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wheezy day 17

I counted because it seems like this backwards quarantine has lasted more than a month but it’s only day 17. It’s backwards because we are quarantined to protect ourselves and not because we have the contagion.

17 itty bitty tiny days.

The last time time seemed to move this slow I was pregnant with Matt. I remember figuring out how long I had left of being pregnant, and I was exactly 6 weeks, or 42 days from my due date, which seemed like beyond an eternity at that point. I can recall with complete accuracy, standing in the little kitchen area of our tiny little apartment and looking towards the dutch door (I loved that door and want one in my future house) into our little dog poop covered back yard and wondering how I was going to live through the eternity of 6 weeks or 42 days. I would still have 3 1/2 weeks to go if I was at that point right now with our quarantine.

I feel like sunny days move faster. Staring at my phone all day makes the time drag. Today I binge watched a vacuous reality show all day. It wasn’t worth it. My IQ might have actually dipped a couple of points. Now I should probably read the new york times to recoup them. I’m not sure that I can come up with a ton of things that are both inside the house and "worth it", but I am going to make more of an effort. I’d really like to get some fresh fruit and vegetables but am absolutely terrified of leaving the house. I can imagine a situation where this becomes a problem for me. I will probably figure out how to get groceries delivered or in the least get them placed inside of my empty trunk. People. This has really rocked me to my core.

I’m checking in on dear friends more often than ever. I’m worried about my kids night and day. Even though Matt has done the worst possible thing my own flesh and blood could have done to me I am still including him in that worrying. I’m trying so hard not to let the anger, hurt and betrayal of Matt’s distancing overwhelm me, but I am losing this battle. I want someone (obviously not me, because apparently I am so rage filled it could swallow a kid whole) to slap some sense into Matt. Just a big whack across the head, a whack that says HEY ASSHOLE, YOU ARE DOING IRREPARABLE DAMAGE TO WHAT USED TO BE THE MOST SUPPORTIVE AND LOVING RELATIONSHIP OF YOUR LIFE so loud and so clear that Matt’s mouth hangs open and his eyes pop out of his head and he immediately starts to figure out how he’s ever going to apologize to me and make this right again. Can it get right again? Some days the grief is so suffocating I don’t honestly think this could be undone. Especially since I don’t think Matt will ever be in a place where he realizes his own responsibility in this. I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to see that he has been gradually distancing himself for years ( I partly blame his fucking awful damned college, where I sent a hard working kid with whom I had a fantastic relationship and they spit out a kid who thinks I can destroy him with my anger for the world) And here is my secret fear. My biological father was mentally ill. Like, very seriously mentally ill and I’m afraid I’m seeing some of that passed down to Matt. And for that, I feel guilty because it passed through me, and guilty because I can’t do anything to stop it. I feel like I’ve been down this road before here, but This is the thing that’s been going on in a loop in my head. I’m really broken over it.

And I really don’t to die with this hanging over me, so thats part of why I desperately need to stay inside until this virus is under control. I have no doubt that I’ll get it eventually but I am hoping for some medicinal breakthrough before I am exposed.

I heard some talk on the news about talking to your family members about if you are willing to accept being intubated or not. In a total surprise declaration the husband told me that he would like to be intubated need be. I know he doesn’t understand that being intubated also means being sedated into a medically induced coma with tons of risks involved. I don’t think he would get the chance to choose to be intubated or not. Especially if he gets it during a peak time. My guess is that the wouldn’t last very long once the virus spread in him. diabetics don’t do well, let alone people who have managed to live with uncontrolled diabetes for over 20 years. It’s a medical miracle that he still with us anyways. Speaking of miracles, the husband is still here. He gets incrementally weaker with each passing day. Today I caught him hanging onto the cabinet shelf searching for something sweet. He spied a box a junk cereal in the back of the cabinet and I warned him it was probably two years old, but honestly, I think it might be much older. Then he did his strange weak, can’t feel his feet is beyond dizzy but pretending to be fine old man walk back to his chair. I gave him some pretzels to snack on. I know it’s bad for him but eating too much unhealthy food is actually the only thing that makes him happy these days.

