Covid-19

Welcome Spring

/ Ann Coleman / 100 Comments

Some people know that Spring has arrived when the flowers bloom, or the trees begin to bud.  Others mark the change of season by their schedules:  the kids’ Spring break, baseball’s opening day, or when the lawn service shows up to cut the grass.  But personally, I know it’s Spring when my Spring allergies arrive.  And today was that day.

I was spending the morning in my usual way, walking down the street with a shelter dog, just doing my normal Monday morning volunteer routine.  All was well until I suddenly began sneezing, loudly and repeatedly.  Then my nose started running, and I realized that I’d left all my tissues in my purse, which was locked in the trunk of my car.  “Well,” I thought, “apparently Spring has sprung.”

Despite suffering from seasonal allergies, I really do love Spring.  I love watching the dormant plants coming back to life, and how the sunlight lingers a little bit longer with each passing day.  Soon it will be time to put our patio furniture back out and to have the option of cooking (and eating) our dinners outside again.  And as weird as it sounds, I even love Spring cleaning.  Not the actual work, or course, but the chance it offers to get rid of the extra clutter and make our house look fresh and new again.

I also like the way Spring evokes happy memories of my childhood, like going to bed on a warm evening with the windows open, feeling the cool breeze and being lulled to sleep by the sounds of crickets chirping.  When I was a kid, Spring meant getting to stay up a little bit later, playing outside a little bit longer, and in general just being able to have a bit more fun.  I also knew that Summer was just around the corner, which meant the school year would soon be over and the swimming pools would soon be open.  Not the mention the annual arrival of the beloved ice cream truck….. There’s a lot to love about Spring, from a child’s point of view.

So even though it’s time for me to head to the store and stock up on tissues and antihistamines, I’m a happy camper.  Yes, I know I’ll suffer from the occasional sore throat (gotta love post-nasal drip), and that if I’m standing near strangers when my allergy symptoms are overpowering my allergy meds, I’ll watch them  discreetly take a couple of steps away.  (Thank you, recent Covid pandemic.)  And I know that the warmer temperatures mean the eventual return of mosquitoes, flies, and weeds.

But I don’t care.  Spring is here, in all its glory, and I’m glad.   Happy Spring, Everyone!

Up and Down

/ Ann Coleman / 117 Comments

If I ever had any doubts about the truth of the saying, “Life is like a roller coaster, full of ups and downs,” the events of the past couple of weeks have put them to rest.  Approximately four weeks ago, I was sitting in my favorite restaurant, celebrating an early birthday dinner with my immediate family.  I distinctly remember sitting with my oldest two grandchildren on my lap, looking over at the baby and thinking, “I am so blessed.”

IMG_1923The reason we were celebrating my birthday early was that my husband and I were going to be on Sanibel Island for my actual birthday, and Florida’s Sanibel Island is one of my very favorite places.  Even better, the trip was all I had hoped it would be:  we had great weather, were joined for a few days by good friends, found some fun shells and even had the chance to get up close and personal with manatees.  It was, honestly, the highlight of my year so far.

But what goes up must come down, as we all know.  Early last week, I started to feel a bit sick.  I figured it was my usual allergic reaction to the green tree pollen that’s coating everything here, but I took a Covid test and got a negative result.  I stayed home even so, resting and drinking lots of water.  After a couple of days I felt much better, but decided to take another Covid test before I ventured out in public, just to be sure.  And it was positive.

I know I still have lots to be thankful for.  My symptoms were extremely mild, and my husband was out of town on business while I got sick, and he tested negative when he returned.  Unfortunately, the difference in our Covid status means we can’t share living space, so I’m upstairs in the primary bedroom of our story-and-a-half house while my husband is staying downstairs and sleeping in the guest room.  And as nice as our primary suite is, it was designed for sleeping, not living in 24/7.  Especially not in the heat we’ve been enduring this past week, because our upstairs depends on the additional cooling provided by the window AC unit my husband would install if he were allowed to be in the same space as me.

Sometimes as I’m sitting on my bed, watching yet another HGTV rerun or reading yet another book and trying not to sweat on the pages, I can’t help but feel just a little bit sorry for myself.  Boredom and loneliness aren’t fun companions.  It’s a little off-putting when I don my N95 mask and go downstairs to replenish my ice water, and my husband gives me a horrified look and quickly darts into another room.  He’s being sensible, I know, but it still takes getting used to.  And it didn’t help when, safely back upstairs, the strap broke as I was removing the mask, snapping me sharply just below the left eye.  You know you’re in an unlucky phase when you get attacked by your face mask.

But I know that this, too, shall pass.  My husband continues to test negative, and every day brings me closer to the end of my isolation period.  I know the time will come when all I remember about this time is how grateful I am that it wasn’t much, much worse.  And meanwhile, I’ll just sit tight and dream about the next time I get to visit Sanibel…….

Step by Step

/ Ann Coleman / 109 Comments

I love reading, and mystery novels are my favorite genre.  Trying to figure out “who did it” is a fun challenge, but what I especially love about mysteries is that they almost always have a strong plot line and a definite conclusion.  By the end of the book the mystery has been solved, all questions have been answered, and all the loose ends are neatly tied up.  I can close the book with a sigh of satisfaction and move on to another story.  Which, in my opinion, is just how it should be.

Sadly, real life rarely works out that way.  Real life tends to be messy and confusing, with lots of loose ends that may or may not be tied up eventually, and problems that can go unresolved for years.  Reality doesn’t always provide the clear beginning, middle, and end that our favorite stories deliver.  And sometimes our troubles drag on for so long that we find it hard to believe they’ll ever be over.

When we met with the oncologist after my husband’s cancer diagnosis, he told us the schedule for the chemo treatment would be an infusion every three weeks for eighteen weeks.  I went home and dutifully marked our calendar for each treatment, even writing in “done with chemo!” on the last date.  But when I mentioned this to the oncologist at our next visit, he told me that chemo doesn’t work that way.  My husband would have his blood tested before each infusion to make sure he was strong enough to go through the treatment, so there might be times when we would have a delay for a week or so.  He said that the chemo schedule was only a suggestion, and that we would take the whole thing step by step, depending on my husband’s reaction.

It turned out he was right, because my husband actually finished chemo a bit earlier than they had predicted, and we were especially thrilled when early tests showed that he didn’t need the major surgery that sometimes follows.  Unfortunately, later tests showed he did need two surgeries, and both of them resulted in longer hospital stays than anyone expected.  What should have been a nine-month course of cancer treatment stretched into a fourteen months, partially due to Covid restrictions.  And somewhere during all that mess, I learned to stop looking for a definitive schedule and to simply take each day, and each test/treatment/procedure as it came.

Which may explain why I’m having trouble accepting that, as far as we know, my husband is now in remission.  I had thought that the end of his cancer treatment would feel like a victory, with my husband and I toasting each other over a bottle of champagne and exclaiming “It’s over!”  Part of the problem is that cancer doesn’t really work that way, because it’s a sneaky disease that has a habit of rearing it’s ugly head when we least expect it.  My husband will be closely monitored in the upcoming months to make sure all is well, and I know we will be nervous before each and every test and scan.

eW3mn0cBQVebae5TBOD62QBut mostly, the problem is that my husband’s battle with cancer didn’t end with a victorious “bang.”  It has simply wound down, slowly, and on an unpredictable schedule of its own.  And it’s taking both of us a while to give ourselves permission to believe that the worst is truly behind us.  But that’s okay, because we’ll get there eventually, the exact same way we got through his treatment:  one step at a time.