Scenes from the Immune System Wars

I have been out of words of late.  I realize that is difficult for anyone who knows me or reads me to believe, but it is true.  Between the worsening pandemic crisis and the horribly acrimonious political environment, I have felt flat.

I have closed my mind off to a great deal of what is happening around me just so I can survive.

Of course the closing of one’s mind is always a very dangerous task.  It can lead to faulty reasoning and warped perceptions of right and wrong.  All I have to do is stick my head up, like some sort of shell shocked prairie dog, and I can see everywhere the devastating consequences of refusing to look around, take in the whole landscape, and put oneself in the place of others.

So, I suppose what I normally do is the opposite: I literally feel the anguish and pain of those who feel they are not represented or that they are no longer important or understood in the midst of a rapidly changing and dangerous time.

That anguish and pain can lead to several things depending on who they infect.  They can turn some outwards, towards looking for solutions for how they and others can make things better.  Or, more often,  these feelings of powerlessness can lead to dark places… places of fear that cause people to lash out at those who are different and to feel threatened by change.  Instead, it is often easier to believe that the whole world is somehow against them and that blame can be laid at the feet of people who easily qualify as “them” and not “us”.

Understanding and embracing difference and change, which is uncertain and a little uncomfortable, is harder than being told by someone that there is a vast conspiracy, a lie, and that only one group, one leader, one faction has ownership over the truth.  This is a falsehood that has been perpetuated over time by many.  There is a long and horrifying list of names of people who have used a time of crisis to slip in and tell people who are hurting and confused that they have all the answers and that the other side is somehow not just wrong but perpetuated by evil.

It is a strange twist of fate that human beings seem to react the same to, time after time. Just in the last century, Adolf Hitler told a Germany reeling from post World War I poverty and distress that if they could purify the country from undesirables who were ‘taking away’ what was rightfully theirs, everything would be better.  His message found its mark because it came just at the right time. The people were tired of war and tired of poverty and struggle. There had to be a solution.  Hitler had a solution.   Did the average citizen realize what Hitler’s intentions were and approve of them?  I seriously doubt it.  However they were willing to look past a great deal of wrong in order to achieve this pure state of perfection he was selling them.

Our world is changing.  We are twenty years into a new millennium and finding out that the planet is only going to handle so much abuse.  The temperature is rising.  The fossil fuels we thought were endless are going to dry up.  The floods and fires and hurricanes are going to keep coming. It is frightening.  For many, the way the lived and worked is going away.  Certainly there must be someone to blame for all of this.

There is.  And it isn’t your political opponent.

It isn’t a ‘fake’ election.

We are all to blame for the environment.  Our great grandparents and all of humanity who thought  the Creation given to us by the great Creator of us all was limitless.

It’s not.  We haven’t taken very good care of it.

We aren’t taking very good care of one another either.  At least not in this country.

We are too busy tearing one another apart and pointing fingers.  This will never work.  There can be no healing when a wound is constantly worried and blame is being laid.

There can be no light in the darkness when we cannot accept one another’s intentions as good and try to proceed from there in unity. We don’t have to agree to join hands and move forward.

We will be certain to reap what we have sown if we continue down the path we are on.

We are not “Us” and “Them.”  We are us.  If we believe we have been lied to and cheated and someone is out to get us and only we and our little group have the ‘real’ truth; things will not get any better.

If you cannot face one another in love and hope then there will be no coming together at all.  There will only be further grief and sadness.

This is why I have been unable to write and unable to voice what I have been feeling.

I am utterly frightened that we have reached a point of no return as a nation.  I pray it is not so but I do not know.

Is this our breaking point?  Do so many of us believe in things that have no basis in fact that we will rip apart from one another?

I don’t know but I am scared.  I am scared to the bottom of my being.  I realize that I have compared Trump to Hitler here.

I do not mean that Donald Trump is going to try and kill all the Jews.  I would be headed out of town if that were the case.

My point is that sowing discord and not peace is ALWAYS  wrong.  It never works in the end.  We must all accept what is and move forward, whether we are happy about it or not.

