Ah, the best laid plans of men and morons. Get your vaccines, get your booster, have your supply of masks for the rare moments when you allow yourself time out of your own hovel, do NOT plan on entertaining a crowd bigger than maybe two. Still, you get covid.

Still, I got covid. And I got it bad. Yes that’s why it’s been over a month since you’ve seen a post from me, I got it bad, bad. Now before we continue, who ARE these people who get covid and are back at work in 2 days, smiling and grinning and passing ridiculous legislation like they had nothing more serious than a nose job adjustment. And just who ARE their second cousins who can’t go into the office but will work from home. I am not kidding when I tell you that I couldn’t remember how to turn on my computer one morning. Maybe it is because I have so many serious health issues to start, including being immunocompromised, that my body figured anything nonessential was really not essential!

Let me take you through what really happens when you breathe masklessly in the same space as some poor soul like me, from the first “hmm, I’m tired,” through hospitalization and a variety of transfers, to making follow-up appointments with all the medical community where more morons lurk in elevators and parking lots “defending their freedom” from the inhumanity of 40 square inches of material across their faces.

For weeks I’ve been trying to figure out how I became infected. I do as much on line, by delivery, or curbside pickup as I possible can for my shopping. Although sometimes it just isn’t possible and a quick trip into a store to the counter and back to the car is called for.  I wish I could but I can’t say I have ever, ever, ever been anywhere where masking was 100% (and/or 100% properly) executed. So since the beginning of the year there have been a place or two where I could have been exposed. I really should have known better and continued to Zoom or stream religious services but I went into the building where loving neighbors as themselves seemed to be a foreign concept and after two weeks I redirected myself to on-line religion again. That was also 1 week before the first sign of something in the body not functioning the way the anatomy books indicated.

The date was January 8, a Saturday, and a day I had spent most of it putting away Christmas decorations. I attributed the new cough to the dust and detritus generated from wrapping and packing. January 9, I woke to chills and shaking and a fever that would have made a dandy show and tell for an infectious diseases lecture.  A Sunday trip to the local urgent care center resulted in confirmation that my blood pressure and pulse were up, my coordination was down, that was a dandy looking sweater I was wearing and yes, you could fry an egg on my forehead. A swab was sent on mission up one nostril and out the other (actually it just felt that way but both nostrils were attacked from below), and I was given instructions to drink “literally gallons of water,” and check the electronic chart for results the following morning. January 10, shortly after the pair of acetaminophen tablets seemed to be kicking in, the phone beeped its “Message from My Chart” beep and I fumbled my way through the facial recognition security (apparently I looked enough like me even that early in the morning) to get to the results  – positive.  Crap. Calls to everybody in my family who may have been around me from January 1 (seemed like a good date to pick to me and all 3 other people (I told you you I don’t entertain big crowds!) agreed) and to my primary care doctor, who as fate would have, was recovering from his own battle with SARS-COV-2. Thanks to my weakened immune system, he managed to get me scheduled for a monoclonal antibody infusion, but unfortunately scheduled 3 days in the future. That’s okay, it’s the stuff politicians and former presidents got, I could wait.

On Thursday January 13, I drove myself across town to one of 3 clinics administering the more precious than gold elixir. About an hour later I actually felt better. The fever was low-grade rather than raging, the shaking and chills were reduced to a mild tremor, the squeezing headache relented, and the sore throat, eyes, sinuses, nose, in short everything north of the neck stopped hurting.  I figure in 2 days I’ll probably be breathing again. Ha!

For the next 18 days I woke each morning to take my blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and oxygen levels, always the same (good, good, low grade, good) then I pretended I was Howard Hughes, sitting alone in a darkened room watching movies, one after another. As long as I sat I was comfortable. Whenever I moved, I would become physically tired. Doing two things at once like standing and cooking, took as much out of me as a quick 5k around the neighborhood. I could do my own cooking but I often had to rest between cooking and eating, in the process, discovering that lukewarm eggs really do taste as nasty as reported even though I never had reason to question it before. I got neither better nor worse, but never “bad.”

That changed on Sunday January 30, my 3 week anniversary of the nostril invasion and subsequent positive test result. I woke up to my usual unchanging vital signs, made my breakfast, rested, ate my breakfast, rested, cleaned from breakfast, rested, then considered a nap. And for a few hours it was yet another day in the endless line of days that I was told would be always tiring and be slow to recover from. And then it hit me. Exhaustion like I’d never felt it. I could not walk across the room, the 14 foot room, without stopping partway and resting. Deep breathing was absolutely impossible, as was standing up straight. Shallow breathing was almost as impossible. In fact, breathing suddenly seemed a nee and elusive concept nit yet learned. Fortunately, my sisters had just stopped by to see how things were going and we commissioned their car as a civilian ambulance. The question was asked which hospital and answered without my input, one about 15 minutes north. No, I gasped, turn here. A mere 2 miles away was a new neighborhood hospital with full ER services.

I’ll spare you the details of the hospitalization, the tests the scans, the multiple IV attempts before hitting vein, the ultimate transfer to “the big hospital” because the current site couldn’t comfortably deal with the multiple problems I have and felt it was safer for me there. More test, more scans, more questions (yes I do know I have only one kidney, duh), more doctors!

To make a long story short (yes, yes, I know it’s much too late for that), all the days in and tests reviewed indicate my oxygen is fine and my lungs quite clear, I just cant breathe. With lots of exercise and home based therapy, I can strengthen the muscles that work the lungs which is where the virus decided to attack me and be back to my baseline by summer, maybe? (Everybody else gets pneumonia, I have to be different!)

So I leave you with this. If you’re going out, please wear your masks. Maybe you feel they infringe on your right to who knows what and who really cares, but when you don’t wear it, you are infringing on my right to live. Sorry but – I win. Wear your f-ing mask!

A serious send off – seriously, wear your mask, wash your hands, don’t breathe my air. If we were in the midst of some sort of global automotive crisis you know  darn well you wouldn’t take mechanical advice from (shudder) politicians, so don’t get your medical advice from your mechanic. If you’re really feeling the need to protest, don’t get vaccinated and put only yourself at risk for a cruel and unusual death. Leave the innocent bystanders standing please.