On the first Tuesday in December, I was in the car talking to a close friend in a moment of panic, wondering what we should do about my Dad’s sudden decline in his battle with COVID-19.
From my moving car
on Beach Boulevard, the distant view of the ocean was already dark, and Michael
was due home from his six-hour drive from Sacramento at any moment, when my brother
Mike called to report that my Dad’s breathing had taken a turn for the worse.
Turns out that both my parents—despite their hyper-vigilance
with mask-wearing and social distancing—had gotten Covid during Thanksgiving week. By the time Jim drove up to Sacramento with a U-Haul to move Michael back to Huntington Beach to begin his new job, my brother, who
met them at Michael’s apartment to help load his heavier belongings, already
had Covid too, but didn’t know it.
The following day, after their brief U-Haul meeting, Jim and
Michael got a call from Uncle Mike telling them he had tested positive for Covid,
so they both promptly went and got tested themselves.
Welcome to life during a global pandemic.
Thankfully, both Michael and Jim tested negative.
But several days into his own Covid experience- my Dad—age
79, with a pacemaker and with a compromised respiratory system—was in a
precarious condition and we found ourselves experiencing the frightening
reality of this highly contagious virus.
Even after consulting with his physician, the answers left
us struggling.
I remember Michael sitting at the kitchen table after his
long drive, looking tired and unshaven, his car still loaded with boxes from
his relocation, offering to turn right around and help us drive the 394 miles
back to Sacramento, if Papa was admitted to the hospital. Jim had just walked
in from work and I was on the kitchen stool, all of us fresh off a conference
call with my brother. Under the bright lights of our kitchen, and six hours away
from my siblings, we were facing a dilemma that every family affected by Covid
could face.
At what tipping point do we take my Dad to the hospital,
where he gets the benefit of professional care but faces complete isolation
from all family, and risks constant exposure in a hospital setting already
overwhelmed with the current spike in Covid-patients?
Do we—Jim, Michael and I--make the six- hour drive knowing
we wouldn't be able to see my Dad or any of my Covid-positive family?
Talking earlier with Tracy had helped me process the
situation and get my emotions back in check.
And like a lot of other family members across the country
right now, we took a vote, put the emphasis on my Dad’s gut reaction (he did
not want to go to the hospital)--and we decided to keep him home where he was watched
and cared for primarily by my Covid-positive brother and mother.
I guess we were the fortunate ones. My brother who was already
positive for Covid—opted to spend nights at my parent’s home where he could monitor Dad's medication and oximeter readings. My mother, who tested positive too, was
sleeping a lot. But it was my brother who had my Dad—with his vulnerable lungs--get up and
move around regularly, and kept him from sleeping on his back too long. Meanwhile Jim and I were reading the latest trends for Covid treatment, and sharing the info in quick
calls.
But we all learned the hard truth
when my Dad was most vulnerable and here it is: there is no clear medical protocol for anyone at home with Covid.
There is no hovering
physician who will swoop in and admit a Covid patient at the mere hint of worsening
symptoms and blast their weakening bodies with Remdesivir or dexamethasone in
those scary early days--- when my Dad described his breathing as a 1 or 2 on a
scale of ten.
No, my Dad's struggle to breath was a crisis moment that could easily have turned worse,
requiring an urgent drive to the hospital. Because until then, you're basically on your own.
Although if you do get admitted to a hospital at this point---you should
be informed that your chances of getting
the same experimental Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody cocktail drug that was given to
President Trump, Housing Secretary Ben Carson, Former New Jersey governor Chris
Christie and Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani during his recent stay---are slim to
none.
That’s because the drug Regeneron is still not readily available
to ordinary citizens yet. These are the kind of facts you don’t learn until
someone you love gets Covid.
In a recent interview
on WABC, Rudy Giuliani is quoted explaining it this way, “If it wasn’t me, I
wouldn’t have been put in a hospital frankly. Sometimes when you’re a celebrity,
they’re worried if something happens to you, so they’re going to examine it
more carefully, and do everything right.”
Fortunately at the time of this writing, our non-celebrity family is beginning
to slowly exhale. And it looks like my Dad will survive this virus—although not
before teaching us firsthand-- of the scary unpredictability about this
condition. In this next week he’ll see his doctor to rule out the possibility of
pneumonia.