We have to look at facts, not innuendo and ‘secret knowledge’ and believe in the sincerity of one another.

I know nothing else but prayer and hope.

I cannot, on my own, effect or handle something of this size.  It panics me.  I feel like the ground underneath us has shifted and will never again be steady.

But it has to be.

We are all shaken by a pandemic that has been ripping through us like a war with an unseen enemy.  Surely there is a way to lay blame for this, at least.

Not really.  It is.  We can point fingers, on both sides, as to how it has been handled, or how it is going, but nothing we have done yet has stopped it.  The casualties in our nation alone have far outstripped those we have lost in war in the last fifty years.  The human mind cannot even comprehend that kind of loss.

But we have to hold onto the belief that there are so many times when the light does win and  the  dark recedes again. Fear and prejudice are not the way.

I pray we go forward together as a nation without fear but with open minds.  Minds that are open to one another, and to the future.. whatever it brings, is the only way forward.

 

post script: I no longer have a pulpit.  I used this blog as one with this post.  If you don’t agree or like what I said, that’s ok.  I needed to say it.  Thanks for being respectful of my bully pulpit here.  I did not feel it was right for me to shape these thoughts on Facebook so I did it here on my own platform.

 

I feel like I should write something.  I am just unsettled.  My health is still up and down.  It always will be.  I try to be more up than down.  I am finally past the urinary tract infection that hung on for two and half months.  And I really hope it stays away.

(There.. that was more personal info. than you wanted, right? )

I have been trying to cut down the amount and number of medications I take but it is rather difficult because I don’t know what I am doing.  One doctor, who I see infrequently, is always telling me how bad all of my medication is for me and how I should stop it but he also tells me he knows more than all of the other doctors so I don’t know what to believe. It makes me feel like I have no damned control.

That is nothing new so I don’t know why I am not used to it by now.

I am confused about medication and I am confused about my own personal future.  For the first time in my life, I don’t have any big plans for the next thing down the road.   I am not planning or striving or pushing myself as hard as I can.  I think quarantine for so many months has just sucked those things right out of me.  I am just doing my thing day to day.

Yesterday I got angry that so many days look the same now.  When it isn’t a work day my husband and I go for a walk or hike somewhere with dogs and then we look for outdoor eating somewhere we don’t have to be close to other people.  That is about all we can do.

We had friends over to our deck once.  That was fun.

Sometimes our children come home.  That is nice.

Other than that, we just stay home.

It’s fine.  I would rather be home than sick.

I don’t want Covid.

I just want to feel a little bit of what we all felt pre-plague.

I guess we will someday.

And now, on November 1, 2020 I feel unsettled and scared and sickened thinking of the election that will take place in two days.  I have already cast my vote.

I already gave my meager monetary offering to the cause of democracy.  But, I have never in my life seen so much anger and hate poured out against people of different colors, beliefs, and ideas as I have seen during this presidency and this election season.

I don’t recognize this country.  I am embarrassed by it.  I am ashamed.  I don’t think there is any excuse for this kind of behavior on the part of anyone: I don’t care which party they want to win or who they are.

We are being drug back into a scarier time.

Why?  This is what confuses me.

Is the racism and and Us vs. Them-ism lurking so close to the surface that when it is given a voice it just rises up and screams and speaks louder than love can… any time, every time?

Was it never really gone?

Maybe it just went to its dark corner and slept.  I don’t know but it can’t have my country and my children’s legacy without a fight.

If darkness and all of its ugly voices that speak of division and hate and “Covid is going away” (WTF the numbers are going up daily!!!!) try to take away legal elections this time; may the Lord have mercy on our souls.

I will not go quietly.  And I think there are a lot of folks who feel the same way I do.

I have fantasized about leaving the country but that really won’t solve the problem.  We have to come together and make it better.  We can’t turn our backs on the ugliness.

We are going to have to make a lot of noise.

A LOT.

 

It has been a bit since I actually published a blog.  I have written a few.  I have even finished one.  It just didn’t seem worth it.  After all, I am editing this entire thing with the intent to weave it together into some kind of cohesive whole.  That is a huge task.  I  can’t believe how much and how long I have been doing this. I have never, ever been so regular about a diary than I have about this very public one.

