Epilogue: Not Wanting to Leave the Planet…

via a cheap plane headed for COVID-19

When I was called back into work I held my breath. Two weeks ago I’d dared to go into work at a hospital to substitute for a week as a “therapist-social worker”. I was assigned to two settings. At one, there were no established X’s showing distancing; I had to schlep chairs around to create a semblance of distance in the room where I led groups. In the other department there were X’s marked, but a participant here or there forgot to put their masks over their nose or their loose mask fell down or the person took their mask off to cough..

I decided to go back in to work, for one day, as that assignment had been arranged several weeks before. But then the manager called asking for my availability for the week. She said someone was out sick recently — I wondered if the person was sick with COVID. I did need money to make up for a reduction in finances in past times.

I felt a big churning of emotions inside. There was stone soup behind me: one stone sunk to the bottom: I could die, another stone hung out in the middle — fear, and floating atop were bubbling stones of indecision.

After obssessing, I went in that day, my manager not being sure if the therapist who was sick would be coming back the next two days.

From the top of the ceiling, I led three groups. By the end of the day, I’d floated down, sad for the clients with big challenges. Of course, I juggle huge challenges too, as do most. But people can’t tell from looking at my face, straight-away. They don’t see a person slightly bent over, not looking straight at them, appearing like they haven’t showered.

The next day the manager called saying the other worker would be out, could I come in. By then I’d gotten more used to the stone soup. Sort of. After the commute home in the dark, I took the longest shower of my life, perhaps 50 minutes of hot water long.

The next morning the manager called, the census was low, program did not need me. It was some relief though now I needed to structure a day.

Later that morning I received the text from the manager, that went something like this: I’m so sorry to tell you that ____ tested positive for COVID. You should watch for symptoms in the next seven days and get tested.

I started sinking into that anxiety that I would get it and die. That’s when I threw my arms up, and twirled in an aura of COVID around me, within feet of me. Though inside a home, during day-time, the atmosphere was dark as if it was going to rain. I sat on the olive green leather-like couch where it began drizzling: I hadn’t set up the trust or made the will yet, or changed the insurance policy, or even did a “Five Wishes” document stating my desire for foot massage in case I got very sick. I also hadn’t done this strange thing I imagined: buying little gifts to be distributed at my funeral. (Was that codependent?)

I looked up every symptom I’d had since Thanksgiving — there was the dizziness and nausea that I’d thought was food poisoning from Romaine lettuce, but the Internet listed those symptoms as possible signs of COVID. The joint pain I’d felt one night — also a symptom of COVID.

I was panicky and, though not sure I should, I called my friend Robin and my energy got her all panicky. She is intuitive and said she had been feeling my panic before I called. She said I should quarantine, stay at home, and, of course, the stay-at-home order in Los Angeles was just about on.

Two days later the stay-at-home order was placed by Governor Newsom. I compared online shopping apps and decided on Sprouts. I looked up multiple brands and prices of products for about two and a half-hours on the on-line web-site: organic veggies, dairy, meat and fish, sales, coupons, etc…

When I went for pick up at Sprouts at 6:30pm, the parking lot was filled with cars of shoppers buying a thousand times more varieties of foods than a store would even have had in Russia when I visited there in the ’90s before it had split up. The employee from Sprouts, shopping for me, kept texting me what product they’d replaced and what they’d removed.

One of his texts asked me about the flowers I’d texted him to select at the last minute. I wrote to bring them sight unseen; he sent me a photo of a row of bouquets which I couldn’t make out. After he arranged the bags of groceries in the trunk, he brought out a large bouquet of flowers that were white. I asked if he could bring me some with color, but changed my mind and said to just forget it so he didn’t have to come back out to the car again. He returned with an armful of the same flowers whose names I don’t know, ones with tinges of light pink — lovely.

The next day I decided, since Robin seemed to get stressed out when I was panicked, to do her a favor, and myself too. I faced the dark. I prayed to God, Higher Self, Allah, whatever you call it, the One whose name pisses people off because of childhood traumas, though He/She/ It created their whole platform for being. I get it, I hated the name God too until my British friend Viva told me to get over it.

God, whose will and pleasure I’d been asking to be close to in the mornings, I realized, could well help determine when my life was to be over. I mean I left it to His/Her/Non-Binary’s will. I decided to…

do stuff good for my immune system. I took Oscillococcinum, a favorite homeopathic remedy, and vitamin C powder in mango juice. For the first time in months, I signed up for a free-form dance class on Zoom. Dear reader, I was late for it, but soon after joining there was this blessing dance the graceful, smiling teacher invited us into, where we were extending our arms taking in the blessing of the class and its members. Then we brought our hands to our hearts. As God said in Genesis: It was good!

