I have perhaps twenty more years of life left in me. Maybe less. Maybe a lot less.
The years have been kind. The years have been brutal. I have experienced great joy as well as great sorrow. Through it all, I hoped for a tranquil journey. Through it all, tranquility has been elusive. Fleeting glimpses here and there. Moments of contentment were rare.
But I had hope. I believed in someday. If I were organized enough, if I worked hard, if I was a good person, if… if…if… all would be well. Life would be like boating on a placid sea with a colorful sail rippling in the gentle breeze of deep summer.
I handled the chaos. The stress. The upheaval.
I was often overwhelmed, but I continued moving forward. I tended to my child, who was and is the love of my life. I tended to my house. I tended the garden that brought me glimpses of tranquility when hummingbirds fed at the trumpet vine. I tended to my job. I was not so good at tending to my spouse. We divorced just shy of our twentieth anniversary.
These past twenty years as a divorced, perimenopausal woman have been chaotic and heartbreaking. I often quip that my New Year’s resolution is to be bored. I have been accused of being dramatic, but the drama invaded my life uninvited. I did not conjure it, nor did I encourage the spectacle.
When sent home to quarantine during the pandemic, I hoped for three weeks. Three weeks to hole up in my house and find my equanimity. Three weeks to figure out my life. Three weeks to decompress, regroup, and emerge again fortified and ready to take on the world.
The previous year had been eventful — much of it in not a good way. Still, there were things to celebrate. I turned 60, and my only child had a small destination wedding in Spain. I was the only person on my son’s guest list able to attend. His father had health issues, his grandmothers were too old to make the trip, and so on.
With some trepidation, I planned my first solo international vacation. I raided my 401K and gifted myself an epic two weeks on the island of Ibiza. It was my 60th birthday present to me. The expense was considerable. It was also my only child’s wedding. It was an escape from the stressfest that was my life, and I pulled out all the stops. Sixty! Who would have believed such a state was possible?
“The uterus is not a homing device,” Rosanne Barr screeched. I was channel surfing and happened upon her eponymous sitcom just as she uttered that line. I had never heard the saying before. It turns out that it is an old feminist slogan that is considered overused.
I laughed out loud. I did. I sat back and enjoyed the rest of the show.
I’m not much of a television watcher, but that one line hooked me. Barr was blazingly funny and insightful until she wasn’t. I was a faithful viewer until she, and the show, went off the rails.
Neither my now-ex-husband nor my son can find their own asses with two hands and a flashlight. I was the designated Finder of Lost Things. By the time I heard Rosanne say, “The uterus is not a homing device,” I was weary of always and forever spending my free time trying to find their lost stuff.
Something snapped, and one time, I quietly responded, “I don’t know where your jockstrap is. I put it away the last time I used it.” And that was my standard response unless the missing item was something important to me.
Actually, I wasn’t all that hidden when sitting there, but most people didn’t look up to peer for children amongst the branches.
I clocked a lot of hours in that tree.
Williams was a dead-end street so there wasn’t much to see other than the occasions when the neighbor’s teenager would climb onto their roof and play his trumpet. Weird kid. Bad trumpet player, but I suppose he should get credit for practicing.
I’m sure that I dragged a book up there with me now and again, but I don’t remember reading in the tree. Of course, I read everywhere. I read like most people breathe – everywhere all the time.
I was older—12, 13, 14 – on the cusp – living my life, but also waiting for it to begin.
I do remember one vivid day at 14 when I waited for my boyfriend while sitting in the tree and there he came, bepopping down the middle of Williams, carrying the largest heart-shaped box of candy I’d ever seen. Whitman’s. It was Valentine’s Day – a special occasion. I usually did my tree-sitting in the summer.
I liked being in the tree. I felt hidden and the configuration of the branches made climbing easy. The trunk and major limb were in such a position as to make reclining in the tree very comfortable for my lithe teenage self.
One summer I took to making caftans out of old sheets. I’d waft around in yards of white percale dragging behind me and eventually climb the tree –no mean feat in an oversized sheet and sit there pondering the universe. Feeling spiritual and Egyptian in my badly sewn caftan.
Kenny-the-roof-trumpeter had nothing on me in the weirdness department.
I do remember dragging bags of Doritos into the tree with me. I carried the bag in my clenched teeth reserving both hands to scramble up the tree. Doritos were the new snack and took the country by storm. There were two flavors – plain and taco. I loved the taco ones and considered the bag a single serving. I was always hungry in those days. A bottomless pit of hunger and volatile hormones.
I’d wipe my orange-stained fingers on my caftan when done.
So, there I was, a long gangly teenager in a bedsheet streaked with orange stains perched in a tree going through puberty one long summer day at a time.
Hands on the banisters…tight, gripping…trying to catch my breath…heart racing. Doubled over.
I try to breathe normally.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
My breath comes back before my heart quiets. I finish the climb. Out of breath at the top. Again.
I stumble and stagger to the bed.
Laying my body down, the room spins. Ripples of nausea. My dachshund jumps on the bed and licks my face. She is worried. I am worried, too. She burrows under the blanket and curls up against my back.
I am still heaving. Trying to breathe.
Finally, it all settles down–my breathing, the nausea, the spinning. I curl and pull my knees into full fetal position. The dachshund nestles even closer, her nose cold against my back. I can sleep. And I do. Thirteen hours a day. Sometimes more. Rarely less.
They call it Long Haulers. They call it Long COVID. They call it Post COVID Conditions.
What I call it cannot be repeated in polite company.
I am so very weary of being tired, out of breath, aching, confused and scared.
Three years, six months, and ten days now since that phone call. Too anxious to wait any longer, I called the Health Department as soon as they opened. I have been sick for three days. They had tested me two days earlier.