Oh. And speaking of the husband. Are you ready for this? Well, people with FTD often get promiscuous as their dementia advances. Guess who has a dating website profile and is looking at singles in our area? Yes, my demented husband. I do feel like dementia or not it is the thing that crosses the line of how much I am willing to put up with and I will be finding out after this pandemic dies down what the deal is with full time nursing home care and his insurance. I do fantasize about everything I want to keep in storage and just roaming around aimlessly for a while so maybe that will be my next step plan. A friend put his mother into a nursing home in Mexico because the care was superior and the cost was a fraction and I am tempted. The only bad part of dumping him in a foreign country would be for the kids who aren’t going to go to Mexico to see him and also I have donated his post mortem brain to a study in order to understand this disease- or even what disease he has, because they never can really tell outside of an autopsy. I don’t think we can do that if he passes away in Mexico. He definitely needs to be local to participate in the study.

So, back to the dating website. The husband doesn’t think he is cheating if he hasn’t made his profile (which I found on his tablet and he bizarrely lied about his height by 9 inches. What?!?! ) Also, I didn’t notice we were currently separated and that one of us was living away from home. (soon to be him) I made a fake profile for the husband since his was lacking in details.

MY DEMENTED HUSBAND’S DATING PROFILE. (IF HE WAS HONEST)

Are you into long romantic emergency room visits? Wanna cook for me and watch me try to sneak the vegetables in the trash like a toddler? How do you like the sound of burps? I manage to burp after every sip. Oh yeah, hope you like the thrill of watching someone choke, because choking is one of my specialties.

Jewish, 58 (going on 98)married (to the kitchen slave), male. I’m super tall (but claim to be 5”10”) when I’m not lying prone on the ground denying that I passed out and fell again. Don’t look at my bruises!

If your idea of a good time is reading the closed captioning out loud and explaining plot twists then I’m your guy! I still bathe most weeks, I’m about 95% on time with the bathrooming and sleep 12-16 hours a day, just like a dog! I have the back hair of a dog too. You can pet me.

And I know how to keep myself busy, so if you like staring at the back of a tablet we are a match made in heaven! I pretend to play sudoku, which I can’t solve anymore, because dementia, and I can’t read a newspaper or a legal brief but I do love me some incest porn. Maybe you’re a frustrated writer? Run that step daughter disaster by me!

Good qualities:
I won’t touch you, so I’m a great deal for people who are on the fence about becoming nuns, or asexual or just straight up frigid. I get all the physical contact I need from the World Wide Web and my right arm, which hurts BTW. I tore something falling, which I completely deny happened, but if you’ve got the free time, Can you give me a lift to PT?

I won’t ever toss a compliment your way. So no need to worry about me being insincere that way. But I’m quick with the insults. Everyone will think I’m a funny guy, because what’s funnier than undermining someone’s self esteem? Nothing, right? Dark humor! Woot woot. Hahahaha. I’m hilarious.

I’m sexist AF. I don’t think women in the workplace should be promoted because they might put their children over their jobs, I don’t respect a single human being (including myself, my wife or my own kids) and basically the rules don’t apply to me, unless I want them to because they’re working in my favor.

Denial. I’m the king in this department. Heart disease, kidney disease, every diabetic complication in the book, including but not limited to wide spread neuropathy, orthostatic hypotension, and either a rare form of dementia or the deepening of a life long battle with mental illness. I’m healthy as a horse (wink wink) and will tell you every day who on television I could probably “take” in a fight or competition. Because I’m fine thanks. Doing great.

Odds and ends: I suck with money, it runs through my fingers like a sieve, The smell of death lingers in the air around me as I stumble from room to room, but only on one floor because the chance of me falling down stairs is so great I don’t do stairs, I won’t run away because I can’t even walk around the block, I have a large frame so it’s not blatantly obvious that I have lost all of my muscle tone, and when I burp it smells like sewage but I’ve finally got the hang of not blowing that out into someone’s face.

Soooooo………. What do you think? Too long?

Takeout

Yesterday I was starting to feel very relaxed that I had basically been in the house for 2 weeks and didn’t come into contact with the virus and could finally relax.