I mean I have diaries: tons of them.  They are filled with poetry and anguish, and hormones and tears and all sorts of things I had before Prozac.

Yeah, well… I still have some of those things post Prozac.  I think at this point I am often too tired and too jaded for those things.  I suppose we all are after a certain age.

But, lest I go off on a tangent here…. (I never do that!) I should actually write the blog post I meant to when I came downstairs and left the bed with the sleeping dogs and sleeping husband and my white noise machine and my earplugs and my pillows just so…..

Good grief! I sound so neurotic.  Oh yeah, I am. Oh well.

What I meant to write about is the fact that I broke my vow to not go into a hospital.   Before this last 24 hour episode, I had not been in a white, sterile, prison with bad food, people trying to find my non existent veins, ask me questions, follow me to the bathroom and all the rest,  for 20 months.

This past Saturday I had to face the fact that parts of me are still falling apart and that I needed help.  I went to the fancy, doctor owned 24 hour ER down the street out of fear of  the pandemic (Covid) and because I am blessed with amazing insurance.  I had a CT scan and the doctor said it was up to me but he recommended I be admitted for observation, comfort care and further testing. I almost told him to stick it and that I was going home, but the idea of having to come back or go through the regular ER, probably full of patients with the plague, made me go ahead.  From the fancy ER they can admit you straight to a room in the hospital of your choice.  You get picked up by exhausted ambulance drivers and they drive you to your overnight accommodations and you skip a lot of trouble.)

It took hours for all of this to transpire.  I was in pain, sick, and nauseas and on the verge of a panic attack the entire night.  And of course, I never slept.

I will not go into detail, but sum it up by saying that the surgery I had in 2017 that led, 24 hours later, to emergency surgery, really screwed up my innards. Nothing is in its place and nothing works normally.  The last consult I had with the gastroenterologist ended with him saying, ” I think it may be best to remove your colon entirely.”

As shocking as being told such a thing was, this past Saturday night, I was ready to go for it.

Lately I have been fighting repeated infections and repeated issues of the nature I mentioned above.  The chase one another.  The medicine that fixes one makes the other flare and so on.

I have been unwilling to even acknowledge this is happening.  I go through each day sucking down whichever pills or what-have-you that are appropriate and I just keep moving.  I work from home, like we all do now.  On the days I don’t work, I find plenty of things to keep me busy.  I talk to my kids on the phone, I cook, I clean, I write, and I exercise until I am really tired.  Sometimes I dream of a simpler time.  A time when I could wander through discount stores looking at stuff just for the hell of it: I miss that.  But we all miss things we used to do before the pandemic.

Oh, and I read the news.  But, that gets depressing quickly so I try to pull myself out of it and read about royalty and movie stars I have never heard of and special interest bits.  Or, I really extend my mind and watch a BBC show about a bunch of young people competing to be make up artists with a contract to a major company or something… .  It’s terribly important.

I spend in ordinate amounts of time talking to my dogs and my cat.  They like it:  I think. I also talk to my husband a lot when he has headphones on or he’s looking at his iPad. (If he isn’t working at his desk and is “available” he is usually with his iPad).   He doesn’t really hear everything I say.  That’s ok.  He doesn’t understand why I have so much to say.

All of this babble is my way of saying, I DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT MY HEALTH AND I DO NOT WANT TO GET LOST IN THE RABBIT HOLE OF ONE DOCTOR, ONE DISEASE LEADING TO ANOTHER DOCTOR AND ANOTHER DISEASE AND FINDING THE NEXT BEST THING SO I CAN GET FIXED.

I don’t know if I feel this way because I am battle worn and have PTSD or if it’s because I now fundamentally believe that I can’t get fixed and that the Almighty and I, in concert, are the only ones that can truly have an effect on my health.

And that, dear reader, is why it has taken me so long to write this damned blog entry.

I am scared.  I was hoping to keep up this charade of the new me; a lot leaner, much more fit, streamlined for the rigors of 2020 and able to put up with just about anything.

