Mourning With A Side Of Covid

I recently returned home from a quick trip to California to celebrate my brother’s life. It was an intensely emotionally trip. I will share some of what the trip was like and what I learned in future posts. It was wonderful to come home. Even though I came home with Covid.

On my last full day in California, I noticed a slight tickle in my throat. The day before had been about three years of stress wrapped up in a single 24-hour period, so I did not think too much about it. After all, I had navigated some tricky and perilous emotional ground in the preceding two days. It made sense that I would not feel my best. No one could blame me for being physically depleted. I had been vaccinated and boosted twice. I masked during my flight to California. The pandemic has been going on for two and a half years and, although nearly everyone I know has had the disease in at least one of its iterations, I have managed to avoid contagion. I’ve had fairly strong reactions to each of my injections- implying my body was building some pretty kick-ass antibodies. My mindset was firmly set on “I’m freakishly immune to Covid.”

However, by the time I was on the plane coming home, I had a crisis of confidence. It was getting harder not to cough. My throat was officially sore. I wondered if I perhaps had strep, although I had a sneaking suspicion that the Covid germs had finally found a home in me. In addition to the mask, I ate cough drops like peanuts and kept my face as far away from my neighbors as possible. When I finally arrived at my front door, I fell into bed but could not sleep well because the pain in my throat was making me too uncomfortable. Also, it is difficult to cough without waking oneself up.

The next morning, I went to the store, fully masked and holding my breath whenever I saw anyone else. I bought a home Covid test. I took the test and, sure enough, two lines clearly appeared. I had Covid.

Once I accepted this reality, I told Max and suggested we avoid being in the same room for a week or so. I went back to bed and slept most of the day. I felt pretty crummy for two or three days. I isolated for the five days the CDC recommended. I wore a mask in the house if Max wandered anywhere into my line of infection. On the sixth day, I was feeling better. I was still coughing as if I might dislodge a lung and I still tired quite easily, but I definitely felt worlds better. I took another Covid test. Demoralizingly, it was still positive. I read that it is not unusual for Covid tests to have positive results for two weeks and that some people have tested positive for months after having no symptoms, so testing positive on Day Six is not a catastrophe. Still, I felt disappointed and defeated. In retrospect, the extent of my emotional reaction was probably good evidence that my body still had not quite cleared the virus.

I was anxious to get out of Covid jail, so I did make a couple of trips into the world. I had great plans, but found I was getting too tired too quickly to really do anything particularly noteworthy anywho. We went to Starbucks, with my mask tightly fastened across my face. We were gone from home less than an hour. When I got home, I laid down for 30 minutes before I felt recuperated enough to dish out some ice cream. That was another thing- for about a week, I only ate ice cream, sugar free chocolate pudding, and peanut butter. That might have had something to do with the tiredness, too.

It helped that, by some miracle, I seem to have avoided infecting any of my loved ones. My sister-in-law and step niece, with whom I spent most of my optimal contagious time, have repeatedly tested negative. My friend and her husband, whose home I shared my last day in California, have also tested negative. Max tested and he is negative as well. Knowing that I am not responsible for anyone else getting sick (except perhaps my seatmates on the plane ride back from California- I’m so sorry!) improves my emotional and, therefore, physical health, as well.

As I write this, I am on Day 9. I feel much better. No more sore throat. No more dizziness or headache. No more runny nose. I am still coughing a little bit, but I think my lungs are going to stay within my thoracic cavity. The biggest thing that seems to linger is that my “hurry button” seems to be on the fritz. I seem to be completely incapable of propelling myself through the day with any sort of momentum. I still get tired easily, but now I have a little more endurance and have been able to get some exercise. The problem is launching. I seem to be living in fits and starts. It takes a lot for me to get going and my transmission has no gear except “Covid pace.” It is getting better, though, and I am sure that I will improve.

I may even get brave enough to face another Covid test on September 2, when I will hit the two-week mark. I know I am recovering. I know I am likely no longer contagious. Still, it would be heartening to see only one red line on the little plastic test cassette!

Addendum: I couldn’t wait! I tested again on 8/28. I was negative! Such a liberating feeling….

Have you had Covid? What was it like for you? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a healthy day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Coming Attraction!

Monday, August 22, was my mother’s birthday. She would have been 91 years old. In celebration of her birthday,  I thought this week would be a good time to announce I have a new book coming out on October 22. The book, Puppies, Guppies, and Letting Go, is all about my mother. It is the story of how she built her own life in a world where she was just a little ahead of her time. It is the story of her view of family and motherhood. It is the story of her end-of-life journey. It is the story of what it was like for me to accompany her on that journey… and it is the story of what it is like to live in a world she no longer inhabits.