So..... this morning Josh was acting WEIRD and I had no idea what was up. He said he wanted to take a walk. So strange for him. So I told him to take the dog. Then I FaceTimed him a few minutes later because I totally wanted to spy on him because I knew he was lying and I wanted to see where he was. I said “I just want to see if it’s crowded” but he was still driving and said he was going to the woods where I walk her and not the open space right next to our house. EVEN WEIRDER. Josh hates walking or any exercise and he doubly hates walking the dog. Why wouldn’t he go to the closest possible place? Also, the woods is a real little hike, next to our house is a paved path and mostly level. So I told him the woods was closed (which it is) and he should go next to the space next to the house. Then he pulls back into our driveway a few minutes later and I say YOU COULDN’T HAVE WALKED THE DOG THAT FAST and he says “You told me to come back” which wasn’t true so I said, “No, I said I thought you were walking her in the fields next to the house. Can you take her there?”And again he leaves and returns in 2 minutes and he tells me that the fields were more crowded than I would have felt comfortable with. I know he was lying but I still have no idea what he’s up to. Then only about 5 minutes later I hear him trying to be stealthy heading out the front door and I run over to the window and watch him walk over to the mailbox and grab a brown paper bag from underneath.

That idiot ordered takeout.

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Yeah, I do!

So technically, it’s day 15 of Wheezy lockdown.

In the first week, which was psychologically the worst of the two weeks, I tried to walk sweet pea twice. The first time I cut it short after a couple of joggers jogged up from behind way too close for comfort and the second time the same freaking this happened again.

During the second walk the first jogger passed so close I could tell her jogging clothes were freshly laundered. Then some dickhead kid on a bike passed me so close i might have felt his jacket brush my arm. Both of these incidents took place while I was walking sweet pea through the middle of an empty parking lot so there wasn’t an excuse for this rude behavior. I was determined to get a decent walk in for my own sanity so I changed course and returned to the open field, where it appeared people had cleared from. That made sense it was getting dark. So, I walk about half way around the 1/2 mile loop when I’m startled by another jogger sneaking up from behind and passing right next to me. I’m chatting on the phone as she passes and I say to my friend “I can’t take these F-ing joggers.” But, this jogger isn’t wearing earphones and she hears me and she turns around about 20 feet in front of me and shouts “Do you have something to say to me?” and I freeze for a half a second and then this feeling washes over me and I know I am 100% committed to whatever is going to happen I am about to unleash and so I scream back to her “Yeah, I do! Stay 6 F-ing feet away from me, BITCH!”

At this moment the jogger gives me the posture- the kind that says “Im gonna fight you” and I’m pretty shocked because, she , like me, appears to a white middle aged house frau type. I mean, she had some jiggly junk in the truck, I’m guessing that jogging was very new to her. I’m quite momentarily confused by the situation. Then in my own head that voice that always talks my thoughts to me gives myself permission to release 55 years of repressed anger all over this chick, and as she and I stare each other down for a quick second I actually visualize myself on top of her and slamming her head repeatedly into the path. I actually tell myself that getting C19 would be worth it if I could hurt her bad enough. I’d end up saving lives in the end because I’d be standing up for all the people who want people to keep the F away. I’m going to be a martyr. Just then a couple leaned in and said something to the jogger. I don’t know if they said “That lady is right, you should stay 6 F-ing feet away” which would have been accurate or if the two said something more along the lines of “You should keep running, that fat chick looks insane” which I’m pretty sure was an absolute pin point accurate depiction of my inner thoughts, but the jogger turned and ran off. What kind of coward doesn’t finish what she starts? A jiggly assed jogging coward, would be the correct answer.

I haven’t been beyond my own backyard since.

The Day I Realized It Wasn't IT

So, the next morning I woke up feeling pretty normal and unsure what to do. I had a slight headache but it wasn’t any different than the regal headaches I occasionally get, or was it? How would I know. I dozed off and on until noon and then I realized that I was just being crazy about the whole thing. I felt fine, I had the kind of headache that lessened when I stood up, which normally means it is time to get my neck adjusted but in coronavirus world it means, ignore and take a tylenol. I showered, I came downstairs, feeling so full of happiness and joy all because my friend’s adorable 2 year old had literally given me a tiny little reason to live. It sounds too instant and too huge to be attributed to a sweet little toddler’s 20 minute video chat but it was true. I had turned the corner on the gloom and nothingness of the first week of this lock down and now I had a smile on face and didn’t feel like I was lost in the darkness anymore. Now I felt like I had to finish that counting book and also figure out how I was going to get it to him.

