Oh sweet summer. Flowers bloom throughout the land and bird song fills the air. Plants forgotten over the long, cold, winter months (well chilly winter at least) burst forth in their own version of the Hallelujah Chorus, as we attempt to stem the weeds. Forget that the deer are also enjoying the fruits of our labor. Forget the caterpillars and snails that feast upon it all. This is summer and we love it. But wait. In every blue sky, there is a dark cloud.
Recently I woke up feeling less than chipper. As the day progressed, I was sinking deeper into some sort of malaise. I called the doc’s office, explained the nasal congestion and overall rotten feeling now accompanied by a fever of 100. “Must be a sinus infection,” I tell the nurse. She asks me to come into the office but to arrive at the back door used for suspected Covid cases. Covid?!#$@
My husband helps me into the back-door lobby area as my legs do their best not to buckle. Good grief, this sucks.
The nurse confirms the fever and does the other necessary stuff, asking, “Have you been around anyone with Covid recently?” There it is again, Covid. No, I haven’t been around anyone, except at the grocery store, other doc offices, library, committee meetings, garden centers and restaurants. I haven’t traveled outside southern Plymouth County in weeks.
The nurse swabs my nasal passages, which is rather uncomfortable, and 30 minutes later, time spent discussing everything under the sun, except politics with my husband, the verdict is in – Covid.
I’m incensed! I have faithfully received every booster vaccine available and in a timely manner. Up until recently, I washed down canned goods and cleaned doorknobs. How could I possibly have had my body invaded by those viral goonies? The physician assistant explains that Covid is a very fast-mutating contagion. Like a shape shifter, it outsmarts vaccines upon first taste and wins through its superior speed. Winner and still champion, I can now attest.
I’m crestfallen. On the way home after receiving a script for Pavlovic, said to decrease Covid symptoms, especially in the elderly and immunocompromised (another blow to my eroding sense of being in command of my ship, you know the body), I slowly accept this latest sucker punch.
By the way, I took only one dose of that medication before declaring it “foul as drinking gasoline.” I’m assuming that, of course, having never really tasted the stuff.
Living with chronic pain and other discomforts is a way of life, and many reading this I’m sure can relate. But illnesses are a different breed of troublemaker. Illnesses swim around inside the host, the human body, taking whatever it wants while you use up a box of tissues and flip through the 1,000 bits of programing available on cable TV but finding nothing, save reruns from the Dick Van Dyke show.
I tried reading one of the books from one of the stacks I have stashed throughout the house. I think, “Use this setback to read that book your cousin sent you three years ago.” As I read the introduction, I’m drifting into the first of several naps this rotten bug demands.
In the dream that follows, I’m flying above a gathering crowd assembled to hear my message – “wash your hands – don’t stand so close to me (yes, I hear Sting singing in the background) – stay away from crowded places.”
Upon coming to from that dream state, I think of those early Covid days. I was washing and spraying bleach on everything that came through the front door, including canned goods and one husband. One day as I was telling him to wash his hands, he reeled back and hollered “I can’t take this anymore!” I quietly gave him space. It was tense times, and we were all doing the best we could.
Covid brought out the best and the worst in people and it politized healthcare. Either you were labeled a liberal for following Dr. Fauci’s recommendations or you were a Trump supporter. It was, I believe, the beginning of a huge divide in communities across the country. The very nation was split in two. While the virus did its worst, we all struggled to try and live with some sort of normalcy. We did manage, but others were lost forever, both figuratively and in reality.
Now as I sequester myself, roaming amongst the flowers in my yard nourishing my soul, I’m reminded “this too shall pass,” and for me, “this is not a problem.” The virus is now in a mellow form, more nuisance than killer. And it’s just another reminder, try to avoid a sucker punch – don’t forget to “wash your hands.”
This Mattapoisett Life
By Marilou Newell