Personal Note: I got Covid, Urgh

Today is Monday the 10th.  So last Wednesday night (the 5^th) it felt a little funny in my chest.  I thought I might be coming down with something.  I woke up Thursday nauseous with dry heaves.  I even teleworked in the morning and took the afternoon sick.  Eventually I was just out of it.  It became hell.  The fever wasn’t high (less than 101F) but I wonder if I was even reading it right.  I was in a delirious state.  Waking up at one point I thought it was the next day. I noticed on Friday morning from my daily pill box that I had already taken Friday's meds.

It felt like my body was encircled by some electric charge and was just trying to survive.  He was ready to have me go to Emergency Room. My screaming out scared Matthew, who had come in the bedroom to check on me. Probably should have sent me to the ER. If it were me watching someone else in that state I would have too. I don’t think my wife ever realized what state I was in.  I had crawled into bed in the middle of the day and time seemed to vanish. 

I felt better on Friday morning but someone suggested I check for Covid. I had my wife pick up a test kit and sure enough I tested positive. I called my doctor and we set up a telehealth visit as they call it. He asked about my temperature (which was oscillating between normal and 101F), looked over my recent blood test on file, asked when I felt it come on, and prescribed Paxlovid.  Doctor said I should quarantine through Tuesday.  I still had recurring chills but after the first dose of Paxlovid that night I started to feel better. There was no fever on Saturday, Sunday, nor today, but a general weakness. 

Today even the nasal congestion seems to have let up.  I feel pretty well.  I happen to speak to a nurse today—about something else actually—and she said that today the flu might be harsher than Covid.  Hmm, I would agree except for what I experienced on Thursday afternoon.  When I spoke to the doctor on Friday, he seemed surprised this was my first time getting Covid.  Is it that common that everyone gets it now?

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The story has more to it than my experience.  My wife had been sick before me and was still coughing and occasionally feeling run down.  I told her she should check herself for Covid, so she got herself a test kit and also tested positive.  So this was beginning to make sense.  Her mother has been in a nursing home for over a month and a half.  More on that below.  But the floor of my mother-in-law’s room had a Covid outbreak last week, and still does.  My mother-in-law didn’t get Covid but my wife must have picked it up in one of her daily visits.  Nursing homes are just germ magnets, depositories, and dispensaries. 

My wife’s symptoms were nothing as severe as mine, though hers seem to be lasting longer, probably because she has not been prescribed Paxlovid.  This makes me wonder why my body reacted so to the Covid initially.  It reminds me of my first reaction to the Covid-19 vaccine which I detailed here several years ago.  That post was titled, “Knocked on My Butt By the Vaccine.”  Perhaps I’m more reactive to Covid than others.

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My mother-in-law fell at the beginning of the December.  She fractured her skull, had a brain bleed, they resolved the bleed, but that developed into blood clots, blood clots got into her lungs which nearly killed her, but they resolved that.  You can see I've honed that story down to its bare elements from frequent retelling.  She was three weeks in the ICU.  The day before Christmas Eve she was discharged to a nursing home, and she's been there since.  As you can imagine, this was pretty challenging, especially for my wife, and it still is. 

As it happens, the nursing/rehab facility is very close to our house.  It's less than a mile.  We go back and forth regularly.  The first time she seemed out of it but in time her brain seemed to be getting sharper. Initially she responded very slow and deliberately but now seems to have total comprehension. It took her a while to get up out of bed.  There was nothing physically wrong with her body but perhaps atrophy from being in bed so long.  After a good month of rehab now she has been able to walk up and down the floor with a walker and a cane, go up and down stairs, and fully function as a solitary person.  Today we even got the great news she will be discharged from rehab facility at the end of next week.

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So let’s end with a song that came to mind as I reflected on my Thursday afternoon delirium.  It’s a song that came off the Rolling Stones’ album that came out last year, “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” of the album Hackney Diamonds.   Many of you know I’m a big Rolling Stones fan, and, while I would agree their later years have been of mixed quality, this album is a glorious return to what I think is just short of their all time great ones.  I highly recommend Hackney Diamonds and perhaps one day I’ll have a post on it.

For now I’m going to highlight “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” a gospel tune that is uncharacteristically Christian in outlook for the Stones.  Featured on the record are Lady Gaga (vocals), Stevie Wonder (piano and organ), and saxophonist James King.  Wow is not nearly expressive enough.  Here’s the song first, but then I’ll explain why this song came to mind after.

