Slightly Off the Mark

  I'm not even sure how to start when it comes to Covid. As a writer I'm a professional smart-ass, but with this I got my ass kicked, and didn't feel too smart about it.

Illness or injury traditionally accompany our vacations: Last December Emily and I came down with the flu when we were supposed to visit her family and friends in Missouri. This year we decided to head down on a Thursday.

On Wednesday we started to feel a little ... off. By Thursday morning we had to call it--we couldn't risk giving her father whatever bug was now traveling with us. It wasn't until Friday night that we began to suspect the modern medical boogieman, Covid. We missed the trip, we missed Saturday's Holiday Pops concert, and I felt so bad I couldn't even write. By the time it was done I had to contact my editor at History Press to push back our deadline for the Haunted Noble County book, because I'd planned to use half of my vacation to work on it.

The only question left: Could I turn it into a funny blog?

It doesn't LOOK like 102 degrees.

The only thing we did was marathon the TV show The Expanse, and unsuccessfully try to listen to Good Omens on audiobook. (We kept having to go back when one or another of us fell asleep.)

You know, watching TV and reading books wouldn't be such a bad vacation. The problem is that for the first couple of days we were unable to enjoy anything, and in fact we were too sick to sleep. You heard that right. Over that first weekend I, who can't function on less than eight hours of sleep, stayed awake for twenty-fours straight. Even Nyquil wouldn't put me out.

Then, for a week after that, we were too sick to stay awake. That was the period during which we kept having to go back and decide what we remembered last from the audiobook.

"It was Agnes Nutter and the book, wasn't it?"

"No, it was Adam and the Them meeting the dog."

(We were both wrong: It was Crowley terrifying his house plants.)

I took this photo of Emily at the same time the one above of me was taken. She's in there, I swear.

 Part of it--let's face it--is that I'm no spring chicken pox. When I was in my early 20's I once rode the back step of a fire engine to a mobile home fire on the edge of town--while running a fever.

This truck, specifically. What an awesome truck.

 No more.

 It's not just that Covid is bad. My normal temperature runs around 97.6, and by the time it hit 100 not only could I not go to a fire, I couldn't pick up the TV remote. (Thus the marathon of one show.) It reached 102 at one point. My skin kept trying to crawl away to somewhere cooler, or so it felt.

Emily was running about a day behind me, so I had the pain of knowing what she was about to go through. She's still got a terrible cough weeks later, while mine is just awful. We were like the grandparents in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, just laying there in a lump. Christmas preparations? Hah! We'd bought a new, pre-lit tree, but we never even got a chance to fluff out the branches, let alone decorate it.
 

I kinda like it like this, though. Yes, it's black.

I was so sick--brace yourself for this--I lost my appetite.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've completely lost my appetite, and I was in the hospital for most of those. I dropped six pounds. This is not a recommended diet.

The moral of this story is, of course, don't get Covid. We didn't mind at all being quarantined, at least not until the chocolate ran out. (Everything tasted salty or metallic, except chocolate.) Other people in this area passed away from it, so we count ourselves lucky now that we're feeling 50% better.

Yeah, I'm exhausted all the time, but I work nights--I was already halfway there, anyway.

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Remember, books aren't effective as masks, but they're great for quarantine.

 Just a few medical thoughts shooting through my mind like a runaway bottle rocket (only the thoughts aren't as exciting). Come to think of it, fireworks were once involved in my medical condition, but never mind.

My annual major sinus infection has arrived, a bit later than usual, possibly as another way to welcome in the New Year. Because I'm having more pain and pressure this time (Naturally--it's the Roaring Pain 20s.), the Doc decided to put me on prednisone.

Despite my previous experience with the stuff.

Well, maybe it'll be different this time. After all, that's what people have been saying about 2022, isn't it?

"It has to be better than 2021!"

Hah. No, it doesn't.

The irony is that last time they gave me prednisone, several years ago, I was struck with one of the typical side effects: severe headache. So, to help my headache, I'm taking a med that gives me headaches.

It could be worse.

Speaking of headaches, the morning I went to pick up the prednisone and my old friends, the antibiotics, we had an ice storm. It wasn't much of an ice storm, but I'm sure my walk to the car was a good preview of how I'll be walking when I'm 90, assuming a sinus infection hasn't killed me by then.

Bad weather, especially when it's cold, tends to give me ... sinus headaches.

Still, a lot of the really bad winter weather this year has been south of us. My humorist friend, Barry Parham, lives in South Carolina, and this year has seen five times the amount of snow we have. I hate snow. The only kind of precipitation I hate more is ... ice.

I survived the trip to pick up my meds (how ironic would it be if I didn't?), and my only near-collision was when I got buzzed by a speed skating competition. Then I came home, read the list of prednisone side-effects, and promptly called in sick on the assumption I'd get them all.

No, of course I didn't call in sick--I don't do that unless I'm running a fever, or missing both legs.(Maybe I would show up if I lost both legs. I've never tried it.) On the subject of showing up, the day before the ice storms I was exposed to someone who the next day tested positive for COVID.

Tell me again how wonderful 2022 is going to be.

It could always be worse.

I thought that would give me a week home to write, but no--unfortunately, I'm fully vaccinated, the person who tested positive just had their booster and is asymptomatic, and I'm just not that good at faking illness. Even my grandmother and the dog are feeling better.

