Pandemic Diaries: Two Years and Seven Months In and it finally got me

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

I wake up with a sore throat

and think: Allergies. No big deal. The weather's gotten cold recently and we've had to turn on the heat, the house is dry, the leaves are turning, etc. I head off to work, wearing my mask, because I always wear my mask when I'm working, despite the fact that my husband and I recently had the new bivalent booster and cases seem to be down lately in our area (but... hard to know? Ohio no longer posts new daily case numbers).

The general feeling I have is that I am totally protected, but just to be on the safe side, I've continued with the masking. My daughter's wedding is at the end of the month! I've got no time to catch a virus! Work, and I'm fine. I do a shift in the youth department and am so excited when I notice that one of the eggs in our chick-hatching display has a crack in it. 

Tomorrow, for sure, I'll get to greet the baby chicks.

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

I'm sick. 

It hit me as I was going to bed. The sore throat, way worse now. A headache. And I am so cold I can't take it anymore. I get out of bed and throw my warm pajamas on, socks, my bathrobe, and burrow back under the covers. When my husband comes to bed a few hours later, he's sick too.  

In the morning we take covid tests. Mine is positive. His is negative. But we both feel like we got run over by trucks in the night. I call my manager and my doctor. The library protocol for covid is what the CDC recommends. Five days isolation. Back to work day six, if you're symptom free. I sack out on the couch. My manager drops soup and crackers and cookies off and I love her. Later, I do a telemedicine appointment with my doctor. She prescribes paxlovid, "because of your age," she says. 

I eat the soup and think, I have covid! How did this happen? My husband and I wrack our brains. The people we've interacted with. The minimal places we've gone. Do we know anyone who is sick? The truth is that all this time-- all the way back to March 13, 2020--I knew I could get this. I knew that eventually we were ALL going to get this, but still, 

I have to admit there was always a smug part of me that thought: 

Yeah, but not me. 

Thursday, October 13, 2022

The chicks hatched. My coworkers send me pictures and videos. Plus, there's a live feed where I can watch them hobble around, wet and weirdly dragon-like, bonking into each other and sometimes keeling over. 

I'm keeled over on the couch. My husband, still negative! but with the same symptoms I have, is back to work up in his office, taking naps between tele-meetings. One of his co-workers is from India and has had covid twice. He shares a tea recipe that he swears will help soothe our sore throats. 

It (sorta) works!

Recipe: Hot water, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp basil, honey and lemon

A friend sends an instacart order to our house and I love her. More soup. And also bread and lovely soothing-on-the-throat Italian ices. 

Friday, October 14, 2022

I'm fine, basically, except for the sore throat. I eat soup and drink turmeric tea and snack on Italian ices. The paxlovid leaves a metallic taste in the mouth that lingers, despite the soup and turmeric tea and Italian ices. My co-workers send more pics and videos of baby chicks, no longer dragon-like, but fluffy balls, cradled in their hands, cheeping adorably. I can't believe I am missing this! 

I read a book about a future plague. I read a book about the world collapsing. I read a book about racial and economic injustice. I watch a bunch of tik tok videos about people walking their dogs. 

I take a walk with my husband and the dog. The red and orange trees give off their own light. 

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Still, with the damn sore throat. It's like I swallowed knives. But otherwise, I don't feel sick. A friend shops the farmer's market for us and I love her. My husband and I watch a movie in the middle of the day. Everything Everywhere All at Once and we both laugh and cry and feel immense love for humanity. We slurp soup and drink tea and eat Italian ices and now, have added farmer's market honeycrisp apples into the rotation. 

Sunday, October 16, 2022

Wake up and no sore throat! It's cold outside and my husband and the dog are still sleeping upstairs. The house is quiet and warm. I make a cup of tea. 

 

I keep sending people soup

To friends and family members who are sick. To people grieving over lost loved ones. This is not soup I’ve made myself. It’s called Spoonful of Comfort. I found the place online last year when I was feeling helpless, worrying over a relative who was recovering from surgery alone. What would I do for her if I lived closer and we weren’t in the thick of a global pandemic?

The only thing I could come up with was soup. 

I associate warm foods with caring. Let me bring you a bowl of soup. Let me make you a cup of tea. It goes back to my childhood, visiting my paternal grandmother, who always had soup simmering on the stove or a spaghetti sauce. And my mother's sisters, who had each other over at least once a week for tea and cake. When I was away at college and feeling homesick, I asked an aunt for one of her cake recipes. She paused and then laughed and said the cakes were all box mixes. 

My grandmother's soup did not come from a box. In some ways she was the stereotypical Italian grandmother. Effusive with the hugs. Doting on me when I was in town for a visit. Offering me the soup or a plate of spaghetti. Her apartment was neat as a pin. Actually, she had an obsession with cleanliness. It may have been more than an obsession. When my son was a toddler, I took him back to my hometown to meet my relatives. I called my grandmother to tell her we’d love to stop by, but she said her apartment was too messy. Maybe another time.

There didn't turn out to be another time. She died later that year. I used to wonder if I should've tried harder to change her mind. Was she really choosing the state of her apartment over a visit with a granddaughter and great grandson, briefly in town?  

But this was before I understood anxiety. Not that I fully understand it now, but I know it can lead you to some dark places, and too often, leave you with regret. 

Anxiety runs deep on both sides of my family. But so does the impulse to brew tea and make soup. And I am so very thankful for that.