Puppies, Guppies, and Letting Go is joyous and wacky. It is funny and inspiring. It is sad and thought-provoking. I know anyone who knew my mother will enjoy it. However, I hope its appeal will be more universal. My mother was the kind of person that everyone enjoyed knowing and everyone loved. If you did not know her in real life, I think you will love getting to love her through Puppies, Guppies, and Letting Go.

The book will be available on Amazon.com in both paperback and kindle editions on October 22. I am publishing this book, as I have the past two books, under Terri’s “real name,” Dorry Curran. I will be hosting a launch party on that day. If you are local and would like to come, I’d be happy to have you. Please just let me know. I will also be broadcasting part of the event on Zoom. If you are not local but would still like to be part of the fun, please send me an email and I’ll send you an evite to the party.

Wouldn’t you love to attend the launch party, either virtually or IRL? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. If you would like to attend, please email me at terriretirement@gmail.com so I can send you the information.

Happy Partying!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Sand, Sea, And Sadness

Something gut crushing happened yesterday. Ernie, my 61-year-old brother, died.

Ernie had happiness in life, but he also struggled. Illness wore him away, deploying one medical challenge after another. After the latest battle, his kidneys stopped working. His body became increasingly bloated. His energy level whispered away, little by little. His heart beat a slow requiem as his blood pressure steadily decreased. He could not get comfortable. He could not communicate. He teetered in and out of consciousness. His body was attacking him. When we at last released him from life support, pain, and fear, he smiled and found his own way out of this world.

My brother and I had a complicated relationship. We loved each other to the core of our hearts, but we also did not understand each other very well.  My perceptions of him (I cannot yet say “memories”) are jagged and awkward. They are pieces of various jigsaw puzzles tangled in the same box together. They are ill-fitting and dissonant. It is hard to make sense of them.

Family dynamics are often fraught. I once read that, in healthy families, the alliances within the family should be generational. In other words, the parents should bond together as  one team and the siblings should bond together as another team. This does not mean “us” against “them,” necessarily. At its best, family provides the opportunity for the teams to work together to nurture a mutually happy life. The point is that different relationships and different affinities are inevitably going to form. The balance of power is best preserved when those connections are generational.

Such was not the case in my family. To me, it always seemed that my parents and I were on one end of the spectrum, with my brother at the other. We were staid and safe. He was wild and reckless. We thought to the future and colored within the lines. He lived hard in the moment and didn’t even realize there were lines. He saw life differently from the three of us. He made choices the rest of us did not understand. I have always felt wistful and regretful about this state of affairs. I felt sad for my brother who was sort of on his own in the family. I felt guilty for not being able to find a way to bring him into the “happy family” fold. I do not know if it ever occurred to me that he might have been happy in the life he was living. He burst his way into life, leaving behind a safety net that consisted of my parents and myself. He had the freedom to live life on the wild side knowing that his protective (although somewhat judgmental) cocoon would be there when the wildness became unmanageable.

As time went on and my parents passed, my role became almost that of a caretaker. I became almost a surrogate parent for my brother. As we settled into these roles, acceptance of who each other was grew but understanding never quite did. I continuously wobbled between annoyance, anger, and hopefulness about his fate.

When I heard that Ernie died, my boyfriend asked me what I needed- what I wanted to do. I told him that I wanted to go to the beach. I wanted to feel sand on my feet. I wanted to taste salt in the air. I wanted to see tiny fish swifter past my ankles in the tide. I wanted to hear the waves slapping the beach. I wanted to smell the gritty brine.

The beach has a kind of magic for me. Being near the ocean has always felt like a hug to my senses. There is something about the whine of the waves and the hypnotic properties of the sea that covers me like a magic protective shield. I have been to many of the most popular beaches in the United States… Waikiki, Huntington, Daytona… and have not felt crowded at any of them. Yes, there might have been other people around but there was always sufficient personal space for everyone.

My favorite memories of the beach involve being alone with my thoughts and the ocean. When I was a little girl, my family used to camp at a state beach about an hour from our house. I liked it best when we went to the beach during the winter. In the early evenings, I would walk down the wooden staircase from the cliff where we camped to the beach below. I counted the steps. Depending on which campsite we occupied, I recall that there were 128 stairs. I have a clear picture in my head of myself wearing burgundy jeans and a grey turtleneck sweater.

