My COVID Life

I'm exhausted so I don't know how this is going to go. Normally, I wouldn't write; I'd wait until a better day, a day when I was better rested or more in the mood. It's not really that I'm not in the mood. I'm simply too tired to even have a mood. Regardless, I feel I should write. Today. Now. There's nothing else to do except sleep and read and sleep and read. And I've done far too much of that in the last week. It's been a crazy week, though in far from the traditional sense of "crazy." That's what I feel I need to at least write a few words about.

Last Saturday, April 4, I finally acknowledged that my lungs were feeling "funny." I'd felt a little off - unable to take a deep breath - for a few days previous, and, while I thought maaaaybe it was the beginning of something (i.e. coronavirus), I was able to play it off as just my imagination or allergies, even though I'm not allergic to much of anything. The following day I couldn't seem to get my heart rate up during my workout. I told myself it was just my Garmin being an asshole, but by mid-morning at work, I found myself repeatedly out of breath. I left work early that day. I haven't been back since. I was put on an official 14 day COVID leave on Tuesday. I have not tested positive, but my symptoms are congruent with some form of the disease and I was told by a NP or PA-C (I can't remember which - I only spoke to her on the phone briefly as she would not let me in for my scheduled appointment) that I self-isolate and find a way to get myself tested.

And that's where the bullshit starts. There are no tests. Not in Las Vegas, Nevada, anyway. Maybe there are some where you live and maybe they are accessible to non-severe patients but that isn't true in Sin City. I imagine at the point that I was being admitted, a test kit would appear, but as I am fortunately far short of that, I sit here typing away unsure of what I have yet I'm 99% certain it's COVID. I don't have the telltale symptoms - fever, cough, splitting headache, body aches. I have sore lungs with incredibly diminished capacity and, as I stated at the outset, I'm exhausted. I've also had heart palpitations which are, in fact, a little known symptom.

So, that's where I am - lungs that feel like sh** and zero energy. Some - let me tell you EVERYONE turns into a medical expert when you announce on social media that you're sick - say it's not what I think it is. Allergies is a common suggestion. Living in the high desert for the first time is another. But you don't have a fever, Stacee. People with corona have a fever. Yeah, no they don't. Not all. Not me. I'm going to crunch a few numbers for you: I have NEVER had anything wrong with my lungs. Nothing. I don't have asthma. Never had bronchitis. I don't smoke. I have a strong cardiovascular system. And now there's a strange lung virus running amok and I have lung problems, but they are NOT caused by this strange virus? It's too big of a coincidence for me. Until a negative test tells me otherwise, I have COVID-19 and I am treating myself as if I do.

What does that treatment look like? If you check my credit card statement, it looks like A LOT of food and beverage delivery. I can't leave the house and I only have so much food. I also only have so much energy. Cooking is far more than I'm able to do most days but I apparently I can scroll through various delivery service apps with minimal struggle (Postmates and Uber Eats being my faves). Otherwise, it's rest, hydration, very, very light "exercise," and hours on FaceTime with my girlfriend (Truly there is no better medicine).

I monitor my symptoms like a hawk. I take my temp several times a day (It hasn't risen over 100 in the past week) and pay close attention to my breathing. It might be overkill and maybe I'm too cautious. However, I have never had an illness with no cure that kills people. Sure, few people like me - fit and healthy - die, but some do. And it's that "some" that keeps me vigilant. I do not want to end up a statistic. And given that I don't fit into any at-risk categories, if I show up at the ER with symptoms, there's a chance they may not take them seriously once they take a look at my runner's body. Don't agree? Women spent decades dying of un-diagnosed heart attacks because "women don't have heart attacks." COVID-19 is new and there is so much we don't yet know. I advise caution about taking what we think we know as gospel.

Funnest part of the week? Thursday when the Teladoc doc asked me how I think I'd been exposed. I was soooooooooo close to saying 'F***ers buying non-essential sh**." I tempered that urge by simply stating that I am an employee at an essential retail business and I dealt with hundreds (thousands?) of customers in the two previous to the onset of symptoms. His response? "Ah, yeah. Sounds reasonable." No sh**, buddy. Short of hugging someone who flew in from China in the early days of the outbreak or working directly with COVID patients, there's an extreme likelihood that I've been exposed. Unknowingly, of course. They may be f***ers and might be cavalier about my health and theirs, but I am certain that they were asymptomatic at the time and had no idea what they might be spreading. Few people are that Republican.