 

Here are most of the lyrics as well.

 

Sweet Sounds of Heaven

(Jagger/Richards)

 

I hear the sweet, sweet sounds of Heaven

Fallin' down, fallin' down to this Earth

I hear the sweet, sweetest sounds of Heaven

Driftin' down, driftin' down to this Earth

 

Bless the father, bless the son

Hear the sound of the drums

As it echoes through the valley

And it bursts, yeah

Let no woman or child

Go hungry tonight

Please protect us from the pain

And the hurt, yeah

 

I smell the sweet scents, sweet

Sweet scents of Heaven, Heaven

Tumblin' down, tumblin' down

Tumblin' down to the Earth (Oh)

I hear the sweet sounds, sweet sounds

The sweet sounds, ooh, the sweet sounds of children

And they're praisin', praisin'

The land of their birth (No)

 

No, I'm not, not goin' to Hell

In some dusty motel

And I'm not, not goin' down

In the dirt (Yes, yes, yes)

I'm gonna laugh, I'm gonna laugh, I'm gonna cry, I'm gonna cry

Eat the bread, drink the wine

'Cause I'm finally, finally quenchin'

My thirst, yeah

 

You can't have a light without a little shadow, yeah

Always need a target for your bow and arrow

I want to be drenched in the rain of your heavenly love

Oh, yeah, c'mon (Oh)

 

Let the music, let the music play loud, play loud

Let it burst, let it burst through the clouds, through the clouds

And we all feel the heat

Of the sun, yeah

Yeah, let us sing, let us shout, let us shout

Let us all stand up proud

Let the old still believe

That they're young, yeah

 

Sweet, sweet sound

 

Sounds so sweet, oh, so sweet

Sounds so sweet, so sweet

Heaven, Heaven

Down

Fallin' down, fallin' down

To this Earth

 

That’s pretty religious for Mick Jagger.  You know he supposedly had converted to Catholicism for his first wife, though he’s never spoken about any religious upbringing, so I doubt it was much.

So why am I reminded of this song?  Well, lying in bed in a delirious state felt so isolating, so other worldly that it felt the end was a possibility.  The verses, “No, I'm not, not goin' to Hell/In some dusty motel/And I'm not, not goin' down/In the dirt” resonate.  If you’ve ever been a way alone (business trips for me) in some crappy hotel, the isolation feels overwhelming with perhaps a sense that if I died here no one would really know.  It’s actually a horrible feeling that I’ve had more than once.  Perhaps in that delirious state, eyes half open in a darkened bedroom, alone and feeling almost out of body, might be as close to a premonition of death as one gets.  At least as I’ve gotten.

But then the sweet grace, the sweet sounds, the sweet sense of heaven came down and revived me.  Thank you Lord.

Edit: It's unclear whether Mick Jagger converted to Catholicism or even had a need to convert.  From what I found on the internet, Mick Jagger's father, Basil Fanshawe “Joe” Jagger, had a Catholic funeral.  There are places that claim Mick was raised Catholic.  Still I doubt religion was a big part of his upbringing.

M-W 2021 Word of the Year: Vaccine

I guess that should not be a surprise.  Vaccine is the Word-of-the-Year chosen by Merriam-Webster Dictionary.  According to Merriam-Webster the word “vaccine” shot up in usage this year and defined the year as a word, driven by two phenomena: the savior of society from the coronavirus (or Covid-19, whichever term you prefer for the agent of the pandemic) and the politics associated with vaccination, either from those who embraced vaccination and those who resisted.  It is true.  The word “vaccine” was on our lips and in our ears throughout the year. 

First a definition.  

