour and since I couldn't sleep, I went back out to confront him. I told him that it isn't fair for me to be picking up their mess and giving them the protocols/rules, only for them to break them. Me telling him to minimize interaction was me trying to take care of a high-risk patient. Me asking him multiple times was because he wasn't responding to me. He just did an entire stubborn rebellious child flick of the wrist and gave the most insincere apology on earth, but also added that I was being so annoying and overreacting over something so small.

That was it. I felt absolutely disgusted at his behaviour. I told him fine. I'll just not care then. 

I went back into my room and did my own work. 

Night fell and I was the one that disinfected the kitchen toilet because my mother left the room to go to the kitchen toilet to bathe. I cleaned the sink and my brother helped wipe the handles off with Clorox. I mopped the kitchen up and went to bed.

The next morning, (this morning) I wake up and prep to clean up my room. I clean the entire kitchen once more, washing the toilet and disinfecting everything, wiping every surface down. I clear the trash because no one did it last night and this morning. I start sweeping my room and was prepared to sweep the outside when I heard a conversation going on outside before there was a 'ding!' on my phone. 

There it was. The FINAL straw that broke the camel's back.

My mother had the guile to text me to not sit around and to help out my brother and dad around the house. I was the one SWEATING my pits off cleaning everything and was told that I was OVERREACTING, and the moment I sit down and prepare to clean my things, I get told that I AM NOT DOING ANYTHING AND THAT IM BEING SELFISH.

I. AM. Enraged.