2020 Coronavirus Crap

 

A socially distant walk with Amy April 2, 2020, complete with a social distance stick!

2020 will go down in history as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. In my experience, it's led to some unprecedented times. That all started with lockdown back in mid-March. Abruptly, pretty much everything was cancelled. Seriously, over one weekend, the world changed. Schools shut down, the temples closed, and church was cancelled indefinitely. Everyone was encouraged to stay home as much as possible. There have definitely been parts of the pandemic era which have sucked, but I feel like I've weathered it better than many, since I'm pretty introverted naturally.

The start of the pandemic manifested itself in strange ways. I remember going to a bridal shower that first weekend of the shutdown and talking with the other attendees about covid. The spread was very minimal in Utah at the time, so it seemed more far away, but we all had seen the effects of panic buying. Pretty much every store was wiped out of all essential items, notably all produce, meat, canned goods, and weirdly, toilet paper. It was truly like the apocalypse was upon us! Unfortunately, I was at the end of my normal toilet paper supply right when everyone was panic buying. I went to the store after work several times without finding any, which did worry me a bit as my supply dwindled. Fortunately, in a tender mercy, as I was on my last roll, I was able to hit Walmart just as they had put out a new shipment of tp, so I was able to get my normal 4-6 month supply in the same pack I normally buy. The next few times I went, there was nothing to be had.

One of the early scheduling casualties of the pandemic for me were my Spring Break plans. Mom and Dad had been scheduled to come out for my niece Molly's baptism that week. We were going to do a lot
of things while they were here, like go to the Tulip Festival and hike. All that fell through, including the baptism, for a while. So instead, I just read the entire trilogy of the First Formic War for break. Not what I had planned, but it was about what was left to me.

Molly's baptism May 29, 2020

Fortunately, Molly was able to be baptized later at the end of May. I was the only non-immediate family member in physical attendance. All of us wore masks for it, besides Gerrit and Molly during the ordinance. I was able to serve as witness for the baptism for the first time ever. That was a strange sensation, but it was interesting to experience it. The rest of the extended family participated virtually though Zoom. Both grandmas were able to give their talks this way. I did feel sad for Molly that day, because I knew she was very disappointed to not be able to invite all her friends to her baptism. We reassured her the best we could, but I don't think it cheered her up too much. At least in retrospect, the unusual circumstances are going to make the memory more special to her than is typical.

In June, my ward resumed attending sacrament in person. We met twice that month, and in both cases social distancing was emphasized, but wearing a mask was optional. Throughout the pandemic, I have been wearing a mask of some kind. At first, I was just wrapping a winter scarf around my face when I was around others, which did get me some weird looks in the grocery store. Later, Gerrit gave me a pack of dust masks to use instead, which came in very handy. Though the health officials discouraged wearing masks early on, I knew it was a custom in Asia and obviously doctors have worn them in surgery for a long time. The evidence I have always read is that the mask pretty much helps others, but isn't as effective in protecting the one wearing it. To me, wearing one was essentially a social courtesy that served the purpose I was most concerned about, which is unintentionally spreading a disease to others who may suffer from it worse.

Anyway, when I went to church the second time in June, I was wearing a mask, but there were people on either side of me who weren't along with quite a few others in the chapel. Plus, the ward was having people sing aloud, and singing was known to be a bad way of spreading the virus. About 5 days after, I started feeling under-the-weather. 

The digestive issues started first. Then there was increasing listlessness. Normally, I would walk 4+ miles after work, This cut down to a couple miles at the beginning, eventually, just walking to and from my car was a chore. I never had any trouble breathing, but my cardiovascular system was terrible. I started taking my blood pressure every couple hours and it was never good and at times it was very bad. I dreaded the evenings, because everything was the worst then. There were times my heart beat so fast I truly felt like I must be having a heart attack. The pressure in my chest didn't ease my fears. One night, I was in the midst of trying to arrange an urgent care visit, but they wouldn't let me just come in. Instead, they were going to arrange a tele-med visit. During the interim, my blood pressure dropped enough that I decided not to go through with the visit. 

