For over a year, Covid-19 rained over me and all the living beings that populated planet earth. It was like having an invisible specter lording over our collective every waking moment.
Being a good citizen, I stayed indoors, washed my hands, and made sure not to touch my face. If I roamed outside, I dutifully wore a mask and avoided crowds of other anxious humanoids.
Side bar, you know life has changed forever when you realize you are price and durability shopping on Amazon.com for KN95 non-medical masks. I am now educated on the proper type mask to purchase and how to wear it. I suspect you are too.
Paranoia can be an amazing motivator.
Funny thing about life, I almost got to the virus vaccination line. As the old phrase, almost only counts in throwing hand-grenades and horseshoes.
But about three weeks ago, a close friend tested positive for Covid-19. Her panicky call came on Friday morning.
At the time, I lacked any symptoms, and I have stayed in good health for a long time. I remained unconcerned and went about my Friday and Saturday with zero worries.
And then she started deteriorating – her late Friday evening text messages were not good. She planned to hunker down for the duration and quarantine. I felt sorry for her.
Sunday evening clicked along with my life clock and things were about to change for me too, radically.
The virus arrived without warning or fanfare, and later I learned without mercy.
Within minutes I went from feeling normal to a spiked temperature, dizzy, and the sensation that something gripped my body, as if a Mafia hitman had stuffed me inside a giant trash compactor.
It squeezed the air out of my lungs with gurgling extra fluid in the back of my throat. It crushed my lower back and shoulder muscles into exhaustion.
I warned my friends via smartphone text. I unlocked my front door in the event EMTs might need to to scoop me up and rush me over to the ER.
I know what it feels like to know you are in a perilous position.
Having gotten quite sick in China with a 104 degree F fever. That event caused my body to steam my brain from the inside. If not treated, the gastrointestinal infection could have taken me into an eternally bright light.
This virus was not gastrointestinal, it offered the unknown. It scared me. I felt exposed.
Quarantine? It was an alien concept, quarantine? But that was now my plan, it seemed to be my only choice.
Monday morning, my lungs burned from a hacking cough and the effort to clear my airway. I wrapped inside a blanket. I yearned for safety within the cocoon’s warmth.
A friend knocked on my door. She left a plastic bag full of HALLS or VICKS – I learned they are useless to help sooth my lungs.
The disease process had burrowed in. I felt it.
My body was on fire and I could only rest leaned upwards to allow gravity to help me breathe quick breaths. I panted like a sick dog.
I barely moved off my couch for over a week, only moving on all-fours over to a bathroom to allow my hacking cough to clear. All day, every day, I battled back and forth.
I texted my sick friend or did a FaceTime to check in. Alive. We had proof of life moments. After all, we were in the same sickness bunker. Our other friends left powerless, and they remained on socially distanced flight patterns.
One morning I awoke without a temperature. Healed? It was a post-flu, post-hangover like phase, I thought.
Wrong.
In the afternoon, my temperature spiked and all the symptoms returned as if a cruel trick to fool me into thinking the virus had left my body. It had not. Crawled over to my couch position where I shivered, hacked and moaned. I lacked energy. This roller coaster ride repeated, again, and again.
Thankfully, my sister monitored me from afar, she had me order an ‘expectorant’ from AMAZON, and my kind acupuncturists gave me magic Chinese pills. The combination helped clear out my lungs. I kid you not, after a day or so taking the medicine, I breathed. It was not a clean breath, but it was a fuller breath.
I remained still, quiet and helpless. But I regained my mental bearings and awareness. I started to move, to walk.
After two weeks, I felt alive and not dying. My body’s immune system had fought back.
I am lucky, and I am thankful.
Dancing with a Devil is not a recommended exercise. I never want to dance with Covid-19 again.
The singular point that caused me to write this post.
I am reminded of one fact, life is fragile.
NS
You poor guy!!Glad you are better
Ha! It was awful!