So maybe if you had told me then the reality of what today is, I just wouldn't have been able to accept it. Maybe we needed to accept this adjustment of our schedules little by little. But the emotional rollercoaster of all the changes and all of the unknown and waiting to find out more has been exhausting.
Pretend you are my 14 year old son and you just want to know when you can go back to school. In march it started out with one week past spring break. Then it was two more weeks. Then it was the rest of April. And then, even though we knew it was coming we had to wait for what seemed like forever to find out they would in fact not be returning to school at all. Then comes summer and you're glad to have a moment to not think about it, but it always lingers in the back of your mind. But at least there will be marching band. They start having Zoom sectionals and handing out music. Texas has opened back up and a glimmer of hope is on the horizon. Then slowly things start shutting back down and closing in as the cases rise in your community. Plans get cancelled and you don't want to even think about it, but if things are this bad, could we really go back to school? Your band director tries to keep the momentum going, but now school will be 100% online for at least the first 3 weeks of school. Then the mayor announces that as long as school is online, no extra curriculars are allowed to meet in person until in-person instruction resumes. Now it's not 2 weeks until marching band starts, it's 7 weeks until you might go back inside a school building.
When I was entering my freshman year, the only thing I was worried about was what to wear, and if I was going to get lost, which I did.
And that's just Cade's story. Alex has his own. Dan has his own. You have your own, and I definitely have mine.
A lot of people continue to ask how I'm doing. Short story is that I'm the same as always. Long story is that my quest for answers to my symptoms has come up empty and a bit of a frustrating story in its own. I don't know if it's because of military healthcare or Covid, or the combination of the two, but all in all its been a bit of an oxy moron. Initially my doctor presumed me positive despite my negative test results because of my symptoms. When my symptoms were still plaguing me at 4 weeks he said it would take a few more to see some improvement. As they continued to plague me we did some basic lab tests looking for maybe an infection of sorts. When all those came back clear and weeks went by with no improvement, I had another phone appointment and they approved an in-person appointment for me, yay! I show up and didn't pass the covid screening questions (duh) and got re-routed to the ER. Spent hours there, and really the only good thing from that whole ordeal was leaving with an inhaler and a steroid. Finally something to help with the breathing. Since then I have had multiple specialists appointments to help answer my symptoms cancelled due to the spike in Covid cases. Oxy moron. I've had extensive lab work done looking for auto-immune disorders that often act like what my symptoms are, and everything came back clear. I just want to feel like myself again, and any time they don't find anything wrong with me, it doesn't give me any treatment, answers or hope.
So for now here's the basic theory. Whether it was covid or not, I was sick with some sort of respiratory virus that has now thrown my body into a post-viral fatigue syndrome. My instinct is leaning towards covid just because of the timing and the symptoms. I have since read and followed the stories of thousands of others who have had lasting symptoms like myself, including some who literally have the exact same ones as me. The tricky thing with post-viral fatigue is that if you're not careful you can then get stuck in a chronic fatigue. I've done some research into that and it's pretty scary stuff. I'm hopeful that time will heal as long as find the balance between allowing my body to rest/heal and nourish it with health and activity. I still have shortness of breath, tightness in my chest, fevers and fatigue. Naproxen (aleve) has been a godsend as it's the only thing that gives me some relief from it all, sometimes. I've tried to go off of it to see if I've 'gotten better' and I'm quickly reminded just how much worse I can feel. So if you see me out at the store or with my kids, know that I'm not contagious and I'm exhausted under it all. Just ask my boys and they know that mom can't do as much as she used to anymore.
A lot of times I don't know how to see the silver lining in all of this. It becomes overwhelming. Because it's 'one for the history books', that means we don't know the way out of this. But as time as passed, a few things I've learned personally are new ways to relate to others. It's been a pattern in my life that I've experienced a lot almost trials. We had some serious struggles with Cade as a child and because of the experiences we went through I have the ability to relate to others that are in similar situations. I've been through a military separation, but not a deployment, but I can relate to those experiences of my military spouse friends. I've been a full time working mom so I know what that's like. Each learning experience allows me to have more of an ear to lend to those that are experiencing similar trials themselves. This time around I've learned how much of a stigma there is for those suffering from Covid. It's hard if they're working, it's hard if they're parents, it's hard to get health professionals to take you seriously, it's hard for family and friends to feel comfortable being around you, and they may not recover very fast, if ever. I've learned patience. You can't be sick for 107 days with the same symptoms without patience. I've also learned to respect and relate to those with auto-immune disorders like my sister who has RA. So many of them deal with chronic fatigue and things like me, but with no end in sight. It's just something else to add to my arsenal of understanding.
I'd love to say I can look back and be glad for these experiences, but I'm not there yet. One step at a time, one looooonng day at a time. They say hindsight is 2020 and that has new meaning to me now. All along maybe it meant that in 2020 we'd reset our baseline for normal and always look back to it from now on. It's time to re-think education, healthcare, they way we work, the way we travel, how we spend our time, and learning love and patience for all of our fellow mankind. I have a feeling hindsight will be 2021 as well. Hang in there folks, and look for the small stuff you can learn along the way.
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