Back to the bad old normal

Covid sneaks in and takes over

Sunday, Oct. 1

It’s a beautiful fall day, and a strange little cough starts tickling my chest. At the same time, the thought that it could be Covid teases my mind, but I push it away. I’ve been lucky for three and a half years. Why shouldn’t that continue? Besides, I feel fine, except for this cough and a little bit of lightheadedness.

Zo brings me a home test, just to be sure, and it’s negative. Must be a cold. 

Monday, Oct. 2

It could be the flu. I seem to have a fever that comes and goes, and I feel shaky and chilled. I can’t find a thermometer in the house, and when I go out to the store, I forget to buy one. I do buy a second Covid test, because the CDC recommends two tests, 48 hours apart. I notice that our sourdough bread tastes very sour. I can’t eat much of it or anything else. Somehow, I don’t make the obvious connection.

I notice that Bella has started coughing a little.

Tuesday, Oct. 3

I never made it to a deep sleep during the night but waded around fitfully in the shallows, waking every hour or so. Now, in the morning, I struggle to get out of bed. When I make it downstairs, I take the second test and it’s positive.

Bella and I spend most of the day napping, reading and watching TV. Zo and his wife, Ciaira, come over in the evening with masks on, take Bella’s temperature, and it’s 102. They give her a Covid test, which is positive. She is confused and semi-conscious. They take her to the ER.

They get back around 11, Bella much-recovered after fluids and medicine. She has been prescribed Paxlovid, an antiviral for people at higher risk, because she is 65 and has Alzheimer’s disease. 

Covid, I note, has turned me into a neglectful caregiver.

Wednesday, Oct. 4

I slept a bit better, with help from cold medicine, and Bella slept well, except for some worse than usual confusion in finding the bathroom during the night.

The plumbing under the kitchen sink has a leak, so on Monday I had to shut off the water to it. The plumber can’t come to our sick house, so no sink and no dishwasher since then.

 Today, Zo brought paper plates, bowls and cups, plastic knives, forks and spoons. The dishwasher is full of dirty dishes and more are piled on the stove. I could figure out a way to wash them, but ambition to do anything has been banished by Covid.

I cough when I talk. Food still tastes lousy. Reading makes my head throb. Pain shoots through my temples and the hinges of my jaw. I shuffle around, zombie-like, pulling myself up the stairs by the banister.

Bella, on the other hand, seems almost fine. Maybe it’s the Paxlovid. Maybe she’s so used to being in a different state, because of Alzheimer’s, Covid doesn’t distress her. Maybe, despite everything, she’s still stronger than I am.

Covid, Day 3: This was my first bout with the disease. I didn’t like it.

Thursday, Oct. 5

I notice a slight improvement. Life is seeping back. My voice has more force. I eat a whole piece of toast for breakfast.

Bella is fine.

Friday, Oct. 6

I’m walking with purpose now, not that I have anywhere to go.

I pour boiling water down the sink drain to kill the fruit flies propagating there. I move all the dirty dishes not in the dishwasher into two plastic totes and shove them in the corner. 

I trot up the staircase.

But the cough lingers.

“You’re sick,” Bella says, when she hears me hacking.

“We both have Covid,” I say.

“We do?” she says.

Saturday, Oct. 7

We take another test, at Zo’s suggestion, and are both still positive.

“You should probably stay in a few more days,” he says. “Maybe Wednesday.”

Ginny has sent us groceries through Instacart and, like everyone else, we’ve trained for isolating at home during a pandemic. We’re back in quarantine, watching the hours pass. We’re wondering, once again: “When will things be back to normal?”