I don't get angry often and certainly not with strangers because that's rude but about a month ago, I became so enraged that it has taken great effort to get over it. Why was I so cross? Well, a nosy busybody took me to task for mask-wearing and then she told me that Covid was "political" and that it wasn't real.
Not real? Yes, Virginia, there is Covid.
How do I know? I have been suffering with Long Haul Covid for nearly 14 months, and it is hellish.
Can you get re-infected? Well, recently, I was chatting with a friend I ran into who told me that half a dozen members of her immediate family had been infected just that week.....I'm not certain that I was re-infected during that particular conversation but I surely got Covid again somewhere that day (only the second time I left the house during the month of April and I haven't seen one other person since, nor have I left the house in three weeks). I came down with a fever, and now I am suffering again. At the moment that I am sitting here hammering away at the keyboard, I am so ill that I have been awake for more than 30 hours, and I feel utterly desperate with exhaustion. I cannot sleep sitting up and I cannot breathe if I lie down. So, yeah, I think re-infection is a thing, too.
I do NOT care if You don't believe but don't try to tell Me that I am wrong. I'm living in this shell, and I know what goes on here.
Looking back: February 14, 1982. I remember; it was the last semi-normal day of my life. I wasn't feeling well so I missed my footing on the stairs in the dorm and fell up the stairs. Not down; up. I felt progressively worse during the course of that week, despite getting antibiotics from the campus clinic and finally my parents had to come bring me home to recover. But I never did recover properly.
I got better enough that I was able to go on with my life for a time but it was obvious that I wasn't "right" and my health issues finally ended everything for me just four years later. It was so hard to find medical help because few understood what was going on. One doctor told me that he would not treat me until I got mental help. The psychologist called the doctor after she'd seen me a couple times and told him in no uncertain terms that I was Not sick because I was depressed; instead I was, quite reasonably, depressed because I was sick and no one believed me.
The people in my family's lives also refused to believe that I was truly ill. The question of that reality damaged relationships with family members. We lost all of our friends over my health. We lost our church fellowship over it, too. I was told so many times that "if you're right with God, He will heal you" so when He didn't, this meant that, in their eyes, I was in the wrong. But I have come to understand that they were incorrect: sometimes God just says "no" and we have to thank him for whatever blessing comes through the trials of life. I try to say thank you every day; sometimes it is very hard.
Ultimately I received a differential diagnosis: ME-CFIDS. A genetic auto-immune disorder. Incurable. Untreatable. But, thankfully, not fatal. It was also not communicable unless I were to pass it on by bearing a child, so I decided never to pursue that side of my life in order to spare a future generation enduring this pain.
When Covid came along, I was immediately aware that I was at major risk because of my long-standing health issues, so I made another hard decision: I would not seek medical help. The main reason for this is that I did not wish to risk infecting medical personnel who were urgently needed by many. I also did not wish to take up resources, time, and effort when there were other ill people who had families who needed them; I have no one. My mother always taught me that "our times are in God's hands, and only He knows when it is our end" so I figured I would simply trust that either God would take me or leave me. Well, He left me here despite my battle with Covid, and only He knows why.
The funny thing (if there could possibly be anything funny at all ever) about Covid is that it appears to attack the cytokine system of the body and that is precisely where ME-CFIDS hits people. Interesting. I have been waiting and very much hoping to see in the news that the medical people have had an "aha!" moment over this, especially now that they are seeing that some people (like me) are not recovering from Covid. But, alas, nothing substantive yet. It just makes sense that the two could be linked. So many of the symptoms are the same in the two disorders. Believe me, I know this better than anyone since I've lived with ME for nearly 40 years. Ironic.
But getting back to that lady who told me off for wearing a mask: it took me many days to realize why I became so angry at the nosy busybody who was spreading false Covid information. It wasn't just her I was cross with: it was all the many people who have derided me and dismissed me and rejected me for four decades while I fought an illness that could never be healed. Her words sliced me like an icy sword even though she thought she was "helping" me to fight something that she couldn't believe. Despite how angry I felt, I still told her that day that my prayer for her was that she never should discover the truth, that she would never be infected. No one should suffer. No one. I meant it then, and I mean it now. I forgive her.
But what should we do? We should show compassion to those who suffer. We should believe. Believe in God. Believe in the veracity of others. Believe that better days will come. And we should fight for everyone to have the chance to avoid Covid: wear a mask, wash your hands, get vaccinated. It's not hard to cooperate in times of great threat; we all have a duty to one another. In that duty, we honor the gift of life.
Life is good.
Even when you can't breathe, it's still possible to whisper, "Thank you, God, for the life you have given me." It's all good. Really.
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