When I reached the shore, I’d climb up a ladder to a lifeguard station that was abandoned for the season. In my lifeguard station sanctuary, it was quiet. Often, I’d not see another person the whole time I was there. I’d scrunch myself down to the edge of the platform with a book. I would think and read and watch the sun go down until it was too dark to see. I was literally above it all- not only above the beach but also above all the sadness, anxiety, disappointment, and self-denigration I kept bottled up within me.

These memories of the beach convinced me that I would find some sort of magic properties that would help me cope with my brother’s death. When we arrived at the parking lot for the beach, I jumped out of the car hopefully. As I trudged my way down to the water, my mood unraveled. Lethargy, exhaustion, and disappointment weighed on me. Even the portable chair over my right shoulder and a small beach bag over my left seemed too heavy a burden to carry. The brief walk from the car to the shore seemed almost beyond my capabilities. I panted as I walked. My ankles rolled over the cobbled, pitted pavement, causing sharp perpendicular pains to zip through the meniscus beneath my right knee. The sun glared so fiercely that I checked to make sure I was still wearing my sunglasses. But I soldiered on towards the magic I knew awaited me at the beach.

When I set up my chair and gazed at the horizon, I felt… nothing. I walked down to the water, but the waves did not feel refreshing. They felt cold and sharp. The skittering sand shifted with the tide, creating trenches that captured my feet. I knew those trenches would be oh so easy for me to trip into the next time a wave broke against my body. I tried to move my legs, but the undertow trapped them in the cement sand. As I stood there, all I felt was a rigid band of tightness surrounding my abdomen right below my ribs. There was no magic.

I finally freed my feet from the sand. I decided that moving might shift the band of tightness away from any of my crucial internal organs. I walked down the beach, thinking about nothing and everything. I kept waiting for the magic. It did not come.

I stopped and stared out into the sea, trying to feel something. The magic might not appear, but maybe I could at least find a place within me that would illuminate this strange nothingness. As I looked around, I noticed a group of 20 or 30 children playing on the beach. They reminded me of something.

One summer, when I was about nine or ten, Ernie and I attended Red Rider Day Camp for two months. The camp spent several days a week at the beach, creating a scene remarkably similar to what I was witnessing here in the present. I realized that summer was perhaps the only time in my life when I felt like my brother and I were teammates.

I was a shy child. I inclined towards observation rather than participation. I would often stand on the outskirts of childhood and watch. Other children did not understand my strangeness and disconnection. This strangeness and disconnection led to isolation. I was perfectly happy with a reasonable level of disconnection. However,  it seemed the rest of the world- child and adult alike- were not quite so tolerant of my definition of “a reasonable level of disconnection.” Counselors pushed me to engage. I tried to comply. Children taunted me. I was brave. I pretended not to care. I did my best to enjoy the summer days at camp, but I would have rather been at home alone with a book.

My brother, on the other hand, was an extroverted child. He was funny and loud and friendly. He was most happy when flamboyantly connected with everyone in the same zip code. Even as an eight-year-old, he was an imposing character- both physically and socially. He relished day camp. The counselors could not direct or contain his energy. His personality often burst out unexpectedly when the pitch of his own performance became too high. His roughhousing and arguing and “boys will be boys” tricks sometimes devolved into potentially dangerous activities. He never meant harm when he roughhoused and joked, but not meaning harm does not prohibit harm from occurring.

This introversion of mine was one aspect of our divergent personalities that my brother “got” about me. I remember him patiently involving me in the day camp activities. I remember him drawing me gently into his crowd of joviality. I remember him protecting me from “over connection” when I needed to disengage a bit. When other children said cruel, thoughtless things, he was my fierce defender. We did face the world of the Red Rider Day Camp together. Together, we were more than the sum of our parts. We not only protected each other, but we also impacted other children. My natural quietness and nurturing drew me to children who were also struggling. Ernie’s extroversion, assertiveness, and confidence shielded us all from bullying. My fellow outcasts and I brought purpose to my brother’s energy, which kept him out of trouble. If Ernie was guiding me into the social fabric of day camp, he was much less likely to be capturing another child in an innocent headlock.  

The camp selected my brother and me as the “campers of the month” at the end of our day camping term. They explained they selected us because of the kindness we displayed to each other and to the other children. That was pretty great.

