Before I got COVID, I took a day to reconsider my goal of walking/biking a total of 500 miles in six months. One day, I had an epiphany.
I wanted to ride the bike 10 miles, but Loki was looking at me like I was abandoning him by leaving the house. So I rode on the bicycle, with Loki at my side. (He actually enjoys this.)
At about 1.5 miles into the ride, Loki screeched to a halt and yanked me off the bike. I had to stop very fast. Even though I’d stopped four times previously to allow him to use the facilities, this was the exact moment he had to go.
So I sipped some water and walked him around a little. When I got back on the bike, it made a terrible sound. It sounded like the brakes were squealing, even though I was just pedaling. I looked at the brakes, and they didn’t appear to be rubbing the tire. I pulled at them a little.
After two minutes of the awful sound, I discovered that turning the tire to the left made the sound stop. But I could hardly ride with my tire constantly turned to the left, so I headed home.
As I rode, I pulled the tire this way and that; I stared at the brakes. I couldn’t figure out the problem. Everything looked the same, but all I could hear was EEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Turns out I only rode a whopping 2.5 miles – and it took me 43 minutes, because I stopped for Loki constantly, and then I stopped and tried to stop the squealing. I considered taking my bike to the bike shop without even telling Bill, but I wanted to wait just a couple more weeks and get a full tune-up. So I left the bike in the garage and asked Bill to take a look.
Bill wheeled the bike back and forth about four feet – and sure enough, there was that terrible squealing sound! I felt vindicated. I obviously had a very serious problem.
I told him about turning the wheel to the left, so Bill turned the wheel to the left. Sure enough, the squealing stopped. Bill reached down beside the wheel, reached into the water bottle holder and turned my water bottle about 25 degrees.
He turned the water bottle handle away from the wheel. And voila! The squealing stopped altogether. The little plastic finger-handle had been hitting the wheel when I rode.
How am I supposed to ride 500 MILES if I can’t even figure out that a water bottle was the source of my problem?
Now that I am free from isolation, I am “immune” – at least temporarily – from COVID-19.
Unfortunately, I got COVID the night before I got my vaccine. If I’d gotten symptoms just one day later, I would be vaccinated now. (And my parents would be deathly ill.)
Fortunately, I followed the rules.
Please note: If you have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the 10 days before your appointment or have an active COVID-19 infection at the time of your appointment, you will not be eligible for vaccination.
So I had one shot – and I had to give it away to no one in particular.
A week later, a friend of mine drove with her husband – who was eligible – to get his vaccine. They drove almost two hours to a pharmacy that had one available slot. She sat outside in the car while he went inside to get vaccinated. He asked if there were any extra doses for his wife, and they told him to bring her inside. They both got vaccinated.
But when I took my sister-in-law – who was eligible – to get her vaccine, I waited an hour in line. I politely asked staff if there was any way to get my vaccine. They all said, “You need to make an appointment.” So I watched as dozens of people got a vaccine in the room where I stood. And then I walked out without one.
I am not – thank God – eligible because I am disabled. But I am eligible because I am a teacher. And I won’t teach until I get vaccinated.
I know, deep in my gut, that there is some reason that I am still not vaccinated. How clear did God need to be? I got a fever. I couldn’t go. I wasn’t about to risk my own parents’ health, let alone the health of the other people in that room, knowing that I could be contagious.
I didn’t even know it was COVID at the time – but I knew I was doing the right thing to stay home. Why does doing the right thing then feel like I’ve given up my only chance at ever getting a vaccine now?
I have filled out every request form in every county in the state. I am willing to travel for hours. The only chance I got was when I got the vaccine appointment I didn’t take.
Day after day after day, ten times a day, I check the websites: Giant, Safeway, Rite Aid, Walgreens, Walmart. I check something called Albertsons, but I don’t even know an Albertsons. I search the hospital sites: Adventist, Holy Cross, Luminis, MedStar. I check all the county health sites.
My Congressman assures me that, someday soon, we will all have a chance to get a vaccine. The emails say to “be patient” – but what does that mean? I am just sitting here, checking websites. Should I stop checking?
Twice, while I was asleep, I got a notification that the “big” state vaccination site – Six Flags America – was opening a “limited number of appointments.” By the time I read the notification, they were all gone.
They are always all gone.
Sometimes those notifications come in late at night. Should I not sleep?
I am not calling anyone, since every site says “don’t call.” I am not driving to places without an appointment because all the websites say “no walk-ins.”
And I did not get a vaccine when I had an appointment because I was sick, because the website said not to get a vaccine when you are sick.