So, I edited and edited for a couple of days and pixel by pixel I removed the dogs from the background and cloned them onto the book template. Somewhere in there I had to watch a video to learn how to write in a photoshop document and I thought and thought about the best way to design a book and somewhere along the line I thought about printing a copy on my own document printer as a dry run and then I realized I could prepare a PDF of the pages that someone could print and glue together at home and then I got super really excited. I made a PDF of the inside of the book and I made a PDF of the cover. I took some photos while I put the book the together. I made a video of me reading while I flip through the book.

Now the only thing left to do is to write the instructions into an email and attach the PDFs and send them out. I’m pretty excited about this.

So much

So much to tell.

I thought I had it.

Last Sunday my grad school friend FaceTimed me so her precious 2 year old could see sweet pea. He loves to see her. It makes me love him even more than I would have.

And I’ve been thinking for months that I should make a dog counting book using sweet pea and all of her dog friends. So I’ve been photographing everyone. But I never made the book. I was so filled with joy after seeing him that I kept up and ran to the computer to do some editing. Then I made some soup for dinner and while it was simmering away I did a bit more editing. I was on a high.

Then I got up to serve dinner and realized I shivering. Violently. Uncontrollably. So ran upstairs and grabbed a thermometer. 100.1. I called out instructions to Josh. I wondered if they should eat the food I had just prepared. I weighed the danger of takeout versus the chance of me actually having IT. I didn’t know. They ate the soup. They weren’t afraid of me. Wondering if my throat hurt. I texted Josh about the garbage. I told him to Put the leftovers in the fridge. Do I have sharp pain in my chest or am I having an anxiety attack? Did you feed the few dog? Wait. Did I cough before? Are the doors locked? 99.9. Scanning head to toe for the symptoms I can’t find. Are the lights out? Mind racing. Confused. Other than the shakes I don’t feel anything. But this bump. Painful bump.

99.7 shaking stops. I’m awake. I’m alert. I look around. Am I in the eye of the hurricane? I get up. The bump. It hurts. I look. It’s red.

It’s infected.

I’m so much more happy about not IT than what’s there. Infection. But is it? So I stay in my room. And I’m not coming out until I know it’s not IT. But it isn’t it because the bump is resolving and the fever is gone. So I come out. And I’m still so happy and I sit down in front of the computer and I start editing dogs.

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Wheezy the beginning of week 2 on lock down

Text I sent my dog walking friend group

I guess no one is keen on the FaceTime lunch date idea. That’s fine. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror just now and I look remarkably like a dog that’s been rescued from a dog hoarding/ back yard breeding rescue. Might brush my hair tonight.

Everyone under my roof is fever/cough/ sore throat free so far. Evan reports that he and the girlfriend are fine as well.

I had a couple of panic attacks. The first one came when I did something to my dishwasher door. Thankfully it is still working. It just kind of falls open with no resistance now. I should probably go into the basement and make sure it’s not flooding. I’ll do that later. I’m doing a load right now. It’s extra annoying if it breaks because I gave Evan the dish rack I had in the basement.

I also almost fainted when I thought the microwave wasn’t working but I didn’t have my glasses on and was pressing the clear button instead of the 30 second button. Whew!

I do have some good news. I had a fantastic tomato last week (ugli kind) so I planted some of the seeds and they sprouted! I know I’m a few weeks late on that but I’m going to give it my best. It’s pretty much the most exciting thing I have to report.

I’m still afraid to go outside. I guess in this world I feel more vulnerable than I realized. I’m hoping Evan comes around today to walk my sweetest girl, who has been freakishly amazing considering the lack of exercise. If I need something new to worry about it will be that.

I feel like this has really shown me something about myself and that is I AM extra LAZY (not a surprise) when completely paralyzed with fear. I haven’t done any cleaning or made any art or anything even remotely productive.

I do feel a strong need to tell everyone I love how they mean to me though. But you guys know that. I’ve been reaching out to some friends that I don’t talk to regularly. And speaking more often to friends who I speak to sporadically. I’m very concerned about my friends who live in the city.

Anyways guys, I can’t wait until we can walk and stroll and breathe on each other again. This sucks.

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Wheezy lock down. Day 4. Morning post

I thought and thought about posting on day 2 and day 3 but I spent the entire days locked in the house only venturing as far as my own back yard so sweet pea could do her business.

