50 minutes until we go on lockdown. It still seems like we’re all living in the middle of a movie, instead of real life. We slowly–very slowly–start to accept that things aren’t as they should be. Some of us by choice, other’s, force. Our self-promoting everything-is-dandy-and-I’m-perfect President finally admitted that our situation is “bad, very bad.” Yes, it is Mr. President, it is.
Today, the stock market dropped 3000 points. Everyone is panicking. The fed dropped interest rates to 0 and eased some quantitativeness but no one seems to care. The world is ending (it’s not ending)–the stock market is certainly acting like it is–because EVERYTHING is impacted by this little bug. As others have written, it’s like a silent tsunami. It’s a natural disaster of epic proportion but we can’t see it. We’ll only see the carnage in hindsight.
Today, the President asked people in our country to avoid gathering in crowds of more than 10 people. Today, the President admitted that this is a serious issue. Today, in California, in the Bay Area, six counties are, as of midnight tonight, on full lockdown. For the next three weeks we can go out only to get groceries and to visit the doctor in an emergency. We’re supposedly allowed to go for walks, as long as we remain six feet away from others. Police are supposedly enforcing all of these rules and at least in San Francisco it’s a misdemeanor to go out for reasons that aren’t allowed.
Despite my lingering chest tightness, I decided to go for a walk this evening to get some fresh air. I first brought my son in his stroller, then eventually made a few more loops around my apartment complex solo. The way people darted across the street when I walked by, you’d think I had developed a case of toxic B.O.–but one quickly remembers it’s just Corona Etiquette–walk briskly and deviate from your path if needed to avoid any and all social contact. Everyone has the plague. Act accordingly.
I managed 11,000 steps this evening, which is more than I’ve gotten in the last week since my company went work from home and I’ve opted to mostly shelter in place as my lung issue worsened. I had a phone appointment with my doctor today, which was as surreal as anything else going on these days. Dear doc: do I worry, or not worry, about this chest tightness and cool liquid sensation in my lungs? DOC AM I GONNA DIE? TELL ME LIKE IT IS DOC, TELL ME LIKE IT IS.
Doc: well, your symptoms are a bit concerning, not particularly because of Coronavirus, but typically with chest tightness that isn’t getting better I’d have you come in to get checked out. But since, well, things are, different these days–because shortness of breath is a symptom of, Corona, if you came in we’d have to suit up and it would be a whole thing and… I’m just going to prescribe you drugs for pneumonia, which I wouldn’t normally do without seeing you, but these are different times… and, uh, you won’t be able to get a test because, uh, you don’t have any exposure to someone with Coronavirus or severe symptoms so…”
Me: thanks doc. I know it must be, uh, crazy these days. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. So, uh, if this doesn’t get better, uh, when should I be worried, like, uh, where I, you know, contact you, before it’s really bad, but not before it’s like, not really bad, because I know you’re busy dealing with people who are, uh, really bad…
Doc: if it gets worse and you have pain in your chest, if the medicine isn’t helping…
Me: Ok, doc. Thank you. doc.
Doc: oh, it would be better to send someone else to pick up the medicine since you, um, have some symptoms…
Me: uhhhhh…
Doc: have your husband pick it up for you.
Me: um… (thinking: husband doesn’t want to get sick) …um, ok. Thanks doc.(click.)
A Week Ago…
A week ago we just got sent home from work and told that we would be working from home for two weeks. Then everything in the world fell apart. The time between last Monday and this Monday may as well been the length of a thousand Mondays. I’ve aged too many years with worry in such a short time because the rawness of life, the vulnerability of humanity, the weakness of all of us and our mortality is there, in front of all of us, like a raw beating heart that is pulsing to the rhythm of some childhood joke “nah nah nah nah” beats the heart, pouring blood everywhere, squirting up to the moon–there’s your rotten humanity for you. There’s all the control you’ve tried to obtain fucking painted red across the stars, a sky dripping with maroon rain all over our faces, yet most people somehow don’t even notice it yet, don’t taste the blood there, slipping slowly down to their lips, smelling like salt and old copper pennies.
We control nothing. Nada. Not when a little tiny virus can slip into our throats and nostrils and lungs and take over our bodies, our poor little weak bodies that try to wage war against against these intruders and yet eventually fail in 2 out of 100 cases or maybe 3 out of 100 or 5. There is nothing we can do when the army of our white blood cells can’t take on the enemy. And when hospitals no longer can give our army the backup needed to fight the good fight to keep us alive, we’re on our own, and on our own, we are alone in the fight.
This is happening. It’s not an overreaction. It’s not an anxiety-induced prophecy. Look at Italy. Italy is in chaos. And we are 10 days behind. 10 days. A lifetime. A lifetime of 240 hours where in this horror movie some percent of us know the plot and we’re saying nooo, wait, stoppppp, don’t open the dooooorrrrr and you’ve got people still having birthday parties and gatherings and choosing not to pay attention to the inevitable because it’s too hard to admit how little we control in this world for ourselves and yet how much we DO control if we work together to stop this thing. But we’d never do that.
So every country goes and does their own thing to try to stop the impact of the virus. Italy goes on lockdown. Every state in the US has some different rule, some with curfews, some not, some with no events, some with any event, who knows. The UK says fuck it, let the young folks get sick now, so when winter comes the old folks can be less likely to get infected (yes, my friend, winter is indeed coming–though it’s hard to imagine winter and the Return of the Corona (in theaters this December) while spring has barely sprung and the virus has barely, well, viraled.)
Tomorrow morning, I will go to the pharmacy to get my steroid inhaler and antibiotics, and I will pray to the gods I don’t believe in that I don’t catch this virus at the pharmacy with all of the other sick people to get medicine to treat what may be this virus or may be something else that is still causing some serious issues with my respiratory system which probably makes me more at risk for serious complications from this virus if I was to get it if I don’t already have it. And so. Anxiety amplifies. I try to breathe. To remind myself that most people my age do not die form this thing. That I am doing the right thing and staying inside and in a weeks time this should all pass.
But in the back of mind I’m also thinking–we are 10 days behind Italy… we are 10 days behind Italy–and what if, what if in 10 days, or 5 days, or 7 days, my lungs take a turn for the worst? What if, whatever it is I have, I need to go to the hospital in the thick of it. What then? What can I do now to prevent that? Take my medicine, I guess. I can’t get an X-ray, they won’t give anyone X-rays for pneumonia at this time. I just have to take my medicine and hope I get better. Stay home. Stay home and hope. That’s modern medicine for you.
Why are my lungs so cold? There’s ice liquid in there. Liquid ice. Pouring in. I can breathe. And these days, breath is our most valuable asset. So, I remind myself, just breathe. Just. Fucking. Breathe.
T-10(?).
life with interest 