Of the two of us, my wife Kathie is the only one who really interacts with The People any more. I’m home these days, playing with the dog and rearranging the family finances and making great plans that will never amount to much.
A month back she got sick. And then I did, because we share a house and a dog and a bed and it couldn’t really be helped. It got a little better, it got a little worse and finally, watching the TV news, one of those wondered if maybe there wasn’t some COVID involved. So Kathie scheduled a test through her work, to find out. We waited for the results and sure enough—she had COVID!
We expected that I had it, too, since our symptoms were so closely matched. We took me to the CVS where we buy all of our Dangerous Drugs. The result came back negative, for me. We scheduled an appointment with our family doctor’s office and took the test they had a couple of days later and it, too, came back negative—but by then I was improving, so maybe it was all over for me? We never knew.
Then about ten days later I started to get really short of breath. Scary short of breath. I-can’t-get-up-out-of-bed-without-gasping short of breath. And then I couldn’t sleep. I’d sit up and watch TV and be fine, but when I laid down flat I couldn’t get a deep breath and I woke myself up several times with what we called a “Breath Panic”. It was scary. More doctors and more tests and scans and so on ($$$) and we got some Lasix for me. I peed-away a gallon of fluid—I know because I lost eight pounds! And I started breathing much better, again.
The recovery hasn’t been linear for either of us. We both look like maps of recent stock market trades. But the trend has been getting better. Blood pressure, sugar and so on, plus the fluids and potassium and everything else is getting better.
The last lab tech said I’d probably be alright to buy green bananas, again.