Speaking of the dog, the veterinarian says the med she gave us for Beowulf tastes even worse than prednisone, and that's going some. How the vet knows that, I was afraid to ask.

This explains why we gave up trying to give him the pill in food (the dog, not the vet), and Emily had to resort to force. I mean, on the dog--I took mine voluntarily, and thus have no excuse. Emily correctly informed me that I'm not tough enough to do the job, which involves prying open Beowulf's jaws and shooting the pill in like a basketball. All she had to do was avoid the three-point bite.

(Our high school men's basketball team just won their conference championship, so I'm allowed to make a basketball joke even though I hate basketball.)

So, having left the second full week of the year behind, my impression remains the same as it did after the first week: 2022 sucks.

Unless you're a Central Noble basketball player. Or manufacture medicine.

"At least you didn't get vertigo, fella."

Only four days left to help the Pokagon Saddle Barn pay their expenses in this year of coronavirus ... but, of course, it's always a good time to buy a t-shirt.

https://www.customink.com/fundraising/pokagon-saddle-barn

 Due to the Covid-19 epidemic, the Saddle Barn is opening late this year--the mandated target is May 24th, and then they can only run at half capacity for an unknown period of time. As I explained in a previous blog, while it's inside Pokagon State Park, the Saddle Barn itself is an independent small business that could really use your support: 

https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2020/05/support-your-local-saddle-barn.html 

The horses are around whether they're being ridden or not--and ask any horse person how much that costs! So buy yourself a t-shirt and support a good cause. 

My life hasn't changed all that much since the coronavirus quarantine started: I go to work, I come home, and my back hurts.

Just the same, there are some changes. I go straight home, for instance. Once I stopped at the grocery store on my way, and despite the fact that everything seemed normal (they even had a little toilet paper), the few people I saw seemed on edge. My feeling may have been affected by the armed guard at the cleaning supplies.

But in theory, my wife and I got just what we wanted. We both tend to be introverts, and staying home seemed like a swell idea. I got more writing done--in fact, I made it through a complete revision of an 82,000 word novel. To celebrate, the next day I wrote a short story. We're party animals.

The day after that I tried to get my lawn mower going.

Hey, I didn't claim it was a paradise.

Then there's the back thing. I've had low-grade back pain for many years, and while it's a--wait for it--pain, I'd gotten more or less used to it. Now I was having medium to high grade lower back pain that shot down into the back of my thighs and--perhaps ironically--sometimes made it painful to sit. Emily made the connection before I did: sciatica.

It's nice to try something new, for a change.

Sciatica is pain related to a problem with the sciatic nerve, and now you know a bit more medical terminology. The answer was simple: I see my chiropracter every two weeks, anyway. She's like the mechanic on an old tramp steamer, who manages to keep the machinery chugging along somehow, year after year.

Only my chiropracter has been shut down. By the caronavirus.

I take exception to her being called nonessential, and I'm more than willing to be treated while wearing a full Class A Haz Mat suit ... although come to think of it, even she couldn't make my spine bend through one of those things.

So after three weeks of working on making it better, one day I looked out into my back yard to see a jungle right out of Jurassic Park, complete with strange animal noises somewhere in the high grass. Despite everything, spring had come. Emily was dealing with a pain problem of her own (and not just me), so if anyone was going to mow the lawn, it would have to be me.

I was saved temporarily, because the next day four inches of snow covered that green, green grass.

But two days later it was all gone, because this is Indiana. So I spent a day trying to get the lawn mower running, because this is me, then another half day picking up poops and sticks, because that's the dog's bathroom. Then I mowed one third of the lawn.

Why? Because I didn't want to mow the other two-thirds. I'll deal with that when the swelling goes down.

So, again, my life hasn't changed all that much. I work, I write, my back hurts; maybe a little more than usual of at least two of those. For some people it hasn't been as bad; for some it's been much, much worse. Meanwhile, people are still arguing about whether it's a big deal at all, which maybe they wouldn't if they had as many immune compromised relatives as I do. I don't pretend to know what the best next step would be, but as for me, I'm going to keep writing, and try to be funny, and in my own small way keep spirits up. Because there are a whole lot of people out there who are not introverts.

Meanwhile, there's something I've wondered for awhile now: If you're in the middle of the apocalypse--will you even know it?

The coronavirus outbreak is a serious, deadly thing, and it should be taken seriously. All the more reason to have fun with it ... because if you can't laugh, the virus has already won.

So this is sung to the tune, naturally, of Don't Stand So Close to Me, by the Police. Fire up your karaoke machine:

They're sneezing, in public

People stay clear of me

They're coughing so badly

Know where I want to be

Inside there's no virus

Feels like I'm in a cage

Book reading, show watching

My kids here make me age

Don't stand so, don't stand so

Don't stand so close to me

That virus ain't stopping

I'm social distancing

Get calls from the fellas

They haven't got it yet

They think it won't get them

I wouldn't make that bet

Outside is, temptation

But it could make us die

I'm out of crap paper

Newsprint won't get me dry

Don't stand so, don't stand so

Don't cough so close to me

Don't sneeze so, don't breath so

Don't be so close to me

Washing for so long now

Perfecting elbow bumps

Don't blow your crap on me

Stay home and take your lumps

It's no use, this virus

Will make me sweat and cough

You might be infected

 I'm begging you, back off

Don't sweat so close to me

Please ... don't spread so close to me ...