This was still during a time when tests weren't widely available. I searched the internet multiple times to see if my symptoms correlated with coronavirus, but couldn't find reports of cardiovascular trouble, which was my biggest concern. The most I could find was that digestion issues were often reported and that the virus might impact the heart. It wasn't conclusive, so I thought maybe I was just having my own issues. Plus, during the day, I generally felt more or less okay, if you exclude the fatigue. So I worked the entire time pretty much like normal. There was only one day that I left about 2 hours early because I wasn't feeling great. That day was nice, though, because I came home and slept straight from that afternoon until the next day, so I was able to skip the late-night anxiety. I remember there was another day that freaked me out because the water-bottle I normally carry, which weighs no more than half a pound even when full, was literally falling out of my grasp over a short distance. I knew something was wrong with me, but I couldn't tell for sure what. I just knew that I had never been more scared about my health.

The natural art someone created along the Highland Trail while playgrounds and benches were still roped off. April 1, 2020

There were a few things that got me through it all. Aspirin was a great help, though I used it pretty sparingly because of the side effects. I'm grateful I had a blood-pressure cuff that I could carry with me anywhere I went for monitoring purposes. I'd read a recent report that having covid patients lay on their stomachs helped them and that technique did provide relief for my chest, though it didn't help my heartrate, so mostly I slept on my back. On the worst nights, it was the hymns and prayer that pulled me through it.

My recovery was ultimately pretty slow. The physical fatigue I felt lingered to some extent for about 6 weeks before I felt more or less normal. Within those 6 weeks, more info became available that suggested my symptoms were indeed consistent with covid. The chest pressure and fatigue especially fell in line with that, so I'm pretty certain I had it. Fortunately, it also seems that I didn't pass it to anyone else during that time. Working alone more or less probably helped with that. In the weeks after, I had more concerns about my cardiovascular system since I could feel my blood moving in weird ways and was way more likely to have my limbs fall asleep if they weren't fully extended. To be honest, I'm not totally sure that I'm completely back to normal since there have definitely been times since where it seems like my heart is beating too fast. It's hard to know how much is from covid and how much is purely psychosomatic, though.

Beyond the physical, what has stuck with me the most is a newfound sense of mortality. Unfortunately, for me, that was ultimately a negative sense. There were times I was peaceful about potentially dying, but more often there was fear and sadness about it for me. I couldn't help but think how awful it would be for others if I just died in my sleep as I thought at times I might. How long would it be before one of my roommates discovered what had happened? Likely enough, with covid, even a funeral for the family wouldn't have even been possible. Worse was the sense that if I did die, it probably would be of little impact overall. Sure, there would be quite a few who would be at least a little sad for a while, but that wouldn't last long for most. It's easy to see the impact that losing a spouse or parent has on a family. That's not quite as clear for a single adult. I imagine I will leave behind some sort of a legacy even now, but I'm not sure it's as much as I would hope, unfortunately. 

I'd never seriously confronted my possible death before, since it seemed pretty unlikely, but looking it in the face a bit was unnerving. I wish I would say I had more faith about it. It's not that I have any doubt about a satisfactory afterlife or anything, but I'm too cowardly about the physical aspect of it all. I'm afraid to confront the intricacies and pain of passing from this world to the next. And the thought of leaving behind my body to decompose fills me with horror even now. My body may be far from perfect, but in a true sense, it is the thing about myself I understand best, in a way. I can't really comprehend the idea of being without it. Even a temporary separation from it seems intolerable. It seems that older people don't have these kinds of worries as much, so perhaps the gradual physical decline helps people to cope with the idea of leaving the body with more equanimity. I imagine the same is true for people with intense physical disabilities. Since their bodies already seem at least partially dead or alien to them, maybe it's easier for them to let go of the rest when the time comes. Hopefully, in time I will also learn to see things differently. I'd like to face death with a lot less fear and much more faith.

Mostly, I've focused on the harder parts of 2020 here, but there were an abundance of good things going on too. Next time I post, I will try to lean more heavily on that side!