I gave the woman on the other end of the phone my name. My date of birth. Last four of my social. She seemed surprised. “You’re positive.”
“What do I do now?” I could hear her shrug her shoulders.
“Call your doctor?”
I do. I’ve had the same doctor, Hyla, since 1998. She is very responsive. I can’t get through to her. I am surprised. I am desperate. I have the CORONA-19 Virus. I am trying not to panic.
In late 2020, the news outlets report health care professionals are overwhelmed. I am overwhelmed too and newly diagnosed.
I sleep. I call my doctor’s office. I sleep some more. I have a gruesome headache. The headache has been with me for so long, I name it Frank. It is already powerful – naming won’t hurt. I call some more.
I make a tele-health appointment to try and get Hyla’s attention. Finally, she calls. I ask her how long? I asked her if I will be okay? I askk her a lot of questions. She says, “We don’t know.” She says, “The recommended protocol is Vitamin C, Vitamin D, B12, zinc, magnesium, potassium. Arthritis Strength Tylenol. ICU patients show improvement with Pepcid, of all things.” She said, “Elderberry is showing some promise.”
She tells me what to look for and how I will know if I need to go to the Emergency Room.
“Don’t go if you don’t have to. Please.”
Three years, six months, and ten days now since the diagnosis. Before the vaccine. Before the antivirals. “My doctor said, “We don’t know.” Vitamin D. Vitamin C. The Bs. I take them all.
Three weeks after the diagnosis, I am somewhat better. I work from home, but I nap two or three times a day and sleep all night. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I think depression. But the headache?
I take the vitamins. The elderberry. The Pepcid. I sleep. I still have Frank-the-Headache for weeks and then months.
My doctor says, “We don’t know.”
After 9 months, finally, I am better. I shout ‘Hallelujah!’ on my social media.
This is premature.
A relapse.
“We don’t know,” Hyla says when I ask why it came back and how long it will last.
I am called back to the office in the town where I am employed after working at home for months. I discover I cannot walk. I cannot get from my car to my office. The drive has worn me out. Fixing breakfast, dressing for work and thirty minutes on the road might as well have been six months on the wagon trail. Casting off furniture like ballast. My old life gone like pianos sinking in the mud en route to Oregon.
I begin working at home again.
I am exhausted easily and often. I have a built-in seat in my shower. I could not bathe otherwise. I cannot stand but a few minutes or walk a few steps. My thoughts are cloudy.
I insist my doctor see me in person. Long COVID, I suggest. I have been reading the research buzz. I read abstracts online, mostly from the UK as they are releasing studies before the US.
“We don’t know,” Hyla says.
She says, “Good luck.”
I am not depressed, but I am. I develop anxiety.
Hyla says, “That, too.”
Many of us long-haulers do.
I break out in rashes.
“Yes, people report that.”
My old life is gone.
I enroll in a study out of Johns Hopkins. The questions go on and on and list all the possible permutations of Long COVID. I have kept my taste and smell but have no executive function. No cough to speak of, but the headache…Lord, the headache. Mercy, please. And then, body aches. Stiff joints. Hyla says I seem to be mimicking chronic fatigue syndrome.
“Good luck.”
I go back to work at the office. I feed the meter all day long via a phone app so I can park by the front door.
Three years, six months, and ten days now and they still don’t know much. I quit taking the zinc because I’m told to, but I can’t remember why. My short-term memory is gone. Some days my cognitive function is like swimming in a vat of molasses.
I am determined to reclaim my life. I join a yoga class. I can’t do it. Not even savasana–the one where you sprawl on the floor like a dead corpse.
I drop out.
I have failed beginning yoga. I used to take advanced classes.
Periodically, the symptoms abate. The headache is gone. I announce my recovery. I rejoice. Truly. Rejoice. I have hope again.
I feel almost good when I wake, though I tire easily. I tell myself I am just out of shape. Six to eight weeks of relative calm.
And then I relapse.
Another recovery. Another Hallelujah! Another relapse.
“We still don’t know.”
I am at the beach. My friends drive me to doors. Carry my things. It takes me half an hour to traverse the block to the chair they have set up for me as close to the boardwalk as possible. I discover I cannot stand in the wet sand. Can’t keep my balance when it shifts with the surf. I want to cry, but I laugh instead.
Long COVID is not going to beat me.
Three years, six months, and ten days. The WHO reports that 6,938,353 people have died from the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak as of May 31, 2023.
For the 760 million people with COVID who didn’t die, 20% or more had or have Long COVID. Some for weeks, some for months.
Me? Three years, six months, and ten days.
My case is considered mild. I am one of the lucky ones. I did not die. I have not been declared disabled. I have not had to quit my job. I do not have to use a wheelchair or an oxygen tank. I have been fortunate. The initial illness itself, too, was mild. No hospital.
The doctor is as weary of saying “we don’t know” as I am of hearing it.
Elderberry. Vitamin C. Vitamin D. B12.
Lucky.
They begin to know some things. I am given Lorazepam for the anxiety and Modafinil for executive function. I have a rescue inhaler. They help but are not enough. I am not well, though I no longer have the headache. I begin to consider my future.
What if this is as good as it gets? This. Right now. Living this way.
It’s time to go to bed. I must climb the stairs to get there. It will take all the strength I have left. I will lie there for a few minutes, gasping, scared before I can breathe. Scared after. Still and all, I will settle into sleep to do it all again tomorrow.
The dachshund burrows next to me.
Three years, six months, and eleven days.
A long long-haul.
NOTE: This was written some time ago. The doctors have me on a drug cocktail that works for me. I feel infinitely better.
W. Va. Fur and Root 