Thank God for 90 days of immunity.
#10 … When you’re going to bed at night, and you’ve pulled the smoke alarm out of your wall because the little green light is keeping you awake, you have your sense of smell to alert you to any smoke if your house is burning down.
#9 … You can find the dead mouse before your son sees it inside the laundry room cupboard.
#8 … You know whether or not the milk went bad in the fridge while you were in isolation.
#7 … You can tell whether or not anything went bad in the fridge – and for some reason, your husband does not think to use his sense of smell for that.
#6 … When you go outside to walk the dog, you can breathe in the crisp, freezing air – and you never know winter has a scent until you’ve walked outside and been met with … nothing. (Close your eyes and step outside – you’ll see what I mean!)
#5 … Poodle smell is awesome, even if your dog is wet and/or muddy. Bury your head in that fur and breathe it in. There’s nothing like it in the world. (Baby smell is also spectacular, but I don’t have any of those around lately.)
#4 … If something is burning in the oven, you know it right away. For that matter, if your hair, your clothes, your dryer or your carpet is on fire, you know that right away as well.
#3 …You can tell if yesterday’s sweat pants – that you only wore for an hour – are still able to be worn today.
#2 … Scented candles, crayons, and chocolate.
And the #1 reason to appreciate your sense of smell is…
#1 …. You can taste the food you eat! This, especially is wholly underrated. Yesterday I cried while eating homemade kale chips; they were so delicious.
Never take for granted the ability to use your senses.
It’s been a heckuva few weeks.
I spent weeks scouring the earth for a vaccine appointment – and got one. The night before I was scheduled to get that shot, I got a fever instead.
I tested positive for COVID. I got it through the air vents in my own home.
Then, just as I was starting to recover enough from COVID to stand up and walk around the bedroom, my mentally challenged sister-in-law fell. She called 9-1-1 and they took her to the hospital. Physically, she is 64 years old; mentally, she is eight. Bill spent the day talking to folks at the hospital so that she wouldn’t fall through the cracks and end up admitted.
She had arthritis. Eventually they sent her home.
I started feeling better the next day – and even better the day after that. I may have had COVID but my symptoms fairly suddenly vanished (except my sense of smell which still eludes me).
When I started feeling better, I started scouring the internet again for possible vaccinations. I filled out more forms, more requests for appointments. I waited and hoped and visited site after site, hoping. But there were – always – no appointments available.
I got the virus instead.
As soon as I got out of my bedroom, Bill and I got tested again for COVID. I thought this was necessary, but apparently it is not. Bill tested negative; he’s fully vaccinated now. I tested positive again; it was not a surprise. They said it could be 21 days before I test negative again, but I am not contagious.
Just when it was time to start celebrating, only a few days before my release from isolation, Bill awoke in the middle of the night in horrible pain. He did a virtual visit with his doctor, then did an ultrasound and discovered that he had an enormous kidney stone. The pain was unbearable and, three days later, almost constant.
They told him he would need surgery, but they wouldn’t tell him when he could have that surgery. I spent the day complaining to the office that he was in pain. They told me to go to the emergency room – who, of course, would tell him that he had a kidney stone and that he’d need surgery.
At 4:00 on a Friday, Bill finally got an appointment for that surgery. The first available surgery appointment is not for three weeks. And Bill is in so much pain that all he can do is moan, and take pain killers, and sleep, and then moan some more.
He has to wait three weeks. I can hardly speak about this, it makes me so angry. Apparently there are only a handful of urologists in this world, and there’s a pandemic. The combination means, basically, Bill waits forever.
So tomorrow, since Bill is out of commission, I am going to take over his daily plan. I will pick up my mentally challenged sister-in-law. My mission? To get her vaccinated. She’s got an appointment for her first shot tomorrow morning. So I get to go, and watch – once again so close to that elusive vaccine, but not able to get one.
And then I will come home and hop back on the internet and wait and hope some more. Because that is going to be my life until I get that shot – and until my kids get that shot – and until the 300 million Americans who are still waiting… get that shot.
I do see light at the end of the tunnel, but this is a very long tunnel.
I have been very, very fortunate. A week after my fever hit, I am nearly symptom-free.
COVID has been my source of terror for a full year. Last January, I was in Orange, California the day before the first case of COVID was discovered in Orange, California.
Like almost everyone, I spent the rest of 2020 running scared, hiding, and masking up to keep myself, and my family, as safe as could be. When I somehow got COVID anyway, I got a very mild case. I’d like to say I did something right, but I did not. I just got lucky.
