COVID bout hits home for columnist

I thought I was coming down with the flu, but because Penny insisted on it, I kept taking COVID-19 tests for two days with negative results. Then a week ago Friday, and after a few minutes, a “test positive” line appeared under the “T” symbol. And as the song says “That’s trouble with a capital T.”

Why me, I thought. I took all the steps. I was vaccinated twice and took two booster shots, the last one just one month ago. I stayed away from crowds most of the time and wore a mask most of the time, yet I came down with COVID-19 and I do not how or when or by whom.

A couple of damnitittohells didn’t change the test results. COVID!

A raspy throat, a little cough and a low-grade fever sealed the deal. Penny came home after running some morning errands and began checking off my boxes. Drink water, she said (check), take aspirin, she said (check again), and stay in bed (check and double-check).

Around noon we began to talk about the inevitable.

“We need to get you to the hospital,” Penny said, “so you need to get out of bed and get dressed.”

And then I found out about COVID-19. I tried to get up but had no strength. Rolling out of bed was not good. I fell to the floor and just lay there. A damp Kleenex has more strength than I possessed.

“I can’t do it,” I said.

“You need some help,” Penny said.

“I can get up (pause) but I can’t do it” was my senseless answer.

Park Forest Fire Department paramedics were called and were there in less than five minutes. With their help I was out the front door and into the front passenger seat of the car on the way to South Suburban Hospital. That’s home port for our family doctor, the man we call “the healer.”

There, a wheelchair was produced and we were sent to a small, isolated room. A nurse took a blood sample and I got a couple of fever reducer pills. And we stayed in that little area for more than seven hours. I did not mind the wait. Sooner or later they would get to me. Others waiting were in deeper distress.

After spending that time in a hospital I have come to a great appreciation of the efforts of nurses and doctors, the front-line soldiers in an all-out daily battle against disease and suffering. The patients in an emergency room area all wait for help and in the small room where we were I could almost hear their silent mantra.

Heal me. Help me. A name is called and a person attached to the name and maybe a helper for the name may have a plea answered. Heal me. Help me.

If it were only that easy. I know a man who was supposed to have heart surgery in late May but when the physician wanted to do the procedure two weeks earlier, the private insurance company said it could not be done. It was a paperwork issue, the company said. “It is too abrupt” they told the patient. Wait, they said. It was not a suggestion and the patient has no choice.

I’ve told the story to doctors who nod. They understand.

Around 10 p.m. our name was called. Vitals were taken. You have COVID-19, they said. Paxlovid was prescribed. Six pills a day for five days. Go home they said. Rest, they said.

Before we two hungry and weary travelers arrived home shortly after midnight, a phone call from our son and his wife informed us they left something in the ‘fridge.’ There, two paper bags contained large amounts of Jewish penicillin — small tubs of chicken noodle and matzo ball soup, potato pancakes and sour cream, and a thick beef brisket sandwich awaited us.

We ate some, saved more, and went our separate ways for the night.

As I drifted off, I was thankful for my four shots while I thought about the fearful tales of victims of COVID-19, of tears from family members and of tubes stuck in the anatomy of a human being whose life, the voice on television told us, may soon end. I thought of all the news stories about COVID-19 that I shrugged off and could not recall the numbers; more than one million dead in this country and more than 18 million plus myself, infected.

I started to think of a basic question we need to answer as we go through the routine crapshoot of life.

It was on my mind as I fell asleep.