My Humorous Take on Fighting for My Life With COVID-19

I won a successful battle with COVID-19! I had to fight for my life, and it wasn’t easy, but I had help!

It’s OK — I do love the attention every four hours, but I can save you a lot of time and effort. After all, I know I’m vital! I can save you the need to cuff that Velcro around my arm, save you wasting the disposable plastic cover for the thermometer, and save you the need to close that clamp around my finger. There’s also no need to watch those fun numbers go up and down on the rolling machine because yup, I’m still alive and kicking! My blood pressure and temperature are really close to what they were just hours ago. Coming in to take my vitals is an invasion into my time, and it seems really redundant.

Now don’t get me wrong — I do love having visitors… except at 4:00 a.m.! It’s hard enough to sleep in the confines of a hospital bed when I’m coughing incessantly and even trying to do breathwork just makes the coughing worse. Someone else also comes three times a day and gives me a tiny clear cup full of multicolored “candy” pills, “candy” that is trying to keep me healthy. I appreciate when they take the time to go over them with me instead of just putting them in front of me and walking out of the room without saying anything. I wonder if they would help me more or less if I ate them like candy and chewed them up. I do think they’re the worst “candy” I’ve ever tasted, but living with COVID-19 is probably much worse.

In the big picture I’m very thankful to have all of you currently in my life. I’m hurting physically and emotionally and I know you are trying to help me feel better and get healthy. Your intention is to be there to support me. You come to check on me with the push of a red button on a remote after all. Some of you are physical therapists and occupational therapists, and  you come every day. You challenge me to slowly get back to the vibrant, active, strong man I used to be. You push me to do brutal exercises, and I often fail miserably, but you encourage me to take breaks and be gentle with myself. Over time, I slowly get stronger, and my balance is returning, though, so your difficult workouts are working wonders. You had me start walking back and forth with a walker, and at first, I needed to take a break less than 30 seconds later, but now I just walked around for five minutes…without the walker! A week ago, I couldn’t even stand. Now I can get out of this bed and go to the bathroom by myself. I can’t describe how proud, accomplished, and thankful I feel. My body is responding and returning to form!

In December 2020, I entered the emergency room having tested positive for COVID-19 with 12 symptoms. I spent four days in the hospital and two weeks in rehab doing physical and occupational therapy. I struggled to eat for a while, and I couldn’t walk or even get out of a hospital bed for over a week. I basically had to learn to walk again. I couldn’t see doctors’ and nurses’ smiles and couldn’t have any family or friends as visitors, but as much as I joke, those nurses, doctors, and specialists helped me not feel alone. Even though being in the hospital for COVID-19 was hard, they were my lifeline to survive, and I’m so thankful for them.