Covid for Two (part two): The Long and Winded Weeks

or, Further Along the Great Inbetween (in four parts)

Days passed that were challenging, but none were more difficult than the nights.  I did a lot more watching Dan sleep than anything else. I was really worried about him. On one of my wellness checks, I bent over to stroke his fevered brow.  He has just been through a long dry heaves session in the bathroom that has left him weak and trembling, but at least he's flat and no longer coughing.  I push back a lock of his hair and his eyes shoot open.  Bleach, he says.  Then he starts retching again.  I jump up and run out of the bedroom, horrified.

I sit on the steps outside, bawling.  On this his 17th day and my 10th day of this illness, I have tried, every single thing I could think of to help both of us.  All of it.  And we are still alive, but it is only through constant motion on my part.  The Jenga tower of nearly every dish we own is drying in the dish rack, and the overflow covers every inch of counter space. 

I kept up for 9.75 days, but then the dishes buried me.  A few drops of bleach were added to the hottest dish water I could manage for every sink load of dishes.  Both sinks full of hot water held immersed plastic water jugs being disinfected.  More bleach.  Sink scrubbed with Comet.  Comet, with bleach. 

Yes, at this point, we are more than likely still Covid positive, but I am also positive that I am doing my best, while still sick myself, and yet, not as sick as he.  I am happy to have transitioned from merely observing the piles of dog fur and dust that must be swept daily to managing one good hour on a couple of days in a row where I could eradicate fur bunnies, plus wipe up all of the major spills.  I was still ahead of the dishes at that point mostly because neither of us could eat and just sipped from our water bottles and out of mugs.

Proud I was to have remade the bed every time he rose.  Fresh air and sunshine streamed into the living room and bedroom at varying times of day.  I lamented the growing laundry situation but left that for another day.  I made sandwiches and cajoled him into eating an eggroll, and even two on one occasion.  A turkey and mayo on wheat, sliced in half.  I begged him to eat both halves. I am sure all of the crusts went to the dogs, and possibly one half of a few sandwiches. He did his best but had little or no appetite most of the time.

In the early days he wanted clam chowder, the smell of which makes me want to hurl on a good day.  He made it himself because I was unable to, and the pan sat in the sink and congealed.  He stuck half of his uneaten bowl in the fridge, where it also congealed.  He never did this kind of thing. Neither of us were thinking clearly. 

To get the clam chowder in the first place, I had raided the pantry in the van.  Not wanting to alert the dogs that I was eating something, I decided to make some soup for myself on the van stove top, with the doors closed. They were all blessedly dogpiled up in the bed, snoring. 

I realized right away that there was no pan available, so I popped the ring top and took a bite of vegetable beef soup right from the can.  It tasted like shit.  Salty, congealed, off-brand with zero black pepper sprinkled atop, nor saltine crackers on the side shit.  A foodie’s worst nightmare. 

I managed to down three more bites and left it on the countertop of the van for the moment.  Off to the couch I went, nauseous and dizzy, with a stop at the fridge for some apple juice to wash that mess out of my mouth.

So, yes, life was clearly cycling through an improvisational era, with all sorts of adjustments and inconveniences raring their ugly heads.  And yet, I was proud of myself for keeping us afloat. Dan had been that person for me so many times over the years, and it was my honor and joy to be there for him. I concentrated on making sure we had toilet paper, barf buckets, helpful liquids, tinctures, herbs, and traditional medicines available, plus any and every other resource that might be needed within reach.  “Yes, we have that.  Hang on, let me go get it.  I know right where it is,” was my rally cry.

But behind every activity lay the truth.  I was Dan’s pusher.  The minute he realized he was sick, I asked him what I could do to help.  Dan gazed at me with loving eyes and asked me to make him some concoctions, with “sticks and seeds and leaves and twigs that you know I need.”

I am known for my gunny sacks full of often hand-gathered herbs and remedies from all around the country.  Sickly people line up for teas that I customize and simmer in the van, just for them, at bushcrafting and vandwelling events that we frequent on a yearly basis.  Granny green witch, folk healer, Dan’s quiet, sweet wife with those herby tasting teas and remedies, however they need to define what I am and what I do.

