Rant #3,038: Once Bitten, Twice Shy

 

Well, COVID destroyed my family’s holiday season, but at this stage of the game, we are all doing much, much better.

As Hanukkah ended, my wife is free of COVID, and has been free of it for several days.

I am still in the 10-day “caution zone,” but I feel fine and by the middle of the week, if everything goes well, I will be out of that zone and finally put this all behind me.

My mother is doing as well as someone of her age could be doing with this thing. We tested her for COVID yesterday, and at least by the home test, she does not have it anymore. She feels much better, is actually eating, but I don’t know if she fully understands the severity of what she just went through ,,, she has given me verbal indications that she doesn’t fully get it.

She is now in that “caution zone,” and if everything goes according to plan, she will be out of it and ready to take on the world by the New Year’s weekend.

And our son … thank God he didn’t really have anything but a slight cold, he tested negative, and he is fit as a fiddle.

I cannot remember a worse holiday season for my family, but the only good part of it is that we have rebounded pretty nicely, and look forward to a healthy, but quiet, New Year coming up this weekend.

I consider myself particularly lucky, because of everyone I know, in my immediate family and out of it, I had probably the mildest form of the malady, never having a ever and pretty much kicking this thing after two or three days, tops.

We all have remnants of this thing, in some sniffles, but I have that 365 days a year—and 366 days in leap years—due to my bad allergies, so I really don’t know if this is a remnant of the disease or is just me going back to my old self.

The one thing that I do know is that I never want to have to spend time trying to get comfortable and to sleep in that Castro Convertible again.

It sure came in handy, but it is about as comfortable as sleeping on a cement slab … but it served its purpose, and now, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I have just a day or two until I can move back into my regular bed and sleep with my wife, not apart from her.

My family and I missed a few holiday get togethers with our extended family during the past three-plus weeks of this, but that was the collateral damage that we just had to go through.

And we missed several doctors’ appointments during this cycle, so January is chock full of makeups.

But it appears that we made it through, and six months from now, we can get our boosters, and yes, my wife, my son and my mother will all get them, as will I.

In spite of what some claim, while they might not prevent one from getting COVID, they certainly lessen its affects once you do get COVID—as was certainly proven by this episode--and we will get them when we can early this coming summer.

And here is a nod to modern technology, which when it works, works so well.

I did not miss any television while I was laid up on the Castro Convertible, because I watched just about everything I normally watch—and bided my time—with my tablet computer.

Sure, the picture is smaller and it isn’t easy or viable to channel surf like I normally do, but I was able to while away many hours watching various shows and movies on my tablet.

And my computer—which I think has interminable computer COVID, as it continues to give me start-up problems—served me well, too, and even when I felt the worst, I still was able to do my work and send it in without any problems … other than when we lost power on Thursday afternoon for three or four hours.

And when power returned, I went back at it … yes, there is something to remote work after all.

So all told, this was a holiday period that I will want to forget, but at the same time, it spawned the greatest gift that one could possibly get, which was health after we were all feeling like crud for a few days.

It is funny how COVID works, but hopefully, it won’t ever have to deal with it again.

It was an unwelcome visitor this time around, but next time, I pledge that it will not get near this house, If I can help it.

Those might be famous last words, but by taking the booster when we can get it, we will at least put up a firewall to the illness, giving COVID pause to consider whether it can infect us like it did this time.

One time was certainly much more than enough.