I Got the Rona

Anyone out there disagree with me when I say 2020 stinks on ice?

Back in February I got sick. Weird symptoms. Seemed like a really bad UTI at times. Or something. My kidneys kind of hurt. I was tired and had some wicked brain fog. I lost my appetite. I was dying of thirst all the time. I got oral thrush like I’ve never had in my life. I kept going to work and carrying on as best I could but no matter what I did I just seemed to get weaker.

Then this lovely thing called Covid appeared and our office went to working at home. There were days I couldn’t even pick my head up off the pillow but I kept working anyway, sometimes with the assistance of neighbors/co-workers who came over and sat on the bed with me and walked through spreadsheets on my computer for me. Eventually I got tired of being sick and tired and went to one of those Minute Clinic things. They gave me a nasty pink bubblegum flavor mouthwash for the oral thrush and sent me home to die without looking at any of my other symptoms.

A week later the mouthwash was gone, my symptoms were just as bad and my husband took me to the Urgent Care. They looked at me for about three seconds and told me I was diabetic before they even got the blood glucose meter out. I’m 53 with no previous issues but there I was with an A1C of 14 and blood sugar reading of 600. They gave me a prescription for Metformin and told me to see a primary care doctor ASAP. I didn’t have one of those because I never got really sick before. Ever.

During this time I heard my old friend Philine had passed. Obviously I couldn’t get to New York for the services and it broke my heart.

I started seeing a new doctor and they got me on some meds. My blood sugars slowly came back down to a normal rate. Slowly. But I kept working from home, thanks to Covid. Did I mention I was losing weight? I mean, it was melting off. I couldn’t believe how fast. But I wasn’t eating anything for quite a while, and then when I did start eating again I wasn’t eating anything with carbs or any sugar. Before I knew it I was down ten, then twenty, then thirty and forty pounds by late spring, early summer.

That’s about the time I got word that my old friend, Alison had died in Florida after losing her second battle with breast cancer. Her videotaped testimony made for her church just before she entered hospice for a brief stay moved me to tears.

Eventually I started going back to the office for two hours a day. And then three. The courts reopened and evictions were allowed to proceed so some days I was not in the office at all, but sat in court for a few hours and then went back home to my bed. But I was stronger. And wearing clothes I hadn’t fit into in years. Friends were even starting to give me their “skinny clothes”. My husband, my superhero continued to pick up my slack when it came to housework and grocery shopping, etc. He did it all without uttering a single complaint. Our dog, Bodie complained least of all. He got to have company every day. He turned two at the beginning of the summer but he is the calmest, most patient two year old I’ve ever had. He’d love to spend the whole day playing and running around but if I’m laying down he just jumps on the bed and naps with me. He never acts up or acts out, he just rolls with whatever’s going on with his people.

So, summer…. I was feeling better. Not great, but definitely better. I was wearing my mask like a good girl on the rare occasion that I was in a store of something. I stayed six feet away from people. When friends came over we would sit outside on the deck instead of being inside. My friend, Mary who was now living in Boone (we all moved from Connecticut to North Carolina together in 2013) announced that her daughter was getting married in August. The wedding date had been moved up by at least a year because of Mary’s health issues. She was in multiple organ failure. So, August 15th Marty and I drove up to Boone to see Danielle get married. I drove back up a few days later – Mary had died.

So even if the year stopped right there I’d say that 2020 stinks on ice.

But the year didn’t end in August. The year just kept on giving. Our good friend, who lives next door got a terrible infection in his foot and has spent more time in the hospital than at home now. On Thanksgiving Day he had an amputation, lost everything just below the knee. Then, while he was still in the hospital he somehow contracted Covid. So, his wife, who works with us immediately started her quarantine even though she had no symptoms. Yet. The symptoms came a few days later. And the landslide was on – we all got sick. Even friends I hadn’t been coming into contact with in person for weeks and weeks were getting sick. Neighbors, coworkers, friends, all dropping like flies with congestion, aches, some with fevers and some without. And we all started testing positive for Covid. I knew my test was coming back positive before it came back. Positive.

And it’s Christmas.

We’re all in isolation until the end of this week. So, right through Christmas. Ho ho ho. It wouldn’t be so bad if my head wasn’t congested and foggy. I’d love to finish writing one of the three books I’ve currently got going. Argh. Still – I expected much worse from this virus. The virus we’ve all been terrorized with for months and months. The one that has us cancelling holidays, is driving people out of business and makes us wear face diapers everywhere we go. The symptoms are annoyances but under any other circumstances I’d be out and about, working and carrying on with life as usual. I’d feel like poop, but who hasn’t had a bad cold that made life a little unpleasant for a while? But, nooooo, it’s the RONA so I have to isolate.

Stinks. On ice.

I can only hope 2021 isn’t standing in the wings saying, “Hold my beer!”

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