Some are afraid of me, and some speak of the help I have given, that they themselves have felt and witnessed, with an awe that makes me uncomfortable. Here I find my human connection, and a way to help.  I make their tea and hand it off in a glass parmesan cheese or chip dip jar with a lid, and maybe some local honey and lemon or lime if they want it.  It’s what I do.  They walk around sipping contentedly on their home brew. The line gets longer as word of mouth spreads. 

In my element, I get to work creating every manner of herbal concoction I can think of with homemade chicken stock thawed from the freezer.  Homemade chicken and rice soup is also thawed and served.  I bask in gratitude for always having good stuff cooked ahead and frozen.  We’ve got this.

I roll up my sleeves and create an orange tea with 200% vitamin C tea bags, pineapple juice, fresh ginger, juice from lemons and oranges gathered on our neighborhood walks, sweetened with local mesquite honey.  He sips, and raves.  “This helps, thank you for taking such good care of me, dear,” he says.  Instant Pot-made rich chicken broth long simmered with thyme, oregano, sage, and savory grown and prepared by America’s oldest religious community, The Society of Shakers, located in Sabbath Day Lake, Maine, is served in his favorite mug.  We spent an entire day exploring that place during our summer spent in the northeastern part of the country.  The sage came from the garden of our friends the Tobins in Warren, Michigan, the oregano from the Evannous, in Mt Clemens, Michigan.  Marshmallow leaves from Maggie and John in Accident, Maine, marshmallow root, nettle, osha root, and mullein from new friends who own an organic herb farm in Kentucky.  I have that, and much more, ready to go.

Using my Dan-bought burgundy onyx mortar and pestle. He got this for me in our early years, proving that he knew who I was, in my weird little middle. He accepts these with gratitude.  At first.  And then the marshmallow root makes the tea too thick, and the pineapple tastes like rubber.  “I am not hungry, so the idea of warm broth doesn’t appeal to me”, he says, “but thank you so much anyway.  I will have some later.”  The neighbor bought the wrong Gatorade.  He likes the green, I told her, the original. She bought lime, with cucumber.  Normally, he would chug it down, but everything tastes more intense to him right now. He says he drank some of it, but he cannot tolerate any more.  He agrees to drink more water. Half a glass sits beside him at all times.  I struggle to keep from begging him to finish it and let me bring him some more.  Sometimes I lose. Mother, or smother?

I pinch at his skin and show him how slowly it rebounds. Then the pushing starts again.  How about some sweet tea?  I will brew you a sweet tea just as sweet as you want it, I say.  I never do this.  He sips a little, once, and the rest sits in the fridge for days.

Then one day I roll out my liquid refreshments menu and the gentle giant gets downright crabby.  No more!  No more sticks and twigs and seeds and leaves.  None.  I am at a loss because we have agreed, no hospital, no dangerous, barely tested drugs, no extreme measures.  We can do this at home, with what we know and what we have.  But it isn’t cutting it. 

When we had what we think was Covid back in January 2020, I was seriously ill for a solid month. Dan spent three days in bed, and then he was over it. Because we didn’t know about the virus, we thought I had bronchitis that caused a lupus flare. Any organ can be affected by lupus, including joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, heart and lungs. Rheumatoid arthritis can affect the musculoskeletal system, and also a wide range of body systems like skin, eyes, heart, and blood vessels. Scleroderma, and Raynaud’s syndrome, can wreak havoc just about anywhere they choose to, and being affected by these illnesses can make diagnosis of common problems difficult. One sends up the alarm, and they all bang the something’s wrong drum. Things often go awry, and I have some crazy close calls. I don’t say much about these struggles on social media, so most of the people there are jealous of my “perfect” life.

During that first round, I shuffled around, wheezing. The antibiotics weren't helping this flavor of bronchitis. Since Dan had also been sick for a few days, we thought it might be viral. Maybe I was just slower to recover. Fatigue, headaches, and intermittent fever were everyday occurrences. I walked around in a daze, but mostly slept. I had muscle cramps and spasms that sent me hurtling out of bed from a sound sleep to agonizing curled up pretzel poses that I could not relax out of, no matter how long I stretched.

My first guess was that another section of my spinal column may have gone from bulging a little bit, to bulging a lot, or maybe the fused section was failing. I also thought that one of my autoimmune issues was attacking my nervous system. It was known to do that.