Instead of being in the hospital now, like so many people have been, I am getting ready to end my quarantine and go back to the world. I don’t know why I am getting through this and so many people have died, but I am sincerely grateful.
A lot of people have asked what it feels like, what happened to my body. Obviously the symptoms are different for different people, so this is just my experience.
Here is how I experienced COVID symptoms:
- My fever was mercifully short – barely lasted more than 24 hours – but for several days afterward, I kept checking my temperature. I still felt achy and sore and exhausted. I kept saying, “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.” But my temperature didn’t go back up above 98.7.
- I had a dry, occasional cough that told me I was breathing okay. I appreciated the cough – and occasional sneeze – more than I’d ever have imagined. It reminded me that I was sick – and alive.
- On Day 5, when they say the virus can turn on a dime, I was able to check my oxygen levels. While it’s dangerous to allow oxygen levels to drop under 94 for any period of time, mine have stayed around 98 all week long. I took tons of deep breaths every day, just to be sure I could.
- I was especially thrilled to wake up on Day 6 feeling nearly COVID-free. My symptoms had stayed the same mostly, but suddenly they almost disappeared on Day 6 – and on Day 7, they were gone. I felt good.
- I got two or three sharp, shooting pains in my head (over the course of a week) that inspired me to take aspirin once a day. Blood clots are a real threat during COVID, especially with a lack of movement.
- I slept 10-15 hours every night and took a ton of Vitamin D. These are the things that may have contributed to my getting well. Or maybe I just got lucky.
- The most interesting symptom happened quite suddenly, and without my even noticing. I ate an entire meal without realizing I couldn’t taste the food on my plate. Losing one’s sense of smell is bizarre, and probably deserves a whole blog of its own. I hope, however, that it comes back before I write one.
- I have a little brain fog, but I’ve had a little brain fog for about a year. I watched copious amounts of Jeopardy to help the situation, but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference.
Neither Bill (who has now had both vaccines) or Shane (who had none) got COVID – through the air vents or from me. I am happier about that than I am about surviving it myself.
In three days, I am allowed to go back into the wild. Like everyone else, I can go back to seeking my first vaccination. I may have survived my bout with COVID – thank you, God – but it’s never going to be my friend.
On Tuesday, I was scheduled to get my first COVID vaccination. But I got a 100.9-degree fever instead. A few scary days later, I got the diagnosis:
POSITIVE for COVID.
After so many months of fear and paranoia, after trying so hard for so long to keep my family and myself 100% virus-free, I won a million battles – but I lost the war. The virus got me in my own home, traveling through the air vents from our basement apartment, where one of our two tenants recently tested positive for COVID.
I am not young, and I have an autoimmune disorder. Oddly enough, I feel achy but good right now. My fever is gone for now. I have no way of knowing if I will continue to have mild symptoms, or if I will end up on a respirator next week. So of course, I am scared.
But before any such hospitalization occurs, I wanted to write this blog – desperately needed to write it – to share my revelation about humanity.
We’re not permanently divided after all.
I feel like a member of a group I thought had disbanded. After the past year of screeching, horrible conflicts over issues and morals and intangibles, culminating with raging debates about masks, it turns out that we are all just spiritual beings having a human experience.
I am suddenly a human taking part in the human race.
No matter where I have turned and announced my (leper-like) diagnosis, I have been enveloped in kindness and care. Friends on Facebook – distant and close – have sincerely wished me well, and are praying for me. Close, dear relatives – and friends of the family who barely know me – are all praying for me. Prayers are free and easy; but to me, they are like angels lifting my heart and my spirits and giving me reasons to embrace life. I can’t thank anyone enough for their prayers.
My husband has done yeoman’s duty on my behalf, although I’ve barely spoken to him. I’ve been too busy on the phone with my stepson, my closest friends, my parents, and my sons. My sister bought me a pulse oximeter so that I would have it when I need it – and I feel like she pulled a star from the sky and handed it to me.
Strangers are helping me, too. Wendy, the survey worker from MARYLAND COVID, called to follow up on my positive test results. I said, “This actually makes me feel like somebody cares.” And she said, “I do! That’s why I do this job!” And I believe her. She used to do search and rescue for lost pets, but her dog has aged out of the system.
Coincidentally last week, I found a new Facebook friend who had a peaceful, fun page, so I sent her a note. She apologized for taking a couple of hours to respond and said she was recovering from COVID. So when I got my diagnosis, I messaged her in desperation: “What can I expect?” And she helped me to prepare for everything. Since that message, she checks on me twice a day. She’s a total ray of light during this dark time – a kind-hearted soul who gives just because she can.
