Now I have COVID-19…

Photo of da-AL and K-D.

Now I, too, have COVID-19. My husband came down with it last week, ahead of me. He’d just tested positive when I wrote of his illness here (and here’s how it progressed and here’s our latest news.)

At the time, he was only somewhat uncomfortable. Quickly thereafter, he got really ill.

Very very very fortunately, just this month he’d found employment that provides excellent health insurance. Moreover, only a couple of days earlier, the health plan started offering monoclonal antibodies treatments to “patients who qualify.” Lucky him, he got sick sick sick enough to qualify.

Three mornings, he spent hours getting to the hospital, having his blood tested, taking medications including steroids, and sitting with an IV drip. The first day he felt the worst of his life, could hardly stand to get out of bed, and could barely eat or drink. By days two and three, he was markedly improved. It’s been a few days since, and he’s not entirely over it, but he’s definitely (knock on wood) out of the woods. Now he wishes the pounds he initially lost on the “COVID diet” weren’t creeping back. Thank goodness his sense of humor is returning.

As for me, the first day he fell sick, I felt crummy too, but mine passed within a couple of hours. I hoped it meant my body had faced down the nasty bug. A few days later, still feeling fine, hi ho hurrah, I tested negative. Then a few days later, woe is me, positive results of a retest came in shortly after I became feverish and headachy and yucky and… (okay, I’ll stick with keeping things polite) and it didn’t go away. I’m still not entirely great, but I hope I’m done with the worst of it.

How fortunate I am to have decent health insurance, a nurturing husband, and the generosity of dear people.

Now indulge me a moment on my soapbox:

Know anyone who’s anti-immigration? Invite them to find a predominantly white hospital and tell them good luck with that. The medical professionals who’ve helped my husband and me were overwhelmingly first and later generation immigrants. I’d rather not contemplate where we’d be without their hard work, dedication, care, bravery, and on and on…

Definitely, if everyone wore masks, neither my husband nor I would have gotten COVID-19. Wishing you and yours excellent health.

Have you ever changed a bigot’s mind? At least I can be one less person who allows them to think it’s okay to spread hate and divisiveness…

The Big Question by Story Teller

Blogger the Story Teller shares his musings of 13th April with us here at da-AL’s blog. It’s autumn there in Cooroy, Queensland, a town in Australia…

Sunset yesterday, from the ’Story Hill.'
Sunset yesterday, from the ’Story Hill.’ I live on an old ‘Aboriginal Story Place’  a ‘place of power’  ‘a place of Stories.’

The big question for me is: ‘where did we come from, and where are we going to,’ or what is the point of ‘life and death?”

The other day, I was sitting in my garden. I was on my favorite garden seat, in the shade of a leafy green tree. Bees buzzed, insects clicked, birds sang… a genteel breeze moved the leaves and branches. Energy flowed like an invisible stream, I felt it on my cheek and the back of my hand. Some people call it the wind.

Blogger/Author The Story Teller
Blogger/Author The Story Teller

I felt profoundly happy and at peace with the world, I breathe in and fill my lungs with energy… I think about the big question. The energy of the universe fills my body, I am everything… everything is me. It’s blindingly simple…

I think and daydream; I’m in a big city someplace, I’m walking across a dusty road, rubbish spins listlessly on an unfelt breeze. Somebody in a dirty white shirt and unkempt trousers staggers towards me, he has no shoes and his feet are filthy. ‘Do you have the answer,’ he croaks as he gets closer.

I smile at the man, I don’t have to talk. I grabbed my shirt at the neck and ripped it open, standing there like King Kong with strips of shirt hanging from my fingers, the unformed universe fermenting in my chest. It was so black, it was before black; electrons shoot out like tiny white rods… they moved in a twisting, linear way.

I tell the man to step inside. I think to myself; “I am nothing… yet to me, I am everything.

Life is a conundrum, the mystery of it makes you smile, the possibilities endless.  Open your mind, dare to dream.

Thoughts on an autumn day down-under.

Read more of the Story Teller’s musing here.