In the meantime, my neighbor got out of her car on Thursday after an exhausting day at the hospital, still dressed in her hospital garb and appeared on the verge of tears. She described the ambulances now forced to wait
outside with potential patients because of the spike in Covid cases. And she sounded stressed and upset about the continual protests in our local Orange County. Before
she went inside her home she warned, if you need to go to the hospital, don’t go
to ours.
Some time later on social media, another neighbor only a few houses down
who keeps a Trump sign up in her yard, posted photos of her beautifully decorated
Hanukkah party, filled with sweet children and their mothers smiling in their special
Christmas dresses, with not a mask in sight. And with a message underneath that
said: “Fuck Newsom.” A reference to California's governor.
Sigh. Welcome to life
during a global pandemic.
Tell me.
What have you been learning about yourself as you live through these unprecedented
months of a global pandemic?
The interesting thing about writing blog posts is that you
can look back and see what you didn’t know.
In April I wrote about my belief that COVID-19 might unify us
as a country because we would all be experiencing the same vulnerability and fears
and sadness, as we moved through our individual situations.
I even asked:
Can you think of another time when we will be able to look into the eyes of strangers and recognize our Selves?
Things I didn't realize
Was I naïve? I don’t know. But 'unify' is about as far away from the truth as you can get.
At the time, I don’t think any of us imagined the eventual
impact Covid would have on our daily lives, the way mask-wearing would become
politicized and contribute to the spread of Covid. The repeated closure of businesses.
And the perilous impact on whole industries of workers who are losing their jobs and paychecks.
And here’s a big one. I didn’t fully understand the extent
to which it’s now possible in the year 2020, to live inside an information
bubble where certain facts and relevant information never penetrates, and where conspiracy theories and hoaxes are lurking
everywhere.
I didn’t realize how much easier it is---when something difficult happens in your life—to look out at the world for someone or something to blame
for what you’re having to endure. Because god knows, there will always be someone
we can shift our blame to, in order to avoid the deeper feelings inside
us. The real feelings of being afraid. And sad. And the uncomfortable truth that no one ever wants to hear: maybe there is no quick and easy fix-it for our distressing predicament. Maybe
we might have to just sit with our feelings...and feel them.
And finally, I never realized how easy it is when you’re
walking around feeling outraged, to find other big groups of angry people to unite
with online--and how fast fear can spread like wildfire, remaining mostly invisible
to the very people who are inside its powerful grip.
Apparently I don’t know very much.
It is possible that the altered state I've been living in following our traumatic loss of Patrick, has made me more accepting of this wet cloud of
uncertainty that’s settled over us in 2020. And that the staggering pain from losing a child has opened me up to the suffering of other people in a way that's dulled my ability to care about loud protests over our individual “rights,” especially when the trade-off might mean the death of the most vulnerable people.
Maybe my perspective has changed in ways I don't even know.
But once you’ve lost the most important person in your life in a split-second, there is nothing worse. And when the possibility of losing my Dad became a close reality, I realized I was already nested inside that incredulous universe where bad things happen suddenly to good people--and no amount of rebelling and blaming others and carrying signs of protest will be able to expunge one horror-stricken second from my life. And yet, I will never be a 'victim' because I will choose love over anger every time.
I think that’s it, in a nutshell.
But I have my moments like anyone else. When I’m worn and
tired of this post-Covid scale of measuring risks with social distancing,
when I'll simply throw up my hands and say, what the fuck.
I remember one moment recently.
I had pulled over and parked my car so I could reach the man
who stands at Warner and Magnolia with a sign every day. His name is Mike
and he told me he got laid off from his job months ago and lives out of his van and I told him about Patrick as I handed him the kindness card with money. Suddenly.
Before I could react, this sweet, homeless man yanked down the blue bandana that
was covering his toothless smile, told me how sorry he was and reached across
the sidewalk and hugged me.
Before I knew what happened it was over. I could feel the people sitting in traffic next to the sidewalk watching us, and I didn’t react.
I just smiled and finished
our conversation.
Afterwards, in one of those exasperated, head-shaking
moments, I remember doing a quick mental review of my risk, and thinking, ‘Jesus
Christ-if-I-get-Covid-from-that-situation, so be it.”
I mean. How much of our humanity are we supposed to give-up to be safe?
Right?
Sometimes all we can do is take a deep breath and let go.
