Covid and Me

Remember, no good deed goes unpunished, but do them anyway.

We supported a friend by attending his father’s funeral a year ago, in December 2019. No one really talked about Covid then, just of a few deaths caused by an unknown disease in China. The funeral was crowded, with a mix of young and old. The father was a life-long New Yorker, but the service was just across the river, near Fort Lee. There had been some tension in the family, and the friend appreciated our presence.

We came home and life was normal for a couple of weeks. Around New Years, I got sick, low fever, chronically exhausted, couldn’t get out of bed. The symptoms were odd for me, but I thought it was a bad case of flu. My wife took ill a couple of days later. Maybe two weeks after that, as I was starting to feel better, her gall bladder went up in flames. That was sudden and quite unexpected at the time, but it all rather makes sense now.

The gall bladder was, as is often the case with her, a mixed blessing. We found an excellent doctor affiliated with Cooper University Hospital, and found another potential problem in a very early and treatable stage.

I suspect I understand Long Covid as well, as I’ve had continuing bouts of severe fatigue all year. Depression was an alternative diagnosis, and maybe both have factored into this difficult year.

Certainly, along with a host of others, I’m looking forward to the end of this miserable year. I’m just not sure how next year will be better. There are some possible high notes for early in the year:

1. The vaccine will be out, although a lot of people won’t take it, meaning infection rates and deaths will stay up.
2. The nutcases may find something else to discuss. It’s time to get over the election. Melania is shipping her stuff out of the White House.
3. We will have days in which Trump doesn’t appear in the news. Hopefully a lot of them.
4. People will get used to working at home, and maybe their employers will finally get on board with the concept as well. You get better productivity when select high caliber people for jobs and don’t try to micromanage them. A lesson Trump never learned.
5. We’ll start to get a grip on the impact of the death toll on funding for Social Security and Medicare. Social Security may be healthier. Medicare, maybe not, with the costs of caring for those with the disease.
6. We’ll recognize that we need immigrant workers to make the economy function.
7. We may start to reform patient care in skilled nursing facilities. Maybe we’ll even start to reform healthcare in the US into something that makes sense.

Anyway, here’s a toast to Covid-22, or whenever the next one shows up. A votre sante?!