I will never forget the doctor my husband, Ralph, and I met with after Ralph had routine bloodwork that revealed an elevated white cell count. Dr. R glanced at the folder on his desk, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and said, “You have acute myelogenous leukemia. Your type is especially difficult to cure.”
Ralph sat stoically, eyes fastened on the framed diplomas on the wall.
My family and friends constantly tease me about my state of perpetual coldness. On the mildest winter day or even a chilly summer one, I will don a thermal shirt, sweatshirt, and hoodie, often under a coat of a varying degree of warmth. I am the only theater usher who does her job while wearing an outdoor coat, even though the dress code for ushers is a white top with black pants.
Dear readers,
Warren Holleman, one of our More Voices editors, suggested Cold as a theme for February. (Warren lives in Houston–recall the winter storms of February 2021 that crippled the Texas power grid, subjecting millions of households to freezing temperatures and killing hundreds.)
Dana Grossman, our other More Voices editor, jumped on board with Warren’s suggestion. (Dana lives in Vermont–no further explanation necessary.)
Just before I attended my writers’ group meeting, I tested myself for COVID. I’d been congested and coughing, but I was negative. Even so, my husband slept in the spare bedroom that night because of my cough.
The next day, I got up as usual. In the bathroom, I noticed my forearms were tingling—not unexpected for someone like me who has MS, but the location was new and the sensation a tickle rather than the typical burning. I felt different, too, so I checked my blood pressure. It was low, even for me. I shrugged it off. Typical nurse.
My house bears tangible evidence of COVID. For starters, the linen closet is equipped for monitoring, with its stack of tests, two and four to a box, plus the pulse oximeter and spare thermometer I purchased early in 2020. In the pantry, I still have disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer, boxes of masks and too many disposable dishes.
My very first close encounters with death were in the COVID ICU. I had just completed my final year in medical school and had entered my rotatory internship. The first two months of my posting were in internal medicine, and almost all the patients were COVID patients. The very first unit I was assigned to was the COVID ICU—a place where death was a constant presence. As a doctor who had chosen this profession to save lives and help people, I found it disheartening to be surrounded by death; it contradicted all my aspirations.
There used to be much to do. Reciting the Mourners’ Kaddish daily. Making phone calls, waiting on hold, filling out forms, managing the estate. Sorting and donating Dad’s personal goods. Answering panicked phone calls and texts from my mother. Explaining my status as a mourner—taking a year off from dancing at celebrations, declining blindingly joyous events that chafed against my mourning soul. Responding to friends checking in. Processing feelings. And marking all the “firsts”—first Thanksgiving, first Father’s Day, first birthday—without Dad.
On the first anniversary of COVID, I watched the trees remember how to hope, pushing out new buds, celadon haze on bare branches against the grey March sky. Daffodil spears of dark green shot up, their eagerness piercing the stiff brown magnolia leaves scattered on the awakening earth. The bluebirds returned, unbidden.
Three years, nine months, and thirteen days: That’s how long it had been since the shutdown, since the first time I was exposed to this mysterious, dreaded disease, which I’d never gotten. I was exposed at least three times that I know of in 2020, before we had a vaccine. And I’d never gotten it.
When COVID immunizations first became available in Florida, I was up three nights in a row scheduling shots for elderly members of my tiny church’s congregation. I knew they would not be able to cope with the technology to schedule their own shots online. And even if they could, none would have the patience and persistence to keep entering their data each time the portal failed.
When it came time to schedule my fourth COVID booster, I procrastinated. I’d experienced extremely negative reactions to the first two vaccines and the three previous boosters: chills, fever, aches, nausea, weakness. Dealing with those symptoms again did not appeal to me.
But then I remembered what happened to my paternal grandfather and to my beloved father—and I made the first available appointment to get the new booster.
Dear Pulse readers,
That’s my COVID test from a couple of weeks back. After I’d dodged the virus for three years, it finally caught up with me–disabusing me of any notion that I was somehow more robust, more careful or perhaps cleverer than everyone else who’d come down with COVID.
COVID made me feel crummy–achy, feverish and tired–and without any desire to eat.
My doctor prescribed Paxlovid, and I took it.
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