As soon as this memory formed in my mind, I tasted the salt in the air. I smelled the cocoanut scent of sunblock mixed with the brininess of the sea. I heard the whirling, whining sound of the surf. I felt the ever-moving water slip between my toes. I saw the tiny fish playing tag in the shallow water. I giggled when I saw tiny birds perambulating down the shore with the pompous strides of Olympic speed walkers.

The rigid band around my abdomen shifted up my torso. Somewhere in the journey, it reconfigured itself into a sob. Somehow, the tangled jigsaw pieces in my mind sorted themselves out and formed a beautiful memory of the best of my brother.

The beach is magic, after all.

How have you and your siblings worked together in the past? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Hope today is a day at the beach for you!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Three Sheets (And One Lavender Cocktail) To The Wind

I have reported back on a number of facets of my beach getaway with my friend Kathy. I’ve told you about the mystery animal stalking me outside our vrbo rental. I’ve told you about my triumph in finding a perfect crumb bun. There is one more adventure from that trip that I wanted to share.

On the last night of our trip, we went to a restaurant situated right on the beach. I did not realize it when we got there, but some of the “outside seating” was actually picnic tables in the actual sand. Kathy and I had a table on the patio with a lovely view of the ocean. I could smell the salt and feel the sea breeze on my face. It promised to be a terrific way to spend our Last Supper on Amelia Island.

Let me explain a little background information here. Typically, I eat dinner pretty early. I am old. I eat dinner around 5:00pm usually. Because of my diabetes, I am careful to ingest sustenance at regular intervals throughout the day. My feeding schedule tends to put a crimp in my style when I am out of my regular routine. For some reason, I was at sixes and sevens on this trip. We ate big breakfasts in restaurants, which meant breakfast was later and lunch not as demanding. Still, I could not make it all the way from breakfast to dinner without some form of food converting to glucose in my bloodstream. Because we spent much of the middle of the day at the beach,  eating lunch was not terribly convenient. I am pretty adept at juggling my blood sugar, but these beach days were challenges. Nice challenges, certainly. Challenges that were certainly worth the trouble. Challenges, nonetheless. What that meant is that we ate dinner much later than I usually eat.

On this last night, we set out for the dinner after 7 o’clock. When we got to the restaurant, it was packed. I guess most people do not eat dinner at 5:00 o’clock. Either that or the restaurant was also packed at 5:00. We waited for about half an hour for a table because we did want to sit on the patio in the sea air. The hostess seated us, and the fun really began.

I cannot say that the staff was slow. In fact, our server was incredible. She zipped like chain lightning over the patio. The woman never stopped moving. The simple exertion of opening a menu caused me to wilt in the late evening heat and humidity. Our server must have had her ration of Wheaties. She plowed from one table to another, bearing drinks and large platters of food. She maintained her composure, friendliness, and good humor. When I noticed there were patrons at tables out on the sand, I was amazed to see this same server traversing the beach to take care of them. When I first noticed her gait, I thought there was something wrong, but I soon understood that there was a trick to walking rapidly through the sand. That trick involved taking awkward giant steps in a side-to-side motion. Our petite little server galumphed through the sand like she belonged up a beanstalk.

Our server speedily brought my iced tea and my friend’s cocktail. The cocktail was gorgeous. It was a beautiful shade of lavender. It looked like something that pixies would drink.

Despite the speed and efficiency of our server, getting our food took a long time. I think the restaurant was just too busy to be contained. As we sat waiting for our meals, we enjoyed the view. We chatted over the dull whistle of the waves. At one point, we heard a loud crash.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Kathy.

“Was it your drink? Where is your drink?” I surveyed the table for the hefty glass filled with lavender liquid.

“No, I don’t think it was my drink. I didn’t touch it. It was right over…” Kathy looked confused as she motioned to an empty spot on the table. The only trace left of her drink was a ring on the table.

As we looked at each in bemusement, a lady at the next table told Kathy she might want to move her purse. The “ocean breeze” had actually blown her glass off the table, depositing most of the drink on the chair next to Kathy before it crashed to the floor. There were pieces of glass everywhere. The ladies at the next table summoned the frenetic little server.

It took both Kathy and me several minutes to absorb what had happened. The fact that the wind could be strong enough to send a nearly full glass of drink flying just did not compute. To be honest, the whole incident still feels surreal, even in retrospect.

I blame it on the lack of nourishment.

the lavendar cocktail before its flight

What weird and strange vacation adventures can you share with us? Please leave a comment to share your perspective. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Happy flying!

Terri/Dorry 🙂