memoir

A Long Long-Haul

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

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.

Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash

I am exhausted.

Depleted.

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.

A very broken Hallelujah

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This image is from twelve years ago.

The wind is blowing.

From the west?

Will I ever experience gentle west winds again or will they fill me with fear and remembrance from here on out.

Trauma creates deep wounds that never quite heal despite all the scar tissue.  Ready to open up and bleed at the slightest provocation.

The windchimes, the ones of wood and copper handmade and tuned to a melodious phrase (I forget which key) by a company named Woodstock may be gone.  Or perhaps they’re in the debris left behind.

I used to love listening to them when the wind rustled on a summer evening.  The setting sun glinting on the copper.  They sounded like my heartstrings thrumming in contentment. During storms, they played a symphony of strong emotions.  I wonder what they sounded like when the tree sheared off. 

Did the tree scream?

Research now tells us that trees communicate with one another, have friends, and have a mechanism to help a struggling friend who is sick or malnourished or dying of thirst.  Is my forest in mourning?  Are they pumping nutrients to the stump? Are they singing a dirge when the west wind blows?

Much of the trunk of the tree still lays in my yard.  I need someone to cut two four-inch or so slabs.  I want a remembrance of that tree for me.  One for my son.  Charcuterie boards?  Maybe.  Something.  I have a friend who is a serious woodworker.  Perhaps she will have an idea. 

But I want that wood sheltered in my home.  The one miraculously still standing.  My heart home.

I’m in shock still, but able to recognize my good fortune.  My house should be collapsed.  It wasn’t built to sustain such a hit.  The tree was old.  I’m guessing the diameter was 36 inches or more. I hugged it a time or two.

Years ago, now, perhaps 15 or more, I planted a variety of climbing hydrangea.  It grows wild in the forests of Japan.  It needs shade and the north side of an oak tree to thrive.  It had both.  Slow growing, it had just started to take off – flowering its tiny white flowers in June.  I hope I can salvage it – move it to another oak tree.

My garden looks like a war zone.  The same wind that sheared my tree threw my lawn furniture, fountain, and garden tools around.  I’ve no doubt lost a lot of work.

But my house still stands.

Hallelujah.

Yes, Hallelujah in the vein of Leonard Cohen.  Perhaps I’ll write my own verse to that masterpiece. 

I offer up my own very broken hallelujah.  Grateful.  So grateful. 

I have good taste in men.

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

I was madly in love with Robert as was half of my fourth-grade class.  He was tall, had a nice smile, and a hint of a dimple.  Plus, he didn’t look like a rock’em sock’em robot when dancing. 

None of us particularly liked the square dancing, but the boys especially seemed to hate it.  Their movements clunky and stilted and out of time.  Not so Robert.  He glided, he turned,  he dosidoed and bowed with a flourish. 

All the little girl hearts went pitter-pat when it was our turn to dance with him.  My hands were always sweaty.  I was near sick for love of him.  He wasn’t in my class.  The only time I saw him was recess, lunch, and music class which had now morphed into dancing.   I actually got to touch him – his hands and back warm and sweaty from exertion, I supposed.  I fair swooned with giddiness.

But the girls could get possessive of their Robert.  I was once elbowed out of the way so that Kelly Ann could dance with Robert.  I glared at her and tried to figure out what to do, but the teacher came over and sorted us out.  Kelly still got to dance with Robert though.  I was incensed.  It seemed to me there was a bit of sadness in his eyes at the loss of his turn dancing with me.  Dare I hope?

At Christmas time, we morphed into a musical dance act of the Twelve Days of Christmas, Hawaiian Style.  I can’t remember if it was the five golden or the eight lords a leaping, but it was redone as fill-in -the-blank cans of Primo in which Robert would pretend to take a swig and then stagger around a bit while wearing a straw hat, Hawaiian shirt, barefoot and holding a can of Primo beer – Hawaii’s own. We thought he was hysterical. 

More swooning.  He was a born actor. 

We were all military kids, referred to as brats in the military jargon, and apt to get transferred at any moment.  I don’t remember if Robert left first or I did.  But time dancing with Robert came to an end.  I thought of him often.  Wondered where he went. 

And then.  Three schools, three states, and a Pacific Ocean crossing later, he showed up in my 7th-grade homeroom.  I shyly waved hello to him.  He seemed relieved to know someone. 