1: a preparation that is administered (as by injection) to stimulate the body's immune response against a specific infectious agent or disease: such as

 

a: an antigenic preparation of a typically inactivated or attenuated (see ATTENUATED sense 2) pathogenic agent (such as a bacterium or virus) or one of its components or products (such as a protein or toxin)a trivalent influenza vaccineoral polio vaccineMany vaccines are made from the virus itself, either weakened or killed, which will induce antibodies to bind and kill a live virus. Measles vaccines are just that, weakened (or attenuated) measles viruses.— Ann Finkbeiner et al.… a tetanus toxoid-containing vaccine might be recommended for wound management in a pregnant woman if [greater than or equal to] 5 years have elapsed … .— Mark Sawyer et al.In addition the subunit used in a vaccine must be carefully chosen, because not all components of a pathogen represent beneficial immunological targets.— Thomas J. Matthews and Dani P. Bolognesi

 

b: a preparation of genetic material (such as a strand of synthesized messenger RNA) that is used by the cells of the body to produce an antigenic substance (such as a fragment of virus spike protein)… Moderna's coronavirus vaccine … works by injecting a small piece of mRNA from the coronavirus that codes for the virus' spike protein. … mRNA vaccine spurs the body to produce the spike protein internally. That, in turn, triggers an immune response.— Susie Neilson et al.The revolutionary messenger RNA vaccines that are now available have been over a decade in development. … Messenger RNA enters the cell cytoplasm and produces protein from the spike of the Covid-19 virus.— Thomas F. CozzaViral vector vaccines, another recent type of vaccine, are similar to DNA and RNA vaccines, but the virus's genetic information is housed in an attenuated virus (unrelated to the disease-causing virus) that helps to promote host cell fusion and entry.— Priya Kaur

NOTE: Vaccines may contain adjuvants (such as aluminum hydroxide) designed to enhance the strength and duration of the body's immune response.

2: a preparation or immunotherapy that is used to stimulate the body's immune response against noninfectious substances, agents, or diseasesThe U.S. Army is also testing a ricin vaccine and has reported success in mice.— Sue Goetinck Ambrose… many of the most promising new cancer vaccines use dendritic cells to train the immune system to recognize tumor cells.— Patrick Barry

Notice that 1b sub definition: “a preparation of genetic material (such as a strand of synthesized messenger RNA) that is used by the cells of the body to produce an antigenic substance…”  Those are the new vaccines addressing Covid-19 that have been in controversy.  That definition of vaccine was updated this year to include that sub definition.  Until this year with these Covid vaccines I had no idea of this concept, but as I understand it these forms of vaccines have been in development for a while.  In their announcement for Word-of-the-Year, Merriam-Webster described the definition change and the controversy surrounding the word:

 

In everyday use, words are useful tools that communicate assertions, ideas, aspirations, and uncertainties. But they can also become vehicles for ideological conflict.

 

This is what happened to vaccine in 2021. The promising medical solution to the pandemic that upended our lives in 2020 also became a political argument and source of division. The biggest science story of our time quickly became the biggest debate in our country, and the word at the center of both stories is vaccine.

 

Hopes for cures and treatments of COVID-19 began as soon as the disease began to spread. Research into a new kind of vaccine containing messenger RNA, or mRNA, genetic material rather than an inactivated form of the virus was accelerated. After decades of studies conducted for application to diseases such as influenza, Ebola, and rabies, this new type of mRNA vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus was rapidly developed, tested, and manufactured for broad use, with the first doses being administered in the U.S. in December 2020.

 

The use of a vaccine that triggers an immune response in an entirely new way required that Merriam-Webster revise and expand its entry for the word, which the company did in May. The definition, which formerly read “a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular disease,” was replaced with the following:

So did you choose to get vaccinated?  Were you forced to get vaccinated?  Or have you been rebellious and fought to be exempt?  From what I read, vaccines have been lifesaving.  The hospitals are full of the unvaccinated.  We at my family have all chosen to be vaccinated.  I wrote a post about a number of friends who succumbed to the virus, “Covid-19, My New York Experience” before the vaccines.  Since then I had one of my closest friends, Joe, pass away as well, but Joe was vaccinated.  But Joe was rather vulnerable given all his other health issues. 

Here’s a video on the M-W Word of the Year. 

 

So how did vaccine register so high in Merriam-Webster’s awareness?  They explain from their announcement:

 

Interest in the definition of this word was intense in the past year: lookups for vaccine increased 601% year-over-year from 2020. But interest in the word has been high since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with much discussion of the funding, development, testing, and ultimate distribution of the vaccines occurring in 2020. The prominence of the word vaccine in our lives in this era becomes even more starkly clear when we compare 2021 to 2019, a period in which lookups for the word increased 1048%.