I just can’t.  I can be all of those things: leaner, more fit, careful diet, and the rest, but I am still me.  I have a really broken body.  And if I want to keep going I have to keep pushing myself to doctors’ appointments where I have to be active and in charge.  There isn’t anyone else to lean on here.  It’s all me. I have to be organized and ahead of things: write down the questions and keep the answers, tell dr. whosit what dr. whatsit said and remind dr. fullofhimself that I have a brain and can read (but in a nice and non confrontational way).  Oh, and I need to remember it is ok to fire Asshole Mysoginistic Doctor who thinks he is god or at least remind him I don’t want to be called “sweetheart” and  “dear” and he can stop touching my leg.

I still can’t get over the fact a doctor (that I kept seeing!) slid his hand inside my pants and rubbed my hiney and I let him do it.  No, wait, that happened with two doctors.  Maybe getting older is a blessing…

Whatever.  I have to do this again.

I cannot expect to stay in some sort of health stasis.

I think this means I am going to have to do what I know I need to.  I gotta work on the PTSD thing.

I am going to make a promise here.

I think I might actually follow through if I write it down here… pubically… (ha! did you get what I did there?)

I am going to find someone (a therapist type person) with whom I can work on the PTSD over hospitals, doctors and the rest and see if I can’t deal with it a bit better.

I might as well get started.

In a few hours I head to an infusion center for a shot in my leg that I have to stay and be monitored for because I once had.. you know.. not breathing.. happen.

Ok. that’s it.

 

I have had some rough times.  If you have read this blog for any length of time, or you know me personally, you know that.  I spent the years between 2011 and 2018 in and out of the hospital, struggling with a variety of ailments and with a snowball effect of one autoimmune or primary immune disease causing another.

But the really good news is that since January of 2019 I have not been hospitalized.

I have not been going to the ER on the regular either.

I have reached a sort of tenuous equilibrium.  I realize it could fall apart but I try to keep it going each day.

I have learned a lot.  The list of things looks like this and they are in no particular order:

1. Eat carefully and keep losing weight.  (I have lost about 100 lbs. )
2. Stay sane.  (This is a tough one because I am a worrier.)
3. Exercise.
4. Have fun.
5. Love and accept myself for who I am and how I look right now.
6. Be patient with my body when it doesn’t act normal, ever.
7. Let G_d in and remember I am not alone.
8. Don’t let Covid 19 and the quarantine that knows no end get me down.
9. Don’t let the sad state of affairs in our country get me down any more than I can handle.
10. Remember to be grateful for the wonderful things.
11. When I am in pain, acknowledge it but don’t freak out.  Realize that it will get under control in some way and that going to see a doctor in any setting probably won’t fix the problem.
12. Let myself off the hook when I need to rest.  (This is a tough one.)
13. Try to maintain some sort of sleep hygiene.  (A work in process.)
14. Figure out who I am without children around.
15. Figure out where I belong as a functioning adult with her own life.

I think that is enough.  I will say that sleep is a big problem just now.  I have always had insomnia but lately I am losing sleep entirely about two nights a week.   I am going to try some pre sleep meditation podcasts.  I am willing to learn how to hypnotize myself if that is possible.

I  guess the point here is that I have come to realize that the only person driving the me – bus is me.  That is not to say that G-d isn’t there.  G-d is on the bus, with the bus, around the bus and watching me drive.   But I believe we have the gift of free will.  Very often we either misuse it and blame the consequences on the Almighty or don’t get what we want and blame that on the Almighty.  Neither of those options work for me at all.

I believe the Almighty is right there, listening and hoping I will  tune in on His/Her Divine channel so I can listen to what it is that is best for me.  If I do, I will notice a few things: Life is endlessly complicated and endlessly beautiful.  It is up to us to take responsibility for every single thing we do.  Like I always say: there is no such thing as black and white (and I mean this on every level) everything is a shade of gray!

There are no absolute answers .  We just have to take responsibility and go through each day with what we are given.  Even when it is a bad day . Even when it is painful or scary.