Robert had changed.  He had those puberty boy legs that were too long for his body and made him look ridiculous when he tried to walk fast.  He was sporting a bad case of acne. Really bad.  And his voice was changing.  He was a mess.  And no one, not even me, was in love with him.  But he became my friend in homeroom.  Protected me from the pranks of the other boys.  And was the first to tell me I had bled through my dress and that he was going to walk right behind me to the girls’ bathroom.  Seems Robert had sisters.  Nothing fazed him. 

Robert, I’m certain, grew from a caring boy to a gentleman. I’m sure he outgrew the acne. I’m sure he is tall. And I’m sure that he cares for and protects the person that is his partner. Robert was a class act in 4th grade and again in 7th grade. I have no doubt that he’s a class act now. I had good taste in men even in the way-back, but I’ve outdone myself with The Consort. He’s a peach.

The day the statues came to life.

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I realized there was something inherently strange about the way my mom’s brain works when she was about 35.  Maybe 40.  Someone told her a joke.  The joke goes like this…. 

Photo by Alano Oliveira on Unsplash

There was a statue of Adam and Eve in a public garden.  They had stood there for a hundred years.  Unable to speak.  Unable to touch.  Unable to keep one another warm in the snow.  Year after year, they stood there.  The snow came and went.  The rain.  The hot sun.  Pigeons and squirrels.  Mold and mildew. 

By the time we get to the magical day, they were worn and pitted, spotted with pigeon shit, and generally in poor condition. A woodland fairy appears and tells them she is going to bring them to life for one day and for one day only.  They can do anything they like.  She gives them 24 hours to think about how they will spend their day. 

At dawn, the following morning the fairy appears, says an incantation, waves her wand and the two statues come to life.  Adam and Eve jump around in excitement, oblivious of their nakedness, and babble incoherently.  Finally, they settle down and Adam says to Eve, “What shall we do?  What have you most wanted all these years?  Adam has a sly tone of voice and winks at Eve. 

Eve says, “OK.  Here’s the plan.  You hold the pigeons and I’ll shit on them.” 

Now I happened to be there when this joke was being told.  I rolled my eyes.  My mother laughed.  And laughed.  She spurts her coffee all over the diner table and nearly choked to death she laughed so hard.  Tears coursed down her face, and she had to fan herself. 

My mother’s reaction to the joke was far funnier than the joke itself. 

Later that evening, we are sitting at the dinner table.  My Dad asks how our day was.  We all report on this and that.  Eventually, Mom says, “Dean told a joke at lunch today.  Wanna hear it?”  My dad girded his loins. My mother’s inability to tell a joke without screwing up the punch line is legendary.  In fact, I get my joke telling ability from her.  I too tend to screw them up.  Just typing the above joke was difficult. 

Anyway. 

My mother launches into the joke, looking at me now and again to check details.  I am astonished, but she is doing a pretty good job.  My dad is sort of puzzled.  The joke does not seem to be the kind of joke my mom would normally enjoy.  My mother is a Prude with a capital P in red glitter.  She finally gets to the part where Adam is getting ready to say, “What shall we do?” 

She starts to giggle.  And then shake.  Peas fall off her fork.  She starts laughing in earnest.  She is laughing so hard, she cannot finish.  I start laughing at her trying to tell this joke.  My father, a superb joke teller, is now all ears.  He wants the punch line.  He needs the punch line.  He’s already making plans on who and when to tell the joke to. 

By now, neither my mom nor I can breathe we are laughing so hard.  I try to take a drink of water to sort myself out.  I spew it all over the pork chops.   

Mom can’t finish.  Dad is amused, but impatient.  “So, what’s the punch line?”  My mom waves her arms and looks at me to deliver the last line.  I still can’t breathe.   

Finally, I manage to choke out, “You hold the pigeons and I’ll shit on them.”  Only I said poop because at that age I would not have said shit in front of my parents. 

My mother absolutely collapses in hysterics.  For her, it’s even funnier the second time.  My brother, who is just a kid, laughs.   

My dad just looks at us.  I try to explain that I didn’t think it funny either that I’m laughing at my mother, but by then, he’s laughing at the both of us. 

I reminded my mother of this joke a while back.  It took a while for her to dredge up the memory.  And she almost had it, but couldn’t remember the joke or the punchline  — she just remembered the two statues coming to life and how it was the funniest damn thing she’d ever heard.   

So.  I told her the joke.  Without messing up the punchline. 

She chortled.  She howled.  She had tears in her eyes and couldn’t breathe.   

Again.   

I laughed at her.  I laughed with her. We both just laughed.