Now we know, the world doesn't end with a bang or a whimper, it's more like a cough.
Okay, the world's not ending. It just feels like it is.
Here's the thing: if every single person on earth caught the coronavirus, Covid-19, Wuhan flu, whatever you want to call it, and the fatality rate was 10% (which is way higher than actual numbers suggest), when it was all over, there would be more than 6,000,000,000 survivors, all of whom would now be immune to that particular virus.
But 700,000,000 would be dead and no one can stand that thought. So the Great Hunkering Down has begun.
I don't know about you but what impresses me the most is how quickly everything changed. In the space of two weeks, we shut down every school in the nation, all sporting events, restaurants, bars and every other non essential thing we could think of. And what's really weird is that the whole world is on the same side of this thing, which is to say: against it.
Even if the worst thing you could think about China were true, they want this thing conquered as much as anyone else does now.
At this point, it no longer matters if we've over reacted; we're here now and this is what we have to deal with. The economy is not dead, it's in a medically induced coma. When we sound the all clear, it will wake back up, a bit shaky but overall as healthy as ever. But we've lost March, which is huge. The NCAA basketball tournament is enormous in terms of its economic impact and there's no way to make up for cancelling Spring Break. But there's always next year. Just not for the athletes and students for whom 2020 was their last year for this stuff.
Well, tough bounce, kids, some people have lived through actual hardships. When the old folks we're trying to protect now were your age, they lived through Pearl Harbor, D-Day and the London Blitz, each of which was worse than this. OH, and the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the siege of Berlin, the rise of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall, because this is happening to the whole world. I do feel bad for the bars, restaurants and businesses that won't survive being shut down for weeks or months. This sucks.
All things in perspective.
For me, this virus is a giant inconvenience that is making an already difficult situation nearly impossible. Ten days ago, in a routine Doctor's appointment, my Mom's blood showed some irregularities. In fact, her blood was so irregular that her Doctor assumed the test had been botched, as no one with her numbers should be able to get out of bed, much less look so good or feel so good. But a redo of the tests showed the same results, so Mom was ordered to get a blood transfusion a week ago. I went with her. Because I've had this pesky cough for two months, I was masked the whole time. Her doctor told us her red cell count, white cell count and platelet numbers were those of someone who had died a week ago. Okay, he didn't say that but he had to work really hard not to say that. He seemed genuinely impressed that she wasn't dead. He told us this happened because her bone marrow stopped making blood and he scheduled a bone marrow biopsy for Monday to find out why. In the meantime, here's a big bag 0' blood we'll hook you up with so you can stay alive till we get that biopsy!
I told Mom the upside was that if a vampire attacked her, he'd starve to death. She thought that was very funny. The blood techs have probably heard every vampire joke ever told.
As soon as Mom got home, she called my cousin Ann, who happens to be a hematological pathologist. That's a doctor who specializes in blood disorders. Ann told Mom that there are many reasons a woman her age (three years shy of ancient) could have these problems and lots of them are very treatable so don't worry! Ann's knowledge and expertise was much more helpful than my vampire jokes.
The problem with having no white cells is that you have no immune system. Sure enough, between Thursday and Monday, mom caught a cold. So when she went in for the scan and biopsy on Monday, she was feverish and coughing.
This would have been problematic at any time but in the age of coronavirus, it's a calamity. Instead of getting the procedures she needs to diagnose her blood disorder, she was admitted to the hospital, whisked into isolation, tested for pneumonia (negative) and swabbed for flu (negative) and Covid-19. That was Monday. Three full days later, we're still awaiting results, Mom's still in isolation and they can't move forward on her biopsy until they know she doesn't have the virus. I get that: they'll handle the procedures differently if she were infected. After the first 24 hrs, most of us ( her doctors) realized that if she had the Wuhan flu, she'd be dead but they have to have proof from the lab; they can't just treat her as though she doesn't have it. Not with the world as freaked out as it is. I mean; we cancelled March Madness!! We take nothing for granted. Since the day she was admitted, all visitors have been banned from the hospital.
Where this story gets really good is that my Mom isn't just a lovely old lady with a blood disorder we'd like to get treated, she's also the primary care giver of my Dad, who broke his neck two years ago. He's made enormous strides with his physical and occupational therapy in that time and can do so many things he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to do again, (like walk) but he can't be all by himself for hours on end, much less days at a time. He can't give himself a shower, he can't make coffee, he can't button his shirt or change his pants.
No problem; that's why you have nine kids and 30 grandkids! to step in and help when Mom is in the hospital!
Except that virus fears have shut down the senior living facilities (with very good reason!) so no one with so much as a cold is allowed in to visit. Of all my parents myriad descendants, it seems only three of us are healthy enough to get in to take care of Dad and one of those has already been diagnosed Mom's point man, dealing with all the doctors, tests and keeping the rest of us up to date on her progress or lack thereof. I call myself one of the three, as my doctor told me this cough was no threat to Dad, but that once my Mom comes home, I should stay away from her in her current, fragile state. So my sister Katie has had to do the lion's share of Dad care in all of this. She hired a night nurse to come from 9 pm to 7 am so she can at least go home and get a good night's sleep but she's been with Dad most of the last four days. I was able to spell her for a few hours yesterday afternoon but then last night, Jay developed a fever.
Good grief, is there no end to this???
Like the caring, gentle wife that I am, when he told me I screamed "AARrgh! Now I can't go see my Dad!"
Poor Jay said "I didn't do it on purpose."
He talked to his doctor who told him to have some soup, drink plenty of fluid, take some tylenol and don't be such a baby.
You know how when you do or say something really funny but think "oh, I'm going to Hell for this"? Well, over the last four days, my sister Katie has more than made up for every outrageous thing she's ever said, thought or done. Dad's been suffering with diarrhea for the last week.
So, to recap: the entire world is terrified of and hiding from a virus; everything is closed; there's no sports; Broadway is closed; mass has been cancelled; basically, Lent has been called off; getting into a senior facility is like getting into Fort Knox; Mom is being held hostage in a hospital, leaving Dad to the tender mercies of his kids, the only one of which is healthy enough to be allowed to see him is Katie and he's got diarrhea.
We all know shit happens but we don't really expect shit to happen.
I mean seriously, could we just have had this latest family emergency when the entire world wasn't in the grip of a virus panic??
Nope. Sometimes, you get all the fun at once.
I feel like we're in a video game and we've reached a level so high that the monsters are coming thick, fast, deep and from every direction.
Still, we expect Mom's virus test to come back negative any minute now and then we can move forward on her treatment.
Enjoy your voluntary quarantine and remember the timeless wisdom of Roseanne Rosannadanna: It's always something.