Regardless, here I am. Day 7 in isolation. Seven days to go. Minimum. I'll have to see how the symptoms go. I'm due back at work - among the f***ers - next Monday, but I will only go if I'm no longer showing symptoms and think I'm strong enough to work. My goals for the week - rest, order less from Uber Eats and Postmates, and do very, very light exercise every other day or so. My hope is that I don't get worse before I get better. That will require prudence. It's tightrope walk, the balance between pushing to get better and pushing too much. As an endurance athlete, I'm all about extending my comfort zone, seeing what my body can do. Holding that in check next week (and in the weeks that follow) is going to be a challenge. I have no choice but to rise to that challenge and walk the line before I run it.

My advice? Stay home. Stay healthy. At least until they come up with better testing, better tracing, better treatment, and maybe a vaccine. Oh, and just as important - Tip your delivery drivers. They're out in the world so you don't have to be.

Love in the Time of Coronavirus

"That's love right there!" ~ Shouted at my girlfriend and me out the passenger side window of a car passing us as we hugged goodbye at the airport last Monday evening. 

Yes. Absolutely. It was love. It is love. No question.

Goodbyes aren't easy even when there isn't a global pandemic raging. Now, in the Time of Coronavirus, they are impossible. Because it's not "See you soon." It's "I'll see you when the restrictions against non-essential travel are lifted." Whenever that is. A month? Six weeks? Three months? There's no f***ing telling. So, yeah, it's hard. And as my girlfriend and I hugged goodbye last week, I knew it might be a long time before I would hold her in my arms again. The desperation, the absolute desolation, that I felt had to be evident. I'm sure it was written on my face and in my body language, in the way I hugged her.

A country apart. More than two thousand miles. Three days in a car; four hours on a plane. Under the best circumstances, none of this worries me in the least. If I've got a free day or two, I can and will hop a flight on a moment's notice, especially if I find a good - ok, halfway decent - airfare. With a couple of well-placed approved request offs, I could see her once a month or more. Unfortunately, circumstances are far from the best. Yes, they could be worse, a lot worse...but f*** it still sucks. Airfares are at an historical low - like in my lifetime I have NEVER seen airfares so low - AND I CAN'T GO ANYWHERE!!!!! It's just not prudent or good for the human race right now. We are down to essential travel only...and apparently being  homesick for your girlfriend isn't exactly essential.

If I'm being honest, I want to do everything I can to get this damn pandemic over with. If that means forgoing travel for now, staying the f*** home, not shopping for non-essentials at essential businesses, then I'm in. All in. I may have grander motivation than some people (i.e a girlfriend on the other side of the country that I desperately want to see on the regular), but we all need to be all in and do whatever f***ing small part we can. At the absolute base, we can stay home (the f*** home) and keep at the prescribed social distance when we must leave the house. If we do that now, we won't have to do it forever. If we keep on half-assed, we'll still be doing it well into summer.

I've had an anger simmering for days now. It's not like me. I rarely let anything get to me enough to make me angry. But this weekend... I worked both Saturday and Sunday at the Worlds Largest Home Improvement Retailer. We were deemed "essential" by the governmental powers-that-be because even if we are all hibernating at home, things are still going to break. People need to be able to fix the A/C, unclog the toilet, repair a breaker. I get it and I am proud that I work for such a company. This weekend, though...... I work in the paint department. The only "essential" items we sell are masks and gloves. We've been out of stock on both for literally weeks and yet we KILLED our sales plan. I don't recall ever working a busier Saturday in a paint department. What were people buying? Paint, paint, and more paint. Plus all the fun attachments that run up the average ticket and make the bosses happy. To a one, customers laughed about how bored they were at home and how they had time to do all these projects they'd been putting off. What better time, right?

Wrong. What happened to stay the f*** home? What happened to doing what's right for the common good? That all went out the window. Clearly. It was evident all weekend long that my customers' boredom trumped my desire to remain healthy. I began referring to all of them as "Fuckers," a word I can't recall ever using before Saturday afternoon. Yes, we are open. Yes, we are here for the community as my company has been through disaster after disaster. Yes, I'm getting "hazard pay" if I work more than 35 hours a week.Yes, I've been gifted of an egregious amount of personal/sick time. But f***, it doesn't mean I want to put my health on the f***ing line every time I clock in.

