I was reading an excellent book today in between sleeping interruptions, it’s by Jess Walter, one of my favorite writers, and it’s a love story called Beautiful Ruins. It had a line or two that stuck with me.

In the book, a beautiful young American movie star who is in Rome to act in the legendary Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton film Cleopatra ends up on a secluded Italian island talking to Pasquale, a lonely young man struggling to get tourists to his rarely-visited hotel, a legacy from his dead father.

He can’t figure out why she’s there. The two are walking up on the cliffs. Pasquale has fallen in love with the hauntingly beautiful star at first sight. She opens up to him.

“For years,” she tells her smitten new friend, “it was as if I was a character in a movie and the real action was about to start at any minute. But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while waiting for it to start. Do  you know what I mean, Pasquale?”

Pasquale did, and so did I, and in the second week of my Covid experience, this felt more relevant to me than ever. I will not let that happen to me.

Illness helps me see that my life could easily slip away just as it started. If we are lucky, sickness can do that for us.

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Covid has turned out to be more attractive, instructional, and significant than I imagined. And also a lot more severe and far-reaching. It has brought Maria and me even closer, working this out together and helping us understand real love and empathy.

It is both better and worse than I expected. I never for a minute experienced as much pain and discomfort in my open heart surgery as I did with Covid for days and days, and feel at times still.

 

 

Because Mair is suffering in the same way at almost the exact times, we have nothing to explain to one another; we know without being told what is happening to each other.

We switch on and off all day, each helping the other, each being helped in turn.

Sometimes we collide, as we often do at the sunk when we each rush to do the dishes. I’m not ready to drive a lot yet, insists Maria, but today I jumped into the car and strapped on my self-belt to go into town before she could get into the car.

I need to start doing as many things as I can.

Covid has awakened me to many things. Shame on me, a writer who couldn’t quite grasp the power of Covid until it hit him right between the eyes. It was too big for me to get a handle on and too divisive and political.

Maria and I both got sick at the same time, hours after we returned from a joyful birthday celebration in Williamstown, Mass.

In our little town, it was easy these past few years to avoid crowds of people; there have never been any. In Massachusetts, we were in two sold-out theaters, two popular and busy restaurants, and an art museum in less than two days.

Covid found us quickly, masks, vaccinations, and boosters aside.

When we got sick, we both assumed we were getting something like the flu, a cold, or a day or two of sniffles or headaches. Not so for us; we both got the big one.

Josie, an online friend, sent me this message this morning; I wanted to share it; I got a lot like it today”:

“I read your blog Marissa’s, every day, and on the days I’m zapped by the long haul effects of Covid, your blogs inspire me and lift me. Your pictures are just what I need to get motivated!”

Me too, Josie; you and so many other good people are just what I needed to get motivated to get up off my chair, as I did this morning, and write something. Jess Walter’s book got me up again.

How lucky I am to be a writer who can try to translate his own experiences for other people to use.

I am grateful for the many messages of support and information I received. We are not alone.

There were the usual few accusations in the middle of the week that I am insane (duh) and stubborn (double-duh), and the latest bug-a-boo, that I am a white man of privilege (duh-duh-duh). This is boring.

Tell me something I don’t know, that we all don’t know.

My  friend Julz was happy I called some of them “pimples of the ass of life.”On her blog, she tells the trolls and peckerheads of the world to “blow it out their ass.” That also works for me. We support each other in our identity struggles.

It’s strange, but when dealing with illness, as in life, it is sometimes essential to step back, own who you are, and try to be the person you want to be. That means I need to love the person I am.

I never see myself as old and sick; I see myself as vital, alive, and soon to be healthy again. And to document the experience and be open, as I promised the blog would be. That means taking care of myself and listening to people.

That works with illness, I have learned.

There are always people out there telling me who I am and who I should be and need to be, just as there are always challenges, illnesses, and difficulties eager to interfere with health and life.

I have learned that being who I am means standing up for myself and having the faith to know I can be better and recover when trouble comes, as it comes to all of us.

That is more important than I ever realized, whether you write a blog or are struggling to deal with Covid.