 

Lookups of vaccine, already very high all year, jumped by 535% in August, long after discussions about vaccines began taking place in the press and widespread distribution in parts of the world were well underway. A number of stories in August show that discussions about policy, approval, and vaccination rates—rather than the vaccine itself—sent people to the dictionary. During this period, New York and California instituted vaccine mandates for health care workers; a federal mandate was announced for nursing home staff; an announcement of plans for booster shots for the general public in the U.S. prompted condemnations of inequities in vaccine distribution; and full FDA approval for Pfizer’s vaccine was granted.

 

This new higher rate of lookups since August has remained stable throughout the late fall, showing not just a very high interest in vaccine, but one that started high and grew during the course of 2021.

Other words which came up high on their list in 2021: Insurrection, Perseverance, Woke, Nomad, Infrastructure, Cicada, Murraya, Cisgender, Guardian, and Meta.  Their announcement goes through each one as to why it had heightened searches this year.  I guessed why for several but was surprised for the others. 

I leave you with one more video on the Word-of-the-Year, one that is more visual, from Asianet Newsable.

 

So if 2020’s Word-of-the-Year was “pandemic,” and 2021’s was “vaccine,” will 2022’s be “booster”?  Seems like the trend.

Personal Note: Knocked on My Butt By the Vaccine

I don’t get too personal on my blog, but I might as well post about my Covid vaccine experience since it was an experience of note.  I got my second dose of the Moderna on Friday, and, whoa, did the second dose pack a wallop. 

I got the first dose on March 19^th, St. Joseph’s feast day!  Other than the sting in my shoulder afterward, I did not have any symptoms. 

This past Friday, April 16^th, about a month later, I got the second dose.  It didn’t feel any different than the first at the point of being stuck.  That evening I went on to my son’s little league baseball game, a drizzling cold night in April, but I didn’t feel any effects of the vaccine.  That night, just before bedtime, I started shivering.  No matter how many clothes I put on and how many blankets I put over me, I could not stop shivering.  I had no idea if I had fever because I didn’t get out of bed to check.  I barely slept.  I trembled with chills all night.

In the morning I checked my temperature.  I had a mild fever.  I still had chills, but when I got out of bed my muscles resisted the simplest motion.  I had no strength.  I stayed in bed all day.  I took Advil, which brought the fever down.  The chills came and went but they never went away completely.  My wife (God bless her) got me a large order of Wonton Soup.  It helped.  I had it for lunch and for dinner.

Then in the evening the fever started rising.  What was mild (99 to 100 degrees) climbed to 101, then 102, and even a 103.  I started to worry.  Took more Advil and eventually came down.  I slept that second night and when I woke up I felt it had gone away.  I still felt weak, but temperature was normal, and I could do some low stress chores.  It’s now evening of the second day, and I feel close to normal.  I can’t say I feel 100% strength, it’s good 75%.

My left shoulder, where the needle punctured me hurts.  I don’t remember it hurting this much on the first dose.  It feels more like a wasp sting, if you have ever had that unpleasant experience.  The hurt seems to spread over a lot more area than the sting, and it hurts for a lot longer than you would expect.

I had a number of vaccines when I had to travel internationally, and I don’t recall anything like this.  This was tough.  A friend told me the more the reaction to the vaccine, the greater than immunity one builds.  I don’t know if that’s true, but I hope so.

My wife, my mother, and my mother-in-law have all had the same second dose of Moderna.  My mother had some chills, a headache, never measured a fever, but on the second day had a blood pressure drop which caused her to faint.  We took her to the Emergency Room but they didn’t seem to think it was related to the vaccine.  The follow up doctor said it was possible.  My mother-in-law had chills and mild fever and headaches and enervated.  She felt terrible for a few days.  My wife did not have any chills but felt enervated.  She was the least affected by it.

My blogger friend Jan had a colorful way of describing her vaccine experience.  This from her first dose  and this from her second.  LOL.

It does feel like I was hit by a truck.  But I do recommend getting vaccinated.  I don’t know if one has similar reactions with the other types of vaccines, but from what I have read the Moderna provides the best immunity.  It’s worth the peace of mind. 

Personal Note: Happy New Year 2021

Aren’t we all glad to get rid of 2020?  Here are a few graphics to commemorate 2020 and bring on the New Year.

 

 

 

 

I have to say, this is a really cool video to sum up 2020 and have hope for 2021.

 

 

So when that ball drops tonight and it’s 2021, you have my permission to party!

