COVID, MY PARENTS & 2023…

“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.” Joseph Addison

My annual trip to Laguna Niguel to spend an extended amount of time with my ninety-eight-year-old dad and my ninety-four-year-old mom was packed with the unexpected this year.

I arrived on a Monday to find them wiped out with what seemed like a cold. I picked up soup from our favorite Mexican restaurant. Much better than the canned food held in their cupboard. Knee-deep in the knowledge that good nutrition is fresh with minimal ingredients, organic, check.
My husband arrived three days later, and we all decided that a Covid test was in order. After five rousing games of Bridge, hubby tested all three of us. Yes, yep, yeppers, Covid positive, yikes.

I set up a Zoom meeting with his doctor for my dad the following day. It went well for an exceptional ninety-eight-year-old; he knows how to listen and communicate, showing off with a cough on demand, like a trick pony, and the doctor was able to diagnose him. I declined my mother’s zooms as she was less ill and seemed more vital to me. Rest fluids and isolation until five days after testing Covid negative.

I swore I would stay until they tested negative, very gallant of me, only to quickly brake that promise as I became sicker than they were; my hubby and I hurried home to Santa Barbara the next day.

Following each other safely home, it was New Year’s Day. Happy to be home, he woke up sick the next day, realizing that our much-awaited ski trip may not happen. I napped daily and tried to figure out how to order groceries online. Our skiing trip needed to be postponed.
This Covid bug is confirmed. If you think Covid is just a made-up lark, think again. My arms feel like weights have adhered to them, and my head is jammed with a pressure that is unending and painful. My thoughts are foggy, and I have difficulty feasibly connecting my ideas. The covid brain is accurate, and I have been struggling. Gone is my sense of smell and taste, egads. I mull over how I cook without taste or smell.

My hubby and I have both boosted up and become as Covid responsible as I thought possible, but it still got us. I am happy we like each other, and I know how to make soup out of almost anything. My husband is less affected but does not want to be a super spreader. For him, it is like a bad cold and fatigue coupled with crushing disappointment he is not skiing; for hubby, that is the worst; looking at a live feed of the mountain daily, he suffers.

This has been an exciting way to usher in a New Year. Life’s moments are not marked by the changing of the year; our daily choices and circumstances characterize them. Those days are there to see us to our next lesson, our next opportunity, our next moment to honor our body.
Life is a stop, look, and listen deal.

My Mantra: “The more we pay attention and hear, the more we learn.”