I decided I was going to lick this possible illness, one way or the other, by bolstering against it or surrendering.

A few days later, at Robin’s advisement, I looked up LA. county spots to take a COVID test. I didn’t want the nose insertion, I wanted the mouth swab. I didn’t want anybody, even me, going up my nose a little too far, although the print says the test goes only an inch up, and with my nose, that’s nothing.

From the listed info, it was not clear which site, Christian Center, Forum, place in Downey, was using what test. The extensive form I was to fill out online stated that I should check with my primary doctor before signing up. I called Dr. Genova’s office around noon.

I wish the receptionist wouldn’t ask my birthdate each time I say hello — as if that’s their way of identifying me, by numbers, by my age. It’s getting sensitive. Silly. It’s like shame, it sometimes comes on from thinking what the other person would think. In this case, the unworded anxiety, the almost shame is that the receptionist would judge me for being older, I suppose that she, upon hearing my answer, can’t imagine someone born in the year 1953, having been born in the ’80s or ‘90s.

I suppose it is me who can’t quite yet reach up for that reality of how I got to 67 and bring it down to my heart. It might make me mourn and bring past mournings with it. I might cry. Or soonafter, be grateful. She transferred me to the advice nurse, a few announcements about the Flu vaccine away.

I heard the first question from the advice nurse: What is your birthdate? Again. Rather than get annoyed, I asked if the receptionist had not told her. She said they must check to identify me. Thank goodness I didn’t blow up at her. She sounded quite patient and understanding. She gently threw questions about my symptoms — cough, fever, joint pain…into the air from every side of the court. I resignedly resisted them, hitting them back absent-mindedly as if with a badminton racquet.

At one-fifteen I received the telephone appointment call from my doctor. Thank goodness he didn’t ask my birthdate. He is the same age as me. He is a star of a doctor and should get the “Amazing Doctor of the Year” award. He takes time. He calls patients after hours to check if they are OK. Had he been a doctor sixty years ago, and had COVID-19 not been around, he would have paid me a home visit, and he would be carrying his black, leather doctor’s satchel into my home.

This kind man listened to my story of the co-worker who’d tested positive for COVID-19, and, one by one, all my stories of possible COVID-19 symptoms. He assured me that if I’d had contact with the person who tested positive for 15 minutes that would be of concern, if the person wasn’t masked. He prescribed not worrying. Comfortingly, he said that I have no concerning symptoms, but could sign up online for testing if I want to. He assured me that I’d be of the first ones to get the vaccine. I asked why. “Because of your age.”

I heard on the radio today on the “Aware Show” the guest speaking about worry about the virus tapping on the piano of the immune system on the lower key frequencies, making one more susceptible to getting COVID. And visa-versa, we can make positive connections with others, and do activities that make us hum with happiness and immunity; with this positivity, she noted, and some pointers, we can more effectively blast the RNA strand that duplicates in organs if we happen to get COVID.

The darkness has vanished from the home, as I sit flanked by a large bucket of flowers, the blooms waltzing slowly into the air pronouncing that indeed life is open, life has beauty, life is succulent and sumptuous.

Inviting fellow writers to read: Liam Ireland, Geetika Sethi, Tree Langdon, Sumera Rizwan, Dew Langrial, CR Mandler MAT, The Maverick Files, René Junge, Dr. Preeti Singh, Lucy The Eggcademic (she/her), Megan Nicole Morgan, Rochelle Silva, Lanu Pitan, Lynn Dorman, Ph.D.; J.D., Bhavna Narula, Neha Sandhir S, Britni Pepper, Timothy Key, EP McKnight, MEd, Joe Luca, Helen Cassidy Page, Charlotte Zobeir Ali, Kevin Buddaeus, Rachel B. Baxter, Miriella Marie, Louise Foerster, Anna Rozwadowska, Desiree Driesenaar, Olya Aman @Pene Hodge, Carolyn Riker, Cristo Lopez, PhD, Carolyn Riker, Alex🏳️‍🌈🇺🇸, James G Brennan, Terry Mansfield, Rebecca Stevens A., Aimée Gramblin, Melissa Rezza, Bill Abbate