Nor do I want to extend this damn pandemic. Because - and I think this might be near the root of my anger - you all get to go home to your wives, partners, girlfriends, families. I don't. I go home to my dog and my cats. My sister just finished chemo so she's at a high risk. My dad's assisted living is on lockdown. I can't see either of them. My girlfriend is a light-year of restricted travel away. Your people are annoying you? You need to re-do the garage floor or paint that old picnic table or pick out a new area rug for under the dining table before you kill someone? I'm sorry for your bad luck. At least you have people. I would love (LOVE) to be around my girlfriend enough to get on her nerves. But that can't happen until this thing ends.

I'm sorry for the rant. It's been a hot minute since I've gotten up on any kind of soap box. I've let a lot of things go and vented my unhappiness elsewhere. I've chosen to use the blog for good, positive messages. But tonight........ It's just that... Love in the time of coronavirus isn't easy. I know we are lucky. We are healthy. So far anyway. We have a future waiting for us and this time apart will only make us stronger, create a more enduring foundation.  And I have the memory of our last hug. That was love. That is love. We are love.

So do us a solid and stay the f*** at home!

Like It Or Like It

Previous to my mom's passing, I had little experience with death. Just lucky, I guess? I'd had friends, co-workers, and family members pass, but I'd never been there. I'd never seen the moments before or experienced the wondering ("Push the button. Get the nurse. Is she...gone?"), nor had I held the hand of someone after their last heartbeat was confirmed. I'm here to tell you that it's impossible....and beautiful...and important. My mom wanted to pass from this world peacefully. She never said my sister and I needed to be there. I'm sure that might have been part of what she meant by "peace," but I can't know for sure. There's a lot of things I can't know for sure. Now. I will never know if she knew I was there - that we were there - or that I held her hand until the doctor finally arrived to make it official. The nurse said she wasn't struggling as she neared the end; I have to assume she wasn't afraid. She knew what it all meant and chose to medicate herself away. In the nearly twenty-four hours it took her to die, I'm sure she came to terms with the finality of it all. Like me, my mom was an atheist. Like it or like it, the end is the end. My sister - a former Christian and a recent convert to Judaism - saw angels as our mom left and spoke tearfully of God's mercy. We were both in the room and yet we experienced the moment of her death very differently; just as we are coping with the aftermath - our grief and recovery - differently. We agreed to honor our mother's wishes, then we chose divergent paths. And that's ok. There's no right or wrong. We didn't have the same relationship with our mother when she was alive; nothing says we have to have the same relationship with her death. And that's ok.  

I'm not going to sit here and act like I'm some newly minted expert on death and dying. My knowledge wouldn't fill half a thimble, and for that I am grateful. However, I would be remiss if I didn't put some thoughts together on the subject...even if it only serves as a reminder on down the road. Because, as I said the night my mom was dying, it comes for all of us eventually. It will come for me again. 

(1) It's going to be impossible and awful and the most difficult moment of your life, but if you get the chance to see someone off - especially a spouse, partner, or parent - do it. You will wish for many things as you whittle away your loved one's last moments - eternal life, a cigarette, a shot of whiskey, a bump of coke, dark chocolate. You will want to run away; the last place you will want to be is in that hospital room. It will smell like death long before death arrives. You will know this, not because you know what death smells like, but because what else could it be? Don't be afraid. It's not your time. There is nothing to fear regardless what you believe - that will come later. Her hand may feel different - cool, sweaty, near lifeless or maybe you haven't held it in decades - Hold it anyway. If you are lucky (Yes, lucky) enough to spend those very last moments, do it. My mom never would have left my side so I'd be damned if I was going to leave hers, just because it seemed so impossible and awful. Don't you f***ing leave either.

(2) Stay as long as you want...until it starts to seem weird. Her hand will start to feel different. That's when you know to pull away. She's not there. She doesn't know she's on her own. And so are you. Let go. You have to. 

