During a routine Thursday evening clinic, I knock on the exam room door, enter, and greet my patient. She is an elderly Puerto Rican woman with worsening Type 2 diabetes, a new bleeding sore on her face, and chronic back pain.

As I log onto the computer, my patient and her niece discuss how guapa I am, and I blush silently. The patient smiles, at ease, as her niece laughs wildly, such music to my ears.

As this visit concludes, we plan a telemedicine follow-up in three months. My sweet patient forgoes her pre-pandemic kisses and hugs, and instead says to me, in rapid Spanish: “May God keep you safe, bless your children, and protect your husband. Take care of yourself, my kind doctor. You have helped me so much. I pray for you and your family.” This song fills the room – and then heals my heart.

Immediately my mind flashes to my family’s weekly Friday evening dinner, when husband and I place our hands on our daughters’ heads. When they were younger, they would squirm, smile and laugh in response. Now, as teenagers, they grudgingly grant us this privilege – to bless them in the Jewish tradition. After we recite the Hebrew prayer, » Continue Reading.

For five years I had the privilege and honor of visiting hospital patients as a pet therapy volunteer with my springer spaniel, Baker. During those years, when I also cared for elderly parents, the smiles of patients and clinical staff and gratitude for the pet therapy visits sustained me. I couldn’t stop my parents’ decline, but I could brighten a stranger’s day.

Pet therapy rounds required me to adapt to each patient’s situation and allow the visit to unfold. When we entered the room, the mood became lighter; solemn faces broke into smiles. Some patients wanted to quietly stroke Baker’s soft fur. I’d push a chair next to the bed, so Baker could sit within reach. Others wanted him to lie next to them on the bed, on a clean sheet I’d spread on top. It could be challenging to hoist a 45-pound spaniel on to the bed, avoiding monitor wires, tubes and catheters. But I managed, with liberal hand sanitizer applied to anyone who touched Baker. He’d been bathed and groomed that morning.

Staff welcomed our visits as well: a respite from their stressful routines; a means to comfort a patient struggling with despair.

I don’t know what Baker

When the shutdown came last March in Michigan, I could not attend my favorite (only) granddaughter’s wedding in Toronto, but she included me on FaceTime. I struggled with Zoom for City Council and Zoning meetings: many of us were fighting the building of a parking ramp in our neighborhood. From my window, I watched as crowds gathered at the Capitol, twice, to protest the shutdown, with kids, flags, blasting car horns and guns. My daughter in California threw a joyful 80th birthday party for me on Zoom, with family attending from four states and Canada. One day I was down, the next up.

I recorded these events in a Covid-19 journal I started keeping. I also recorded the increasing numbers of Covid-19 deaths in the state.

I have multiple sclerosis. For four months I did not have close contact with another person. I wore a mask to go to the mailbox. But mid-July, I held my breath and did my own grocery shopping, at 7am.

In the Fall, I monitored the development of vaccines. I had been a member of the IRB at Michigan State University (MSU), and the fast track made me nervous. I was concerned when the FDA

As a child, I played a game called “Mother, May I.” Because I usually forgot to say the correct words—“Mother, may I?”–I spent most of the game retreating several steps instead of moving forward.

I often think of this childhood game as I try to heal—mentally, physically and emotionally—from almost eleven months of self-isolation in a world that has stolen my job, my theater and my social interactions from me. Yet, every time I feel as if I am healing—moving forward in acceptance and hope—I descend further into the darkness.

My children and friends tell me to stop watching the news, but I am obsessed with knowing the latest updates about everything. “Get a vaccine,” the guest physician on a newscast tells me. “A vaccine will protect you from a severe case of COVID-19.” That sounds good, but every time I go online to find a site giving vaccines, I am told that no appointment is available. Not even for a 73-year-old woman who becomes feebler with each passing day. That is not a healing message.

The Cultural Trust of my city emails me that the Broadway Series and Cabaret will return in the fall. However, they always add the