I even emailed a librarian and got a thoughtful, personal response, telling me her own story and her worries about her college-aged son, out on his own in this mess. “I hope your symptoms stay mild, your recovery is swift, and no symptoms linger.” This total stranger, too, said her family would keep my family in their prayers.
Now the angels are everywhere.
Today, I can breathe.
I am worried about the virus – still. I am concerned about the division of our country – still. I believe what I believe, and not everyone believes what I believe – still. But today, I have hope.
For four years, I have been struggling under a weight that felt like a boulder – an enormous, heavy rock crushing my entire body and soul. As the months passed, and the years, the boulder didn’t just get heavier; it felt like an elephant – then two or three more elephants – climbed on top of the boulder.
Then, on the morning of January 20, for the first time in my life, I awoke thinking about the government. I remembered that today was the day I’d been anticipating for four years. I crawled out of bed with one less elephant crushing me.
But – as a worrier will do – I was still afraid. My concern this time was that a crazy person with a gun would take away the new President of the United States. Until 1:00 in the afternoon, I was still afraid.
And then, as the day wore on, the elephants fell off. By evening, the boulder had crumbled into tiny pieces. I brushed away every one of those tiny pieces before I went to sleep.
I know that there are people who wished that we would not have found such an honest, direct, transparent, professional man to lead our country. I’m not sure I will ever in my lifetime understand how those people could continue to believe that our former “leader” was a decent person, given the preponderance of evidence against him.
And for me, understanding is important. The “why” of this situation is so far out of the realm of my understanding that I want very much to just shove it aside, forget about it, and brush off some of the people I love like I brushed off that crumbled boulder.
But I think it’s going to require a lot of understanding for this country to move forward. Obviously violence isn’t the answer, but so many people are angry that somehow, in some way, we all need to find a common ground – and start building there.
I sincerely hope that can happen – soon – so that no one else has to walk around carrying boulders and elephants for the next four years.
Dylan was back at college for less than one day before he was exposed to COVID.
Nashville – one of the current places raging with the virus that still allows indoor dining and bar hopping – was not at fault.
Instead, Dylan decided – along with his friends – to create a “pod.” There were four of them who hung out together last year, and they’d all tested negative before arriving on campus.
So they got together indoors, mask-free, and determined that they would be the only ones for whom they would remove their masks. Two of them had single apartments, and Dylan and his roommate would be living together, so keeping that promise was easy.
They hung out for about an hour, in one of the girls’ apartments. Dylan and his girlfriend sat together; Dylan’s roommate sat on the sofa next to the other girl. They talked for about an hour.
Everyone and everything was fine. Or so they thought.
Two days later, the girl on the couch got sick and tested positive. Then Dylan’s roommate got sick, and also tested positive. It was that fast.
Dylan and his girlfriend were sitting across the room during their visit. They were maybe six feet away, and un-masked. They didn’t hug “Patient Zero,” but they didn’t take any extra precautions, either.
Dylan and his girlfriend quarantined in an off-campus apartment for a week after the initial visit. The college wouldn’t allow them to get a COVID test for a full week, since they weren’t showing symptoms.
They all attended their first week of classes online.
Both virus-infected students were sent into isolation. They both said the isolation was worse than the illness. Thankfully, they are both recovering.
Dylan and his girlfriend tested negative yesterday.
There is no visitation in the dorms, so many of the students have off-campus apartments. Parents seem to think this would keep them from being lonely, since their friends can visit at any time. (And they can!)
But the non-residential students are more likely to get COVID, partially – if not fully – because they have no restrictions on visitation. And they do things like – gosh – visiting one another, believing it’s safe….
It’s just not safe.
I wonder when it will ever be safe again.
My pandemic days are filled now – but not with anything in “real” life.
Since starting on my LEAP plan, I have to think – a lot – about food. The way it works is: I eat a very specific set of foods – and nothing else. Unfortunately this limits me, mostly, to making my own food, which is not my forte.
So I wake up unenthused.
First thing, I take my thyroid medication. I’m not allowed to eat for an hour after taking it, so I don’t even bother looking at my meticulously planned menu until an hour has passed. Then I find: I am allowed to eat oatmeal with goat’s milk! This is exciting, especially if I get a side of peaches.
Later, I am allowed a slab of ham, with cheddar cheese and maybe grapes. For dinner, Bill might broil tilapia (one of only three kinds of fish I can eat) and bake a sweet potato for me.