I see now that Covid is a new and different experience, unlike any others I’ve had. It is something new and different.

That means there are things to learn and share.

I was never in a hospital in my life (except for tonsils when I was four) until 2014, when I had open heart surgery. Since then, I’ve had several issues relating to heart, diabetes, an injured foot, a mysterious viral stomach disorder, and sleep apnea.

I am happy to say each one made me healthier and taught me something valuable about myself, health care, and medicine. I’m unsure what I will take from Covid; it’s just been a little more than a week.

I have learned to try to detach myself from illness when I get sick and understand. I’ve learned to avoid self-pity or complaints.

I’ve learned that attitude is as important as any medicine or surgery. I’ve learned to use my journals to reach out to others who need some perspective and affirmation and to help them see that they will be fine most of the time.

I’m no psychic, and sometimes people are not okay. But nearly 80 to 90 percent of the people who get Covid recover fully from it. The number might be higher or lower. It isn’t clear. The vast majority of people do recover in 2022.

As a former gambler, I’ll take those odds.

 

 

Some barely get sick—fewer and fewer need to go to hospitals. Some people get very ill.

But still, I was not prepared for this feeling of being run over by a bus and seeing my energy and focus suddenly disappear. A week later, I am still coughing, my sleep apnea program has run wild, my eyes get blurry, my joints ache endlessly, and I am somewhat cognitively impaired at different and brief times.

Have I mentioned that I have lost the ability to taste food?

There is no point in eating the goods I like, Maria and I exist on Lentil, Pea, and tomato soup with crackers. I can’t taste any of them.

Every good doctor I’ve met and spoken with has told me that my attitude is critical to my recovery and better health and is essential for my body, work, and life. Two doctors have told me I had the best perspective of their patients, which makes me swell with pride and inspires me to work hard.

It’s like the “A” grade I rarely got in school.

Maria and I have never been this sick together for this long or, for that matter, suffering this much. She often tells me that her head feels like soup.

We were laughing today at discovering that our minds are a little unpredictable and fuzzy. She is telling me stories I can’t quite follow, and I am telling her stories and noticing her staring at me with utter bewilderment.

Or minds suddenly jump the track. We’ve learned to laugh.

When I was talking, she looked at me, smiled, and said, “I feel like I’m stoned.” That, I said, is what happens when you are married to a windbag.

Two such independent and strong-willed people could easily be on the edge of homicide after a week like this, but we are only more robust. Covid has done that, also.

Our attention spans and focus are sometimes on, sometimes off. Covid is an on and off disease. We both wake up solid and sharp, as we always have, and rush off to get dressed, do our chores, and get to work. But we are each getting most of our work done; my writing is not affected, and neither is Maria’s artwork.

That is a generous part of Covid.

It messes with my whole body but mainly seems to leave creativity alone for both of us. We need to rest. Every day tells me I am recovering, bit by bit, but slowly.

We are suitable for four or five hours, and then we crash. We are up; we are down. We are found; we are lost. We are sharp; we are fuzzy.

But for all this, one of us was always healthy and able to help the other. Sometimes, our crashes collide, and then we both go and hold hands, lie down together, and sleep for an hour or two. As  Jose said, we get “Zapped.”

We all know about vaccinations and boosters and variants (I have my vaccinations and supporters, or I would likely be dead.) I was given the anti-viral Paxlovid right away. I am lucky.

But beyond that, Covid is a largely untreatable disease. There are no quick or miracle cures. The body needs to get the chance to fight back.

Rest and fluids are essential tools, doctors’ universal guidance with almost every virus.

Rest and perspective are also critical. Whining, alas, doesn’t help.

My  Covid, I gather, will be over in two weeks, or if it is a severe case (so far, it is), it might be four to six weeks. My taste should come back, along with my energy, and in its own time. I might have headaches, aches, and other symptoms for a while.

There is a lot about Covid that the doctors know, and there is a lot about Covid they don’t know. I’ll make it my purpose to keep track of those things and share them. That is one good thing I know can come of it.