Three Blogs on Covid! Fun!

BLOG #1. Tuesday, July 26.

Jim has Covid. Weird. After a year and a half of masks, two vaccines, two boosters, making fun of people wearing masks, getting mad at people for not wearing masks, then making fun of them again while refusing to wear a mask anymore - all to end up just getting it anyway. I am juggling picking up his antiviral, filling up the water bottle with half-lemonade and half ice-water, and bringing him Progresso chicken noodle soup and crackers in bed. Meanwhile, the floorer is putting in a gorgeous new floor in our basement - much needed, and much longer story there — so I hear the radial saw and hammering from the stairs and coughing and some Western movie on the TV down the hallway while both kitties sleep and I write amidst a very messy dining room table, nibbling on an apple. Knowing somewhere in the back of my head this could be me in a couple of days. I never even wondered what it would be like if covid landed in our house, but weirdly I am glad it is Jim so he can rest and I can take care of him. It is good for him to stay in in his pajamas for the day, watching old movies, having me bring him everything he needs so he can fight this dreaded THING that has been a vague part of our lives for so long, only now to be made all too real instead of in the abstract.

We both worked our butts off prepping to get the floors ready, and now the vision is almost here. Cough, cough. Let’s go look at our beautiful new floors in the basement, on the stairs, on the landing! Well, no, he needs to keep sleeping. I hope I don't get the worst kind of Covid, despite being double vaxed and boosted — just the mild kind, thank you. Otherwise, who will take care of me?

BLOG #2: July 27, 2022

LOVE the new floors. So light, bright, and healing. Jim is still in bed, but now sitting up and . . . working!? What happened to sleeping and watching TV to get over covid? I should have guessed only one day down would be the deal for him. I’m sitting on the deck, listening to the trees talking to each other with the shhhhh sound while gently moving their branches and leaves in a delicate dance of communication that only their fellow trees can see - or in this case, me. I’m always looking up when I am outside.

On my way to Whole Foods, I stop for a 20 minute walk at Fatima Shrine. Sometimes this place feels odd for me with all its statues and memorials — but today it is so warm and breezy and beautiful - just the right kind of day to walk around an outdoor shrine. As I meander all the way to the back of the path, I hear the beautiful cardinal song that I know so well. And then there he is! I get to see all 100% of his beautiful hair, body, and wings! He looks at me, hops to a closer branch with wings a-flutter, sings a bit, then flutters himself back to the original branch. So regal, so red, so gorgeous, so satisfying. He buries himself further into the tree, so I leave him be and walk to a monument with words honoring the Virgin Mary. And a beautiful dragonfly alights on the corner and watches me as I watch it. I reach out to touch his wings, as I am known to be a dragonlfy whisperer, but this time, he flies a bit farther away and lands again, still looking at me but not wanting to be petted today. That’s OK. I move on and sit on a marble bench overlooking a sunken, shallow pond that has its own swarm of dragonflies, dancing together in twos and threes.

Then I head back to the car, thinking that I might stop in Paper Place to see what they have to honor this experience. I get a cardinal bracelet, 75 % off, costing me $20.00, and I get some red "jewel” studs for $12.99. Back into the car, bracelet around my wrist and new earrings in, I head into Whole Foods to get lots of vegetables and chicken stock to make us some soup tonight.

Throat is a tiny bit scratchy?? Hope this doesn’t mean covid for me…

BLOG #3

Blog August 13, 2022

So yes, I got Covid.

Jim tested positive on a Monday, feverish, coughing, muscle aches, and thoroughly fatigued. I tested negative twice that week with a scratchy throat and occasional cough. By the time I tested positive on a Friday, it reminded me of how I felt when I got a positive pregnancy test with both of my two babies – mission accomplished! I had to remind myself that testing positive for Covid is not an accomplishment, but it felt good to label my own set of coughing, headache, and fatigue symptoms. At the same time, it feels surreal to have Covid after spending two and a half years thinking I was successful at avoiding it.  Jim has always worried about me getting it because I have asthma, so when I kept testing negative, I thought maybe I have an unknown super-power of fighting it off! Until that T line appeared.    

I couldn’t take the Paxlovid – it made me vomit violently – so I went at it alone. Here I thought the wo boosters would lessen the symptoms – but that was for Omicron, not BA.4/5, as my doctor explained to me. Great. Will this thing ever end, or is this what we should expect for the rest of our lives – one variant after the other? With other viruses looming in the background, waiting to come forth, too? The CDC recently lessened all the guidelines, which is perplexing to me – even they have Covid fatigue?

It’s been two weeks, and although now testing negative, I do feel different – a cough that suddenly comes out of nowhere and completely takes over whatever I was doing, and a three-day headache that is impervious to Excedrin (my go-to).  The beauty of the first week was sleeping for hours and hours, as well as watching hours of TV – I don’t know how many episodes of Shark Tank and Tiny House Nation I watched. For the second week, as symptoms tapered and I got more energy, I felt like OK, good, I am kicking this thing. Now that symptoms are lingering well into the 3rd week, I worry that I might have long Covid. Great. So much for invincibility.

