What Caring Looks Like
(Photo of SmartAir QT3 portable air purifier from manufacturer’s website)
Today I went to a holiday gathering for the first time since 2019. It was a handful of people who used to be in a business networking group that no longer operates. Once in a while this little bunch of people gets together for lunch at a gastropub. It was the last lunch before the holidays.
I wore my FFP3 respirator. When the food arrived, I took mine to one of the outdoor tables so I could eat and drink there. After I ate, I put my mask on again and rejoined the group. Nobody else does any of this, but nobody gives me any bother about it.
One of them has multiple sclerosis.
A few weeks ago, in the States a dear friend who had multiple sclerosis died. That friend was 74. When we met, she was in her late twenties and doctors didn’t expect her to reach her 30th birthday. I remember how joyful her small 30th birthday party was.
She and her partner lived near the back gate to the Johnson Space Center, so it was easy to stop by. There were some chores they couldn’t do, but I could. I couldn’t cook worth a damn, but they could. I learned a lot about chronic illness and about MS from our friendship.
Even a mild common cold can be enough to knock a MS patient out of even the most glorious remission. It might not, or it might. There’s no way to be sure ahead of time.
The friend with MS over here isn’t in a glorious remission. She needs not to catch anything, but she really wanted this bit of visiting. With something like MS, going out at all is difficult and often requires recovery time. It’s a dilemma people with such illnesses face over and over. The price of some human contact could be higher than most of us can imagine, and in more ways.
I brought a portable battery-powered HEPA filter. We set it on the table in front of her, blowing toward her so she would always be getting freshly filtered air. At first we had it on medium fan speed. We quickly discovered that even on high speed, we couldn’t distinguish its sound from the ambient noise of the pub.
The group asked a few questions about it. The one we used is a Smart Air QT3 model. (This is NOT an affiliate link.) It can be plugged in with a USB-C cable. Its battery is supposed to last about 4 hours. I haven’t tested actual endurance yet, but it ran for a couple of hours today on the battery. It’s amazingly lightweight. It’s unobtrusive. Retro styling seemed to help with that somehow.
Sometimes being the “rocket scientist” in a group is an advantage. Bringing this gadget was just me being who I am. If I ever stop being a tad unusual, they’ll wonder what has gone wrong.
As for the friend who made use of it today...
What I brought looked like an air filter, but she understood what it meant. I did this small thing within my power to help her. It wasn’t a complete shield. Although it couldn’t eliminate the hazards for her, it reduced them.
Everything is harder for her than it is for me. Putting on a face mask properly may require more dexterity than she has. Going outside to eat and then coming in again would be exhausting and difficult. The last time I saw her, I didn’t have such a gadget. Now I do. It would be rotten if I kept it to myself and didn’t share it.
This is what caring about each other, not just about ourselves, looks like.
Nice story, Bonnie. We bought 2 Corsi Rosenthal boxes made with computer fans from https://www.cleanairkits.com/ a year ago. Our family has 2 20-somethings who are done with lockdown and take many risks, bringing them home to my husband and me. These CR boxes are whisper quiet and run 24/7 in the room we spend the most time in. They are a bit flimsy in construction (very thin panels, for instance) but the filters pick up all airborne cat hair and get grey very quickly. They are quite unobtrusive also. We have avoided infections in the year we've had them, even if the kids did not. We are very happy with them. Cheaper than hepa, way quieter than CR boxes, easy to change and source furnace filters. 👍 🙂
You are definitely an empath, Bonnie. You go the extra mile both for your own health and that of your friends. When I had a dental appointment in 2020, the dentist had a nice sized HEPA filter in every exam room. I got one for our office at work but it was loud as heck so we tended to turn it on only after we'd left the office. It was bought at one of the designated GSA shops, which might have been part of the problem. They didn't have the exact one the dentist had, which Amazon did. I hate government contractors.