I’ve been staring at my phone all day just scrolling around American Idol videos or trying to find anything that makes me laugh.

Thoughts so far: I love my mornings to be quiet and private. The husband has a tendency to appear (looking wild eyed and unable to form words) hours before he would normally get out of bed (typically between noon and 1) if he hears me puttering around and that breaks the spell for me. To be honest, it’s just brutally hard to see him at any time. When I look at him I don’t see anything positive. I see a man who struggles to stand. I see a man who can no longer read a subtitle or understand a complicated story plot who defiantly insists he is as mentally strong and capable as he ever was. Just a couple of weeks ago he turned to me and bet me he could take someone in a fight. And yet, if you move too fast near him he falls down from the disorientating nature of it.

I take care of this weak old confused man, but it pains me to see him. I don’t know him. He is a stranger to me and a weight around my neck. The tremendous responsibility of caring for him is something I was not prepared for.

I suppose I wished for him what I have always wished for myself. I hope I leave this earth doing something I love, like dancing or hiking in the woods with my camera. I hope I don’t see it coming. I don’t want to go slowly or painfully. I don’t want to even exist without my full faculties. And I definitely don’t want to spend my last handful of years on earth sitting on a chair staring at a screen and slowly losing the essence of who I am.

I need my quiet time in the morning to fill my reserve that enables me to smile at the needy stranger, scrape up a days worth off meaningless chit chat, and keep rolling.

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Wheezy

SO. C*r*na virus or more technically C*vid 2019. (Sorry for the *s. Trying to avoid google hits) I just hope you didn't get here by googling, dear reader, this won't be informative. Just my on line diary. Let's have a nickname for this pandemic. I've nicknamed everything else so, why not? Right? Let's see.  The Plague is already taken. I feel like this is going to end up being biblical in size and damage. I mean, if 60-75% of us get this and the survivors are all left with impaired lung function we will be several generations of wheezing geezers. So, maybe Wheezy? Wheezy it is.

First, I will admit that I've been ever so slightly panicked for a long while. Long enough to start purchasing bags of gluten free grains, beans, and (for some inexplicable reason) olives long before people were battling over them. I honestly have no idea what the olive thing was about but I've also got a pickle stash so maybe I just want salty canned goods. I dunno. I took into high gear this week when I discovered that the freezer in our basement still works and now we have even more canned goods and a bunch of frozen meat and bread too. 

Now I am in full fledged panic. Josh was home from school for break for a week and I couldn't believe they didn't tell the kids to stay home. No, they had the kids disperse to their home towns, maybe get infected maybe not, and then return to school as if Wheezy wasn't breathing down our necks like the Alien in Alien on Sigourney Weaver. What the ever loving hell were they thinking? I looked every single day for an email from that school and there wasn't any communication at all. A few days later they decided to shut down and go on line like all the other schools are doing, but not before all the kids and their germs had reassembled long enough to infect each other. God dammit. This country needs leadership! We should have been on shut down 6 weeks ago and that would have kept the lid on Wheezy, but no, we have a gigantic POS in the white house who ignored the problem as if it was going to go away unnoticed. 

I am hoping the most evil of evil thoughts and please let this play out so that the people who vote against their own interest end up protected by an honest government. Or at least the normal amount of dishonest, since it looks like Bernie isn't going to win the nomination. I feel like 4 more years of the POS would be more than I could handle. I mean, I don't actually know what I can handle, because I just keep plugging away, but the last 3 years have been so fucking nasty.

It's amazing to me how many people are not paying attention.

Yesterday the mom across the street posted a selfie of herself in her house and said "Enjoying while staying socially isolated #Wheezy" except she lied because her husband posted a photo of his kids hanging out in his basement with a bunch of other kids at the very same time. Dude! They cancelled school so that the kids wouldn't get each other sick and that totally defeats the purpose. 