An upper respiratory infection can last for weeks usually, or even longer when your immune system is wonky. This was feeling more involved. All of the alarms had sounded, and things weren't looking good. I didn't even know where to start to try to figure out all of the unusual symptoms I was having. At that point, we were seen for minor illnesses by a rotating staff of nurse practitioners in our small rural health center. I was under their care for the bronchitis, but they were not equipped to deal with unusual autoimmune issues. Dan broached the subject of possibly coming off the road for a bit, while I healed, to which I screamed “NOOOO, I will get better, and we will go again. I HAVE to have that to look forward to. Please, let's stay on the road, Dan.” That conversation led to other deeper ones, where we both admitted that I might be shutting down in general.

I felt very close to the edge, like I was fading away. I didn't deny this. We talked about wills and wishes, and the “what-might-happens.” It was an emotionally raw time for me, but also a time when I knew that no matter how it turned out, I would be loved and supported through all of it. In my life, that hadn’t always been the case. Dan had stepped to the edge with me before, and he was still here, holding my hand.

February of that year found me recovering and packing and stacking like my tail was on fire to prove that I was ready to get back out on the hard top. We were almost completely packed and two days from departure in early March when the news of Covid hit in a big way. The Native American tribes all over Arizona spoke of closing roads, and states discussed border closures. The thought of becoming ill on the road and bringing it to the friends and family along the way ground our launch plans to a tire-smoking halt. We ended up staying at our winter oasis in Quartzsite for a solid year. Yes, through the hottest summer on record. We learned that our plan B domicile worked out just fine.

Here’s a bit I wrote on April 9th, 2020:

“The first few days of isolation dredged up some of my deepest fears.  At the top of my personal list was the fear of dying in front of Dan.  I told him from the very beginning of our relationship that he would probably outlast me, even given our nearly dozen year age difference.  My autoimmune status and his age seem to put us in the same time bracket of possible end dates, but of course, no one knows that for sure.  He said he would take as many days as I had and would love me on every one of them. This has proven to be true.

My second fear was watching him die and not being able to do anything about it.  You see, Dan has these self-proclaimed “remarkable healing powers” that keep him safe from the big stuff, and 99.8% of the little stuff.  He just doesn’t do illness.  If he gets Covid-19, I am going to lean very heavily into the fact that this superpower is bullet proof.  I have to.  It’s all I have.

Both of us have witnessed death, up close and personal, many times.  It doesn’t make death any easier, knowing that we ourselves have witnessed it.  The truth is death was the first thing that came to mind when we heard about the virus.  Not just any death, but the possibility of one of us leaving during the happiest years of our lives, these bonus golden years that we fought so hard for.  Having married later in life (on Cinco de Mayo, 2018) and spending every day together means we could very well be there at the moment of transition for each other. While I would be honored to support him in this way, I am a million miles from ready for that. He is, unequivocally, hands down, the best thing that ever happened to me.

We monitor each cleared throat and sniffle, checking ourselves and each other in a million ways all day long.  Seasonal allergies make us doubt our own health, and that of those around us.  Standing in line anywhere, masked, and 6 feet away or more is an instant cough trigger. It just is.  I can’t imagine the moment when I have to whip out my asthma inhaler and drop the mask and use it.  People are tense, on edge.  Any quick move might be considered hostile.

Today I have largely moved past the worst of my fears about death, although it perches lightly on my shoulder, ready to settle back in with just a slight nod of the head from me.  Virus or no virus, death is a constant that, even with all of our mightiest overthinking, cannot be changed.  We may delay it awhile, we may go there briefly and be snatched back from the brink, or we may be gifted a shiny silver capsule that gives us the ability to live forever.  Or not.

None of us knows when and how it will “end” for us personally, but the truth is, to live is also to be heading towards the back entrance and leaping out into the great unknown solo, at least until we arrive at our next destination.  Only after I sat with the fear of the deaths of my children, my grandchildren, my beloved, my family, my friends, their families, and every person on this planet did I realize that we all came here to live, and we all came here to die.  We had greater and lesser things to accomplish this go-round, regardless of our chronological age, and depending on what we believe to be true, we may or may not get the chance to do the things we had planned to do because of this plague of our lifetime.”

Here I was again, wallowing in my fear of losing Dan. He was rapidly losing weight and sat motionless and distant when he was awake. His O2 numbers remained within normal limits, but he was shaky, winded, and wasn’t improving. We needed help.

(to be continued)

Brenda Cordray

“The Desert Rose”

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