After this spring, I had a vague notion that some kind of normal could be possible.  Small moments, such as taking an evening walk to the top of the hill to see the full moon with all its lines and craters, lighting up the crepe-paper clouds as they pass by, I think that’s all I should count on for normal. I’ll take it – as long as I still have the moon to look at, I think it’ll be OK.

Blog Post #4 – Thoughts on November, December . . .

November 18, 2022

I’m not a big fan of November. Unlike the brilliant yellows and orangey fires of October, in November, the leaves just come rattling down, skedaddling across the forlorn lawn, and lie there in big, ugly, brown piles, and the barren trees are left to reach for the sky without any warmth on their skinny arms. There are more gray days than sunny days, and it gets completely dark by 4:50 pm.  I have to pull on the blue puffy coat for real – yesterday was the first time I did that for an afternoon walk, and there will be many more blue-puffy-coat-days to come -- so I might as well take my summer box of shorts, sundresses, and flip flops to the basement.

I notice a lot of people say, “I love fall. The crisp air, putting on sweaters, blah blah blah.” That’s October, and I don’t mind it too much because it is fall lite. November is fall dark and dreary.  And for some reason, I don’t totally love Thanksgiving. Some people say they love it because there are no presents involved, and it “just” involves family. But it is also chaotic with all the sides and trays and multiple dishes of food from many houses that just keep coming – and then, in order to appreciate our families, we load up our plates, trying to make room for a little bit of everything that everyone contributed. And then we have three different kinds of dessert?  Oh, my lactose-intolerant, glucose-intolerant tummy! For the next three days, I eat leftovers of globular gravy on top of cold turkey slices which I pair with super-sweet potatoes and a couple of green beans into the microwave, followed by slices of pumpkin pie for days. So much for all the super-healthy eating I’ve been doing up to this point! But honestly? I do love pumpkin pie. Even bought a pumpkin pie scented candle, so I am not a complete Thanksgiving Scrooge:

I AM a fan of December BECAUSE of Christmas and the presents – the actual gifts keep it focused. I love shopping for my family, wrapping the gifts, putting them under the tree if they are coming to my house or packing them in big, two handled totes if I am going to their house. I love thinking about what others got for me underneath the beautiful, festive paper, and I know I will love my presents because my family knows me pretty well to know what I like, so it is a sweet tradition. Yup, I love presents, and I am not ashamed to admit it. I love going Christmas shopping too, in local shops the most, but occasionally at the mall, if it calls for it. I do have my limits when it comes to canned Christmas music in the stores. I genuinely hate “Blue Christmas,” “Jingle Bell Rock,” and “Feliz Navidad” because NOBODY has figured out yet that the fact that these songs are played ad nauseam MAKES customers hate them to the point of (It’s not just me, is it?) wanting to scream. But I somehow never get tired of the melancholy Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. It takes down the forced Christmas cheer music down several notches and connects to that bit of heaviness that the holidays can bring.

Oh, Christmas tree. I love having a Christmas tree – one of the really good parts of getting married and staying married for 34 years means that we have a good stash of really good ornaments. The fact is, I love my ornaments – each one is special to me in some way, and when I look at other people’s ornaments, I don’t really connect to them.  And our new tradition is to have two trees – one in the front room so the lights can shine out the window in a braggy way: “See, we got our act together and have a tree in the bay window!” and another in the family room so Andrew can see it and feel it, as we position it right across from his cabinet. We spend a lot of time in both rooms, but I like the coziness of having two equal trees, with one having the retro, traditional C7 lights and the other tree sporting the tinier, more “modern,” candy-colored twinkling fairy lights. I love watching the kitties hide under the tree, I love watering the trees when they are still drinking, and I despair a little when they stop drinking. That means the needles are coming down, making the whole thing look really sad until I vacuum up the needles and it looks fresh again. The worst is taking all the ornaments off a dry, prickly, shedding tree after New Years . . . but I don’t think about that all until I am forced to.

Even though Jim and I have been through a tragic loss, I still look forward to Christmas. In fact I buy presents for myself in advance. It is a way – granted, maybe not the very best way – to show myself how I love me. Because I do need some loving and this is how I make sure I get it - I gift myself to make up for the hole in my heart. And if that means I buy myself a Body Shop Advent Calendar and a Life is Good shirt with three cardinals and the word, “Peace” on it, so be it.

We decorate the front of the house and five of the dogwood trees with bright! Multi-colored! Lights! So our whole house shines at the end of our dark cul de sac, throwing the Christmas-rainbow-colors out into the dark December night.

And please don’t ask me about January.

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