(3) Siblings and other relations are going to grieve differently. I'd have flown home the next day and gone back to work (Yes, really), but there was work to be done. There's actually lots of work. If you have to plan a memorial or a funeral, God bless you. If you have to hash that out with family members, oy. I wish you luck. Fortunately, my sister and I didn't have to deal with any of that. Mom wanted to be cremated and left minimal instructions for what to do with her ashes (except to say she didn't want to be spread over water...weird. She could swim). This caused no consternation within me. Good thing, because it absolutely tortured my sister. Here's a snippet of an early conversation (We had literally 1,872 more in the five days I was in Minnesota):

Kelly: I think I want her close [regarding Mom's ashes]

Me: How about the living room?

Kelly: Not that close. 

We seriously went back and forth for days. We visited cemeteries that have cremation plots (It is, in fact, a thing. I had no idea) and assessed them for safe walkability from my sister's house (no crossing the highway) and whether Mom would like "being" there. I promise y'all I wanted to throttle her a zillion and one times. It was hard. I didn't care and she CARED. My mom's ashes became a huge deal for my sister - and here's the life lesson -  I had to let them be. Kelly is mourning and will mourn our mother very differently than me. And again, that's ok. 

Further evidence... I wanted to get to work on my mom's apartment right away. I had to get home and get back to work; I didn't have a month to dilly-dally. Hell, I didn't really have the five days I gave to it. Anyway, I pressed and won that one. We started with the "easy" stuff - perishable food, non-perishable food, and toiletries. I was good with tossing what couldn't be donated and moving on. I should have checked. I attempted to throw away an open package of - I don't recall - dental flossers maybe and got raked. Stacee, we need to ask each other before we throw anything away. But they're just dental flo-- Never mind. I pulled the flossers out of the trash and asked (For the record, they were a no). In my mind's eye, I saw our progress screeching to a halt if we had to micromanage every little decision. I agreed, keeping the begrudging nature of my capitulation to myself. 

Look, I'm no saint. Kelly gets on my nerves, always has, but no more than I get on hers and always have. In the day, I would have gone ten rounds to the death over that kind of bullshit. But....F*** me... I promised my mom - as she was nearing her last breaths - that I would take care of Kelly, that Kelly would be alright. I would make sure of that (I also promised her we'd vote a democrat into office and try to get a woman elected president in our lifetimes). Mom never worried about me - I liked to think I am as strong as she was - but she worried about Kelly. The only way I could think of to convince her to leave this world was to make that promise. I didn't make it lightly, dammit, and I intended to keep it. 

I let my sister have her way because it was more important to her than it was to me. Pick your battles. In the aftermath, it can't be all about you. It has to be about everyone. No one's grief or sadness should ever be placed above that of anyone else. Case in point, my sister knew that writing our mom's obituary was important to me and, though she retained editorial control over the final draft, I got to write it. 

(4)  A lot of talking goes on after someone dies. Literally EVERYONE wants to talk - from nurses and other caregivers to neighbors and friends. They want to express their condolences; they are grieving, too, in their way. They may say some awesome things. They may also ask what you're going to do with your mother's antique kitchen cabinet. They'll ask about memorials and funeral arrangements. And they'll bring food. For me, it was a beating. I talked more in those five days following my mother's death than I have in ages. Friends would call and I'd let it go to voicemail. Beyond a certain point, I didn't have anymore words. None I wanted to say out loud anyway. I guess the lesson here is that everyone experiences it all differently. Some may be dying to talk, but others - like me - may crave silence. Offer to help or talk then back away. I knew I had huge support network literally all over the world . Don't be offended if you offer to help/talk/whatever is rebuffed. This is about them, not you. 

Let's summarize - 

1. Be there...if you are lucky enough to be able to be. 

2. Stay until it gets weird, then let go.

3. Acknowledge the grief of others and pick your battles.

4. Don't be offended if someone grieving rebuffs you. 

I hope I remain a novice at all this. None of it is fun but when it comes as it will, we all need to be ready. Death can bring out the worst in people. Don't let it. My mom would be PISSED if she found out Kelly and I were acting like assholes. Honestly, that made me try a lot harder; it makes me try harder. I've just opened this chapter of my life. Really, my sister and I have. I'm sure more lessons will come. I can tell you what my mom would say about it all. Stacee, she'd say, you have two choices. You can either like it or like it.  Alright, Mom, I guess I'll like it.

But I'm going to like it like I like the snow in Michigan.