The only way for me to fix myself is to care for my body the best that I can.  I am done being angry for being sick and I am done hoping it will go away and I am done wishing I can go away and I am done whining into my spilt milk.

I am in charge.  I chose to take care of this body no matter what shape it is in.

That is the only way forward.

One shaky foot at a time.

Over the last year we (my husband and I) have been in the process of becoming empty nest’ers.’

I say it has been a process because last August both of our children moved but we kept another one in the nest on reserve.

Our daughter moved back to her University where she had gotten her degree and after a two year hiatus decided to take them up on the offer of a free ride Master’s program.  I am so happy she did this.  Her life is going  well on all fronts.  I really think she has flown away for good this time.  She is the sweetest of the sweet and calls every day, which I love.  Normally, she comes home a lot and stays for a week or more between semesters.  With Covid that is no longer possible due to exposure risk for me.  However, she is not alone.  She has a lovely boyfriend and her sweet dog.  I know she is okay; I just miss her.

Our son, who is five years younger than our daughter, moved to a city four hours away to attend a technical college.  His girlfriend moved with him.  They have made their own nest and are surrounded by family.  I have one of my (two total) cousins there.  She is like a sister to me and she and her husband, who has a vast family in the area, have welcomed the kids in an amazing way.  He is comfortable and tells me he will not be coming home.  He lived with us for twenty years (almost) and was ready to fly under his own power.  I know he gets homesick, especially now, but he is doing well.

However, the nest was still not empty completely, which has been a blessing.  My cousin’s oldest daughter (she has four kiddos) had lived with us before but this time she had to stay longer due to all kinds of circumstances in her life.  It has been so nice to have another kid around. We refer to her as my niece.  She hasn’t complained about being indoctrinated into our family idiosyncrasies but has embraced them. In fact, our kids have readily been calling her, big sister, even to the extent that they argue with her. She has been nice to talk to and advise and talk girl stuff with.  She spent months studying for the  LSAT exam and applying to law schools.  She was successful and will be moving in a few days so she can begin law school at the very beginning of August.   I am proud of her.   I will miss her and I hope she remembers to call “home.”

So by the end of next week, our nest will be completely emptied.  I don’t know what to think.  My identity has been very much wrapped up in being a mom.  I guess that won’t change.  However, I do have a little job and my writing to keep me busy.  I am hoping with all the spare time and energy I can commit to more of the things I would like to do.  I am just a bit  scared.

My husband is an introvert and I am…. not.  He is not a talker unless it is a subject where he has some interest.  He is also not an active listener.  I don’t mean that as slander.  I mean it as fact.  We are very different and communicate very differently as well as approach things differently.  I am afraid all of these differences might become overwhelming with just the two of us stuck at home all the time due to friggin’ Covid.

My husband has many, many more pluses than minuses.  In fact, we often have fun together.  It just has to be the right circumstances.  I just wonder who will listen to me when I want to jabber in an illogical fashion?  I used to just call my dad or my mom or my aunt.  I can’t do that anymore.  They are gone and the telephone in heaven is not connected to my cell network.

I  sometimes  feel so lonely at home.  Now there won’t be anyone to talk to at all.  My husband functions on logic and I just don’t.  I never will.  I don’t even want to.

It is going to be a long, hot summer.  I am going to do a lot of yoga with Adrienne on YouTube.  She reminds me to breathe deep, find my center and ground myself.  I need those reminders and I need the physical exercise.  I don’t have too many opportunities to walk in the heat of the summer.  Life will continue on and I will be fine as long as my kids are fine and my husband is both healthy and employed.  We are so very fortunate.

I just have to learn to internalize my external ways of speaking and wanting to be reassured that someone is completely focused on what I have to say.  At the end of the day it is sort of selfish if you look at that way.  But, it is also very human.  And, I am: Very human and very fallible.

I ask G-d for strength and help and stamina on this new journey.

 

 

 

It is almost June.  Quarantine for the Covid crap started back in March, (second week of). At that point in time I thought it couldn’t last too long.  Well, the joke is on me.