 

 

 

 

 

Matthew Monday: Haircut

Well, Matthew finally got a haircut since the lockdown from the coronavirus.  It’s been six months since we’ve been locked down, and I think he needed a haircut going into the lockdown.  So it’s been quite a while.  Now at some point his mother had trimmed his hair.  That was a few months ago.  I wanted to take a picture before that to show what a mess it was, but he wouldn’t let me.  My post on our family and adjusting to the lock down shows a picture of Matthew back in June.  I think my wife had given him a trim at that point.  

My wife’s trimming wasn’t too bad actually, but it was only around the outside.  On top of his head had become a real mop.  So the Mall finally was allowed to open and the place she takes him was available, and this is what came out of it.

That’s one of the best haircuts he’s ever gotten.  It looks great. 

Let me whisper and tell you a secret: He’s ten days away from his eleventh birthday.  Shh!

Personal Essay: Welcome Back Home

Today after fifteen weeks, I returned to Mass since the Coronavirus caused the lockdown.   It was the first Sunday Mass allowed in New York City, the first Mass had been allowed this past Monday.  I had not the opportunity to go the entire week.

Yes, we had to wear masks.  Yes every other row was cordoned off from sitting, and there were tape marks on the pews locating a six foot distance.  My church has two center aisle sets of rows of pews and one set on each side.  The two outer set could be used for families where one was not required to sit six feet apart. 

People were, however, required to fill out from the front of the church towards the back.  As it is my habit to get there a half hour early, I sat in the first row on the family side with my son.  There would be no collection at offertory, but everyone should drop their envelope or offering in the basket at the rear of the church.  That is how I know we missed fifteen weeks of Mass.  I had fifteen envelopes at home before I got to the one with today’s date.

Everyone wore masks, even our music director, Ms. Williams.  There was no choir and she sang alone with the mask on.  We were actually surprised to see her.  We thought it would be a bare-bones, no music Mass.  There were no altar servers or readers.  The priest had to do all the readings.  But there was precious music.

Father Eugene was alone in procession on the opening hymn, wearing a mask, but thankfully took it off once he got behind the altar.  Before Mass, when he came out to ensure the altar was set proper, I was able to speak to him.  If you remember I mentioned he lost hismother to the virus early on.  I passed my sympathies to him, and then he told me between family and friends he had lost six to the virus.  Oh my, I was stunned.  What a cross he has had to bear through this.  My son said he had a tear in his eye when he was retelling it.  I was so stunned I had looked away and not noticed. 

There were no missals to avoid sanitizing them, but I knew this would be, so I took with me my monthly Magnificat which has all the readings. 

And then we stood for the opening hymn, “Table of Plenty.”

Come to the feast of heaven and earth!

Come to the table of plenty!

God will provide for all that we need,

Here at the table of plenty.

As the organ played and Ms. Williams, opera voiced trained, sang, Father Eugene in green vestments walked down the nave, genuflected as he faced the tabernacle, held that genuflection on his knee for a good moment, walked up the altar steps, got behind the altar, took off his black mask, bent over and kissed the top of the altar as is custom, and stood facing the congregation.  “Welcome back home,” were his first words.

And for the next hour, all the troubles of the last fifteen weeks, the virus, the lockdown, the ventilators, the deaths, the protests, the riots, the statues, the cops, the cancel culture, the controversies all disintegrated into particles one by one before one’s eyes and fell from the air like dust mites.  Time suddenly transformed into the timeless time of heaven, and peace settled into the sacred space.

I love Collin Raye’s version of that classic!

Music Tuesday: Living in a Ghost Town by the Rolling Stones

A week and a half ago I posted a personal essay, “Covid-19, My New YorkExperience,” on what it has been like here in New York City over this virus shutdown.  

As it turns out, the rock group, The Rolling Stones put out a single on the subject of our new living conditions.  It’s called “Living in a Ghost Town,” and it’s pretty cool.  For those that don’t know or don’t remember, I happen to be a Rolling Stones fan, so maybe I’m biased.  Here’s the single for Music Tuesday.

First, here's the official video. 

I love those “whoah whoah.”  And Jagger’s harmonica is just great.

And I liked the clips in this video as it took you around the world to various cities.  This version also has an extra verse.

I couldn’t make up my mind as to which video to embed, so I did both.  Which do you prefer?

