Rant #2,379: Doctor Rhythm

As we continue to fight the dreaded coronavirus, we continue our lives for another day ...

And life goes on.

Yesterday, my wife and I did our shopping at the local supermarket. We found what we wanted and needed, and were in and out in a relatively short period of time.

However, this particular supermarket, which was well stocked in just about everything, was not in abundant supply of two items--

Milk and Coca-Cola.

Now, one is pretty much a necessity, while the other is a pleasure, but I found it kind of odd that you could get just about any item you wanted there, but you had a tough time with these two staples of my diet.

We bought what they had, and got out of there.

Also very interesting to note is that since the coronavirus struck, my weekly shopping bill has gone up about $50. I think that that is a mix of prices being higher--there IS price gouging going on during this period--and that my wife and I are shopping at non-discount supermarkets. We are staying relatively close to home, and there are no dollar stores or Walmarts by us, so we are shopping at stores that are normally higher priced anyway. Thus, our bill has gone up, which is hurting my pocketbook, in particular the money I am getting from unemployment, where I am receiving less than half per week to what I received when I was working.

So every dollar I am saving on using less gas is being eaten up by our supermarket shopping, and even more so since I am not driving very much. So yes, you mix that with my obscene doctors bills and the other bills I have to pay, and you can understand why my wallet is pretty thin nowadays.

Last night, as part of life going on, my wife and I had a routine doctors appointment with our GP. We got robocalls and emails about the appointment, each time saying that we were coming. Then yesterday, we actually got a live person from the office calling us, asking if we would be there, and once again, we reiterated that we would make the apppointment.

We get to the office, and there is a sign on the window that we had to call a number and follow the instructions. We did, and we got someone live on the other line, asking us one question or another about our health. Again, we were right outside the door of the office, one that we would normally open and walk right in, but this time, we got the third degree about our health, and we were even asked if we had traveled abroad in the last two weeks.

After our answers passed muster, the door was unlocked and was opened by the receptionist, dressed head to toe in garb protecting her from catching not on the coronavirus, but even a wisp of fresh air. She signed us in, and she told us in a very nervous tone that we were the first patients that they had had this day who actually kept their appointment. We later were followed by at least one other person, and the doctor had some video appointments to keep, but at that point, we were his first live patients.

Happily, the doctor--also dressed from head to toe in battle garb--had nothing but good things to say about both of us--we are both doing well physically, based on tests that were previously done--and he checked us out while we were there, too, and continued his praise of how well we were doing.

Finally, our time there was over, we made appointments to see him again in three months, and that was that as we left and drove home.

We are happy that we were given a clean slate as far as our health, but the doctor said one thing to me during his examination that really hit home with me:

"When this is all said and done, about 80 percent of the population will have been infected, to various degrees, by this virus."

Some people have been made gravely ill from the coronavirus, and their lives hang on the edges. Some have died, including most recently Fountains of Wayne frontman Adam Schlesinger, who, among many other credits, was the producer of the Monkees' comeback album from 1996, "Good Times!" He was just 52 years old.

Some people have nothing but flu-like symptoms from getting the virus, others have virtually no symptoms at all.

I guess that is what makes the whole thing so scary, because it can go from relatively nothing up to being fatal. And it shows no age boundaries. On the evening news, there have been two recent stories of people 100 years of age and over who have gotten the disease and recovered. There have also been stories of younger people, like Schlesinger, who got the disease and never recovered.

And there are the others, some who have suffered to a certain degree and some who feel like they did a year ago, when this wasn't even in anyone's minds.

How can this be, where some people don't really suffer at all and others never recover?

I head a report the other day that the virus might have first spread during the Super Bowl period in February of this year, when so many people from so many places got together in Miami, Fla. When the game was over, people traveled back to wherever they came from, and this might have inadvertently spread the virus, as people were carrying something that they didn't even know they had back to their communities. With so many of the travelers coming from the New York area, these unwitting people might have been the "Typhoid Marys" of the entire pandemic.

And a month later, we got socked.

It is just a theory, but since we know so little about the coronavirus, you can't just dismiss it.

I am happy that my wife and I are healthy, but as the doctor said, eight of 10 people are going to get this virus to varying degrees, so since we were not tested for it during our examination, who knows if we have it or not, or in the future, will get it or not?

And that is what is so puzzling.

Have a good weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.