So, how do I, and others like me, move on without being able to move out?  How do we make peace with a world, a country, where everyone is just going on about their normal business?  They are not going to wait for this monster to go away.  In fact, we, the infirm,  are the problem children here.

I had a doctor’s office tell me I would HAVE to come in after June 6.  They would  no longer be doing telemed  visits after that time.   The lady on the phone said if the Governor of Texas said it was ok then it was ok.

I hope the doctor will have a better answer for me when I speak to him, but to be told that repeatedly was very upsetting.

As time goes on and my family has to go on about their business, I wonder how long I can stay inside.  We know more about the disease’s transmission’s patterns now.  We know that it takes direct exposure and it travels the best through droplets and needs a fairly large quantity of droplets, a sustained amount, to actually infect another person.  However, we also know people can carry the virus and have absolutely no symptoms.  This means we can do all the fever checks we want and still have no idea someone is sick.  The mask is the best prevention and a lot of folks just won’t wear one.

There just aren’t any guarantees.

So at what point does a person like me just loosen up and go out?

How do I keep an ounce of sanity and remain well?  I am finding coping mechanisms as I go.  I join my faith community on Friday nights for a half hour or more on Zoom.  That helps.

I talk to friends online; that helps.

My husband and I went to an Airbnb in the country for a few days; that was awesome!

I am trying to hang on to the awesome and let it carry me through the depressing part.

It is best to live one day at a time and not think about the future just now.

I talk to my kids on the phone almost every day.

We are going to see my son and his girlfriend from a safe distance by renting an Air bnb near them  for a couple of days.

We just have to do what we can.

When both kids move to new apartments, we will just move them and I will stay masked on the sidelines or maybe not go at all.

And I do yoga and BREATHE…

I try to remember what great privilege I have.  I have SO much.  I just pray for patience and guidance and above all: for others.

So, to all you fellow home bound folks and the people stuck with them:

Just Breathe!

 

 

 

Every time I turn on the tv, which is usually a mistake, I hear someone say the words, “The ‘New Normal’ “.  I don’t think that is a very apt phrase at all.  It is pithy.  This is not normal at all.   I don’t think labeling it as new + normal is going to make it any better.

Instead, I am concentrating, or trying to, on any little sparks of light that provide evidence of when this long, dark period of pandemic might be over.

I understand that it may not be totally over for years.  If the virus mutates we will have to have scientists that are faster than the mutations themselves, re-design the vaccines as we go.   That is a very tall order.

What I am waiting for is decent testing and good, life saving treatment.  A vaccine would be the real icing on the cake.

For me,  personally, that is what it will take in order for me to resume the life I once took for granted.  Otherwise I will need to continue as I  do now: I live life in the shadows and in perpetual stress over exposure: And you know what?

IT SUCKS!  AND I AM TIRED OF IT.

But I think everyone out there is tired of this too.  Some folks are so tired of it they have decided to pretend it isn’t there anymore.  We can call this attitude one of assumed ignorance or we can  call these people by the moniker: covidiots.

I understand why they want to act like it is all over!  I get it!  I also understand why they want to get back to work.  But as I have said before, it is a bad idea. The death toll and infection rates continue to climb.

So, I don’t get to play pretend with them and neither does my family.

There is no “New Normal.”  There is just the same damn thing.  At least that is how I feel.  I am struggling to feel normal at all.

This is getting old.  It hasn’t been fun or exciting in some time.

I am fortunate.  I can work from home and so can my husband.  I can face time my kids.  My husband and I are even getting away to a house in the remote countryside for a few days of renewal.  It will just be us and a pool and nothing else.  I can’t wait.

But in the meantime, as we move through another week of quarantine, all I can do is pray for patience and pray for those on the front lines and pray for those in the labs trying to stop this beast.

As to those I have labeled covidiots, I will pray for them too.

I can’t tell you how many half-assed unfinished pieces of writing I have floating around in my laptop.  Some of them are unfinished blog posts that fizzled out and stank so bad and I couldn’t bear for them to see the artificial light of cyberspace.