Today I took sweet pea out for our usual walk. Two women I walk with did not respect my request to stay 6 feet away. One of them even high fived my hand with her hand when I held it up as a gesture to stay back. I was pissed because this woman is a health care worker who gets too close for comfort with her patients if you ask me. I told her she needed to stop working (she totally could) for a while but she said she never gets sick. Clueless!! Now I won't be walking sweet pea at the usual time with the hussar people or even with anyone and I will be wearing rubber gloves for protection just in case but also because I am suddenly uncomfortable with dogs slobbering all over my hands when I give them treats because i don't know who else's hands have been in their mouths. I know dogs can't get Wheezy according to WHO but can it live in their saliva if they lick Wheezy off of someone's hands? I need answers. I think I'll put this one out on Facebook. 

So, yesterday I drove out to Josh's college to pick him up after his one week back at school. On the way out I got a text from Evan asking what I was doing today, so I figured he wanted me to come and bring him back to the house too. I called him and said I would pick him (and his girlfriend) up (despite my general level of concern since they had both been taking mass transit to their jobs in NYC) but that if they were going to stay in the house with me they'd have to lay low and not go out to socialize. Evan acted like I was a tyrant and said he wanted to hang out with small groups of friends in their homes. I said it wasn't safe enough and that his father would likely not survive this virus, so Evan isn't coming back. Part of me is relieved because I know he thinks he is still indestructible and will take chances like hanging out with his like minded irresponsible friends and the other part of me is more worried than before because I know he will not be not isolating himself as he should be and I can't control him. 

I feel like I would die if this virus takes any of my kids away from me.

Sharpening my kill kit.

I just went to the grocery store (Wahoo! I’m alive!!) because we need bagels, tea, chicken broth and eggs (I make homemade egg drop soup now- so proud) . But naturally, I bought a ton of stuff just in case there’s a quarantine. I’ll have enough pickles to get me through. Typically, I’d go to a cashier that i know because I’m the kind of girl that likes to bond with my cashier but there was one -new never saw her before -cashier with a much shorter line so I took a gamble. (You see where this is going, right?) As she is scanning my bounty I make a joke about people hoarding food and she says “I’m not worried about coronavirus. It ain’t here in Connecticut. The government will take care of us” and immediately I understand she might be mildly impaired. So I try to joke to joke it off but we go back and forth a couple of times where she tries to explain to me that the government has us covered no matter who the president is and then she continues with “I’ll tell you what I am worried about right now. It’s that stomach virus going around” and I tell her I was in the house for 4 days because of it and quite sick. By now she’s basically done scanning my food and she says “Yeah, I’ve been in and out of the bathroom all day, it’s bad.” The panic rises in my throat. I tell her not to touch my bags (I’ve been packing my food this entire time and she is trying to put my bags in the cart) and she gets offended. I look up and the people on line and around us are all in shock and staring wide eyed. No one can believe what they’ve heard. SHE TOUCHED EVERY SINGLE ITEM I JUST PURCHASED. I dont even know what to do with the three bags of groceries right now.

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Cough cough ??

So. I’ve been pretty internally freaked the freak out over covid 19. Seriously. I don’t understand why our government doesn’t shut us all down yesterday. I mean, wouldn’t it be cheaper in the end to pay people to stay home and end this rather than try to wait until folks are dropping like flies to do anything?

This administration has me practically despondent and I can not imagine another term of this bullshit. I just don’t want to live through another term of increased hate/ hate crimes and increased ignorance. The first thing an honest administration should do is make a “Fake News” bill which legitimately bans the dissemination of fake news masquerading as actual news.

Four nights ago I felt bit nauseated before bed. That turned into 36 hours of involuntary purging with abdominal pain followed by weakness and light headed. I was so sick I called the doctor who phone diagnosed me with Norovirus. Last night I suddenly came back to myself. This morning I woke up with a bit of post nasal drip causing me to cough and the first thing I thought was OH MY GOD, NOW I HAVE THE PLAGUE.

So, I won’t go into the city, am terrified about returning to the Y, and really just want to stay isolated until this is over. The husband just started PT again for a rotator cuff tear and all I can think of is his complete lack of hygiene and he will be touching the equipment that scores of potentially infected other people are also touching.

In the end I wonder how I am possibly descended from people tough enough to have survived the ice age, the biblical 10 plagues, migrating across land bridges, eating woolly mammoths into extinction, and all I want to is hide under the bed and disinfect the canned food I may have hoarded early on in this process. Also, despite my predisposition for all natural environmentally friendly house hold products, I’m kicking myself for not stocking up on chemical disinfectants.

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