And now she is safely back at home, a few pounds lighter, as hospital food is awful and she lost her sense of taste and smell for a few days. She's also surprised by how week she is. Lying around in bed for 14 days does nothing for your stamina. But she looks beautiful, not at all like someone who battled a demonic virus at death's door.
Because she didn't! The battle never went anywhere near death's door. It didn't even get to the street death lives on. Throughout the ordeal, Mom never felt any sicker than a bad cold. This virus can kill but it's not a given that it will, or even come close. Based on my Mom's symptoms, experience and contact with other members of the family, I think it's likely that at least four other close relatives have the virus. They too, experienced a low grade fever that hangs on for several days, achy muscles and a loss of taste and smell. At least two of them are over the fevers and aches and are on the mend. The others still feel like crap but are not in any kind of immediate peril. I am still unclear on how this virus is any more dangerous than your common, yearly flu bug. Maybe it's because it is far more contagious and easily spread, so the chance of it infecting those more susceptible to respiratory distress is far higher? I don't know.
Are we over reacting in a dangerously hysterical way to what is nothing more than a natural, seasonal threat? I hope not but I think we might be, at least a little. But I don't know anything and I admit, I always think people are over reacting. If I had been on the Titanic, I probably would have gone back to sleep after the ship hit the ice berg. I do have a 'flight or fight' mechanism but it's switch is very heavy and hard to engage.
I'm so glad my Mom is back home.
Lena is still there, we hired her for two weeks, to help with Dad so Mom doesn't have to take care of his needs while she recovers. I'm going over today to make sure that Lena gets a good nap in. We all hope that Dad starts sleeping better now that Mom is out of the woods and back home but so far, he's still a wild man at night. He's not quite awake but he's not close to asleep. He tries to get out of bed constantly and that's really bad for a guy who can't walk. Further good news yesterday was that Dad's isolation and monitoring for the virus by the dept. of health also ended. He stayed symptom free throughout and is apparently one of the lucky ones with natural immunities. Like 80% of the passengers on that Cruise ship.
Did it help that 50 years ago he was vaccinated against malaria? Who knows. Maybe. My brother Joe, a pilot, has continued to fly for United during this crisis. He's fine, too, despite that. Joe is retired Navy and has also been inoculated against malaria. As far as I know, the CDC isn't keeping track of how many of those testing positive for the virus are service members. Maybe Dad and Joe are just immune to this. Maybe I am, too. Maybe you are.
Here's all I know: we're all going to die. We're not all going to die from this particular virus.
But we are all in this together, so lets just calm down and be kind to each other, as this too shall pass.