And then there is the novel.  The novel is grand in scope but scares me to death.  What will happen?  How do I fill in the middle?  I have an outline but what if it totally sucks?  Maybe I should just leave it at page 60 where it is and let it die.

Oh, and then there is the cook book.  It is pretty personal.  I am writing it for my family.  It started out with the title Recipes From My Head.  My kids seem to have flown the coop for good and they both wanted the recipes they grew up with.  The problem is that I don’t really use recipes and neither does their dad.  Dad is too busy to comply but I am writing it and then I came across a whole slew of my mother’s best recipes, which, not surprisingly, are not very exact but I can read and translate them.  I pretty motivated to do this because I don’t want them to all scatter and fall apart.  My deadline for this effort is by the holidays of this year.

Next is the children’s book.  I have been working on it off and on for several years.  You wouldn’t believe it but I have an illustrator who has hung in there with me even when I let it sit for a year or more.  I really want it done.  Right now, since I am in Covid prison, I am re-drafting it and we are sending back and forth.  I am also trying to recruit a third reader.

One more thing: I want to turn a lot of my blog material from way back in 2013 until now into an actual book.  ( I have mentioned this before but I now see a way forward.)  There is a lot of stuff that will not make it into the book.  It is painfully horrid to read some of it.  But, there is stuff I can re-read and stand.  Some of it I think might be good or useful to others.  I want to edit all of that, write bridges between the sections (I guess chronologically) and just go for it.

So, it looks to me like I can keep myself busy for some time to come.  Between writing and doing my 15 hours a week online tutoring and trying to take care of a big house and lots of pets and daily (makes me happy) calls with my kiddos; I can do this.  I can go out and walk… the doctor just told me to wear a mask even walking outside (crap).  Oh, I am applying for adjunct jobs just in case there is a fall semester…  But, all in all, I can survive all of this shit just fine.

I just don’t want anyone to get sick.  I don’t want the world to come crashing down like it is and I really don’t want to be depressed, angry or feel like I am going to jump out of skin because the weeks keep passing and I can’t tell what day it is.

I have walked until I enflamed my knee and every other lupusy joint in my body.  I have finished binging on Star Trek.. (live long.. and prosper) to the horror of my fellow inmates.  I have baked way too much… I’m stopping… I promise.  I have made to do lists that I sometimes follow.  I have even cleaned out corners of the house I had previously pretended didn’t exist.

But what I really struggle with is why are there so many mixed messages out there?  I guess I know why.  We are a large and very diverse country and our federal government is definitely not at its best right now.  We hear one thing from the top health officials and in the same breath we see leaders that dismiss expert opinion.

We see state governments trying to respond in a no win situation.  People need money to live but going out to work will end up killing more people.  These are all bad choices.  I find myself getting angry and sad that our country cannot find a way to cooperate and attack the problem as one entity.  It is very personal to me because, well, you know, I don’t want to die.   I will be stuck in my house until there is a treatment, at least.  My husband will be stuck with me.  My poor niece is stuck with both of us until she moves away for law school:  Even that is messed up by this.

We all have lives to get back to.  We would all like to actually have lives… and livelihoods.  We are a wealthy country and Texas is a very wealthy state.  Why are we in this mess?

I won’t harp on this anymore.  I am just chasing my tail and the dogs look way more cute when they do it.  I am just frustrated and I miss my family.

Hell, I even miss the grocery store.

I am sure I am not the only immune challenged freakoid who feels this way.

This blog entry is trending hard toward half assery.

I had better stop and not go any further into the country of Whineland.

I just pray (and I really do pray) that all my peeps are safe and healthy and that all of the first responders get relief and rest and don’t get sick themselves.  I pray that all of the fine minds focused on how to stop this mother ducker will come up with a way.  And I pray for everyone… all of us… globally.  Wouldn’t it be cool if this pandemic is what brought us together as a planet?  What if we suddenly realized that being human was enough and that national borders and all of the other man made distinctions we have created are just B.S?  If that happened and Covid 19 is what made it so, I would welcome wearing the stupid mask while I walk.