He makes something else for himself and the family. I eat alone. Even if I have planned a food that everyone can eat, I always eat alone. No one has offered to do this with me – not for one day, not even for one minute. My partner in life – who is delighted to cook for me – offers support from a distance.
Some days, though, he does tell me he’s proud of me – like I’m a toddler who learned to ride a bike. He’s just not going to ride with me.
One night Bill made tilapia for all of us – and it was delicious. The rest of the family got mac-n-cheese and green beans; I did not.
Since I can’t eat black pepper, my piece of fish had only salt. Bill peppered the rest of the fish. Why, you ask, would he pepper the other pieces of fish? I have no idea. The leftovers – which I would have loved – were made to rot in the fridge, while I nibbled on lettuce and almonds the next day.
I have plenty of snacks planned for every day. Thus far, I haven’t eaten any of the snacks. I am never, ever, ever hungry.
I also don’t crave anything. One would think that eating bland, whole foods would cause mad cravings for chocolate and jalapeños – but quite the opposite happens. Eating bland, whole foods makes me want to eat bland, whole foods.
Meanwhile, I am trying to walk 20 miles a week to keep some kind of pace with my ridiculous goal of 500 miles in six months. So while the food doesn’t make me leap from my bed, I do spend most of the day plotting when to walk – and how, given the weather.
The poor dog walked more in one week than in the prior month, but he seems to be enjoying himself. We are getting fit together. (To be fair, he is very young and does not require any additional fitness.)
On some days, I walk two miles and it takes every ounce of energy I have. Sometimes I hop on a bicycle afterward to get more mileage. On other days, I walk four miles and I wonder why I didn’t go out earlier. Most days, I wish it were warmer and drier so I could bike more and walk less.
Either way, I am moving. I am eating well. I am doing all the things I probably should have been doing since this pandemic started.
But honestly, I don’t really want to do any of it. I would just rather do this than die. So that’s what I’m doing.
The Capitol was attacked; five people died. Hundreds more are under investigation – including police. There’s fear in the air as mobs are threatening the life of our future President.
From what I’ve gathered on social media, Trump supporters fall into one of two camps. Many believe that the Capitol attack was wrong, and that those Trump supporters should be prosecuted – but that their cause was justified, even if their actions were not.
Others have cheered what happened by focusing now on Twitter and Facebook and their “censorship” of the man who incited the worst attack on the U.S. government in more than a hundred years.
While I am not a fan of censorship, I don’t see our soon-to-be-former “leader” as a victim. He has the entire world focused on him – which is exactly what he wants. The world is literally in his hands, and the media is desperate for him to speak.
But his choice is, instead, to sulk. Twitter’s and Facebook’s acts of supposed censorship are trying to disperse the 88 million people who blindly followed our very own Hitler, in the hope that they will stop destroying the lives of innocents in their blindness.
And while I know that the whole Twitter/Facebook thing is legal because they are corporations with rules – blah blah blah – I also understand the anger. I easily see the ramifications of what those corporations are doing to our beloved social media.
But my point is… I see.
The longer this disparity continues, the more I believe that seeing is what matters. To me, it feels like the Trump supporters just don’t see.
They follow blindly. They attack blindly. They are blind to everything that Donald J. Trump is – and are following, instead, what they think he represents. Trump is a liar, a narcissist and a sociopath. He uses people for one purpose only: to build up his own ego.
His followers can’t save him; they can only listen – and act accordingly. And in doing so, they are exactly like Nazis following Hitler. They believe the lies, and they do what he says. They are “fighting” for him, even though they have never actually seen who he is.
It is this blindness that is actually destroying us. They are fighting for what he represents to them. They are fighting for an ancient America – one that simply excluded women and minorities. They want to relive the glory days of White Supremacy.
I get that. It’s easy to remember “glory” from long ago.
For example, I truly miss riding my bike without fear of being shot. I also miss everyone in my neighborhood speaking the same language, because it was easier for me. But those days were gone way before Trump pointed out the loss, and they can’t ever reemerge.
I understand the allure, but it’s not possible to get back something that no longer exists. Trump lied about that, too. And no amount of destruction or rage or other adult temper tantrums will ever change that.
But so many can’t see it. They can’t see Trump for the bitter old man that he is; they blindly follow whatever suits his agenda.
They want to believe him because it’s easier than opening their eyes and seeing the truth: that the United States is already great because of our forward progress, and that it will only get stronger if we all band together.
Instead, they’ve torn themselves away from the pack – threatening their very survival – and created their own pack designed specifically, by Trump, to attack the rest of us.
It’s the blindness that bothers me most.
