written by Elizabeth Ropp, LAc

Last week many of you asked about how my vacation went. It was a nice break. My parents came to visit. I haven’t seen them since 2019. They came to Manchester to help MAS move from Canal Street to our new home in the East Side Plaza on Hanover Street. If you like the figure eight arrangement of the chairs at our new location, you can thank my mother, Gayle.

We had an itinerary lined up with places to go and people to visit.  The Urgent Care in Hooksett was not on our list. All plans came to a full stop in the middle of my week off.

Three nights before my parents arrived, my husband Eric and I attended a cookout.  Our first cookout since before the pandemic, actually. The host only invited vaccinated people. Days later, a guest tested positive for COVID after experiencing symptoms. We learned that "Patient zero" contacted COVID from another vaccinated person the day before the cookout.

Neither my husband, I or my parents had symptoms.  But we didn’t want to take any chances. We sat in the parking lot of the Urgent Care filling out patient questionnaires on our Smartphones. It was a technical comedy of errors. The wifi connection was so bad that we had to start from the beginning several times.

“Ropp, Party of four.  Your examination room is ready.”  A technician packed us all into one exam room. Not as scenic as the views we enjoyed of the White Mountains from the gardens at Shaker Village the day before. One by one we each got a cotton swab up the nose, our temperatures taken, our blood pressure checked. I informed everyone about when I had my last menstrual period.  Good times!  My parents reminded me that high blood pressure and colon cancer run on both sides of my family. I am approaching the age where colonoscopies will be a normal part of life.

All tests came back negative. I asked the technician to take a group photo. 

 I reported our test results, and photo, back to the host and other cookout guests.  No one else from the vaccinated cookout tested positive. 

An hour later we met family friends at an outdoor table at Firefly Bistro. How surreal.  The next day we met my aunt and uncle for lobster rolls in Portland’s Old Port.  We carried our masks and donned them as we ducked into the shops and galleries. Some had mask policies. Others did not.

Every now and then a patient asks us when we will stop requiring masks in the clinic.  I get it. Nothing feels better than dropping my mask into the trash at the end of a shift.  The answer is we don’t know. The CDC is now encouraging vaccinated people to continue wearing masks indoors. And as long as medical facilities must mask, we will too. MAS has always been a casual environment to put your feet up and get some rest. This is the opposite experience in traditional healthcare and medical settings. For the time being, we would rather err on the side of caution.

We are navigating this new stage of breakthrough cases and Delta variants. Thank you for your patience and understanding. We hope everyone stays safe and enjoys the rest of summ-ah.