I know, I am a hippy dreamer.

But, it nevers hurts to dream.

Stay well.

 

 

 

 

I find the whole Coronavirus scare interesting.  I really don’t know how to react.

I know I should be a bit freaked out but I really don’t feel that way.  For one thing, I know that my infusions keep me pretty healthy.  For another, I know if I am going to get exposed and die from this nasty virus, there isn’t much I can do about it.

I don’t mean to sound  morbid and I don’t plan on running around in crowded places touching as many surfaces as possible and then rubbing my face.

I just mean we take precautions, we do what we can, and then we sit and wait.

I have been on a ventilator before.  I don’t want to do that again.  It was awful.  I remember bits and pieces of it.  I definitely remember the day they took the damned thing out. It was horrible.

But, I probably won’t be one of those so unfortunate souls.

I am very touched by my husband and my daughter’s concern for me.  My husband brought the whole thing up way before I even verbalized anything about taking precautions.  He was irritated that someone at his job who was young and unthinking announced, ” I don’t see what everyone is so worried about.  The only people that die from it are the elderly and the immunocompromised.”

My husband jumped right on that and said, “Great. That happens to include my wife.”

Usually he down plays these things so I wasn’t expecting that.

After that conversation, or the next day, I came down with a virus that could have been flu.

Because I felt so crappy my family insisted I go to the closest ER.  I got checked out and was told my white cells (the ones that indicate the immune system is trying to stop something) was active (yeah me!) but they didn’t take a flu test!

I went to the dr. two days later and tested negative for flu but I had a nasty virus.   I missed a week of work and I hate missing my paycheck.

So now, here I am back at work and not doing much but hiding in my office.  Next week is spring break.

Who knows what will happen after that?

I would be a liar if I didn’t say I hope we have to work from home after the break.

This is crazy for everyone!  It isn’t just me!

Lots and lots of folks are scared.  It is the ultimate unknown.  No one can help but think of the Spanish Flu of 1919 to 1920.  I mean it was exactly 100 years ago.  My grandmother, who was a teen, lived through it.

She lived through all kinds of things in her life.  The Spanish Flu was just the beginning.

I guess I am saying that all kinds of people live through all kinds of things.  I don’t live in Syria.  My home hasn’t been bombed out of existence.

I don’t live in Haiti, where life is often very short and very difficult.

I don’t live on the streets in Austin, TX.  No, I have a house and two cars and lots of everything I could possibly need.

Even if I do have to isolate and stay home for a while, I may get a case of cabin fever but I am sure I will survive it.

I just have a hard time feeling like this is a life and death thing for me.  I think too many other lives are at stake for thousands of other reasons every day.

As I said, I don’t want to court danger in a stupid way, but I also refuse to become crazed with panic.

What are your thoughts?

Should people in my situation do more to protect themselves?  Should we not wait on the government to tell us what to do?

I don’t know.  I guess we will see as this unfolds.

 

 

 

I feel like I need to add a bit of a disclaimer to what I posted earlier this week.  I did not mean to sound like such a whiner.  I am still on disability and it does help out.  In fact, I can only work a certain number of hours and earn a prescribed amount of $ or I would lose my disability.

It is a catch 22.

I think I have explained that before.

I just don’t want to sound ungrateful.  A lot of folks cannot get disability when they need it and a lot of folks need to live on it and there is simply no way to do that.

It is a mess.

I am very, very, very fortunate. I am also blessed to alive. I know that too.

I will prevail over the nasty tooth fairy.  One way or another I will send the nasty little jerk packing.

A lot of the time just putting a virtual pen to paper makes night time goblins like him disappear.  They no longer have pull over my subconscious.  I have a feeling he will go screaming and cursing but go nonetheless.

So, that’s it.  I just wanted to clarify that I AM OKAY.

I just get frustrated like anyone.  And sometimes my frustration boils over and it feels, looking around me, like my frustrations are bigger and deeper and worse than my fellow earthlings.  However, that is a load of poo because I have no idea what they live through, none at all.

So, I take my own lot in life and go whistling along…..

 

Fade to black….