Personal Essay: Covid-19, My New York Experience

I can’t help but feel that there are two different experiences in the country with the corona virus.  There is the east coast experience and there is the rest of the country.  When one looks at the state by state numbers, the two states of New York and New Jersey make up about a third of all the cases in the country and over 40% of the deaths.  And the New York State numbers are incredibly skewed to New York City.  I think it’s pretty much acknowledged that New York City and the surrounding suburbs have been the epicenter of the contagion.  It does not surprise me then that we are reacting to the lockdown differently.  (Of course this excludes the lack of lockdown to the recent riots across the country.  Does the lockdown even matter any more?)

Here is my experience as a New Yorker, albeit one from Staten Island, which is subtly different than one from Manhattan.   But Manhattan has actually been spared, relatively speaking.  It’s the outer boroughs of the city that has absorbed the brunt of the pandemic.

First let me thank God that no one in my family has contracted the virus.  We are all healthy, both immediate and extended family.  We are definitely stressed out being locked at home and forced to go out with masks and gloves.  But our families are also intact, though I’ve heard some have been on edge.  My immediate family—wife and ten year old Matthew—have not come to any fistfights—and in some ways has brought us closer together.  It’s been about twelve weeks since I’ve been teleworking, and my son started “teleschooling” the week prior.

Second, it’s a good thing that my work dispersed employees and enacted a work-from-home rule.  Of the 3500-ish employees, and we work in New Jersey, I have heard that some 40-something contracted the virus.  That’s not even an up to date number.  That’s more than a month old.  I don’t know how many were hospitalized or maybe even died, though I think it would have gotten out if anyone died.  Still, if we were getting some 1% infected rate while dispersed, I think we would have had quite a large number of infections if we were enclosed our poorly ventilated buildings.

Third, I know of four people from the neighborhood who have contracted the virus and died, two of them friends.  Of the two who were not friends, one was the mother of our pastor at our church, the other a retired member of my Lay Dominican chapter.  Of the two friends who passed, one was a current member of my Lay Dominican chapter.  Her name was Meg and was 85 years old. I think she was in the hospital about ten days or so, and mid-way in her stay this came from her brother:

"She struggled at first. She was unconscious for two days. She is on oxygen, but she is not eating. She had trouble with her kidneys and her liver. They are giving her medicine and [she is] getting better. She still has a long way to go."

A few days later we got word she had passed away.  Meg had survived pneumonia last year—she had been in intensive care—but she did not survive Corona.  Meg was a sweet and devout lady.  She had been a Lay Dominican at least some fifty years.  She never actually said this, but it always felt that Meg thought of me as a son. Eternal rest grant onto her, O Lord.

The other friend who passed was Luigi.  Luigi’s passing was even harder to take.  In early March I think it was, Luigi fell from some stairs inside his home and broke some ribs and was in the hospital for about a week.  This was before the virus lockdown had occurred but the virus had come in to the US in some degree.  In the hospital it appears he caught the corona virus, came home and after a couple of week it blossomed and he had high fever.  He was taken to the ER and placed in ICU and eventually on a ventilator.  He was in ICU for at least a couple of weeks—I’ve lost track of the time span.  No family was ever allowed to see him the whole time he was at the hospital.  He spent the whole time alone, mostly in a coma and without any knowledge of his progress or lack thereof.  He died a lonely death.  The only thing they could do with the body was have it cremated from what I understand.  His family never got to see him again after he went to the hospital that second time. 

My mother and Luigi were wall neighbors of semi-attached homes, so they saw each other every day. Whenever she had an emergency it was Luigi to the rescue. He spoke Italian with my mother, so it was a person she could communicate with. Actually, not just Italian. It so happened that his family and my family were from the same region of Italy, so they spoke the same dialect. He was like a family member. My mother was friends with his mother before his mother passed away. After his mother passed away, Luigi told me that he considered my mother his mother.

Luigi was always so kind and upbeat and jovial. I don't remember him ever being down. He was very talkative, very much an extrovert, and would do anything for you. Italian men can be extroverts, and if you know that type of Italian, that was Luigi.  I pass his house every day and I still see his car there.  He was only 58 years old.  I noticed from his funeral card, which included his birthdate and printed without actually having a wake, we were six months apart.  My mother reflecting on his death said something to the effect, “I’m not afraid of dying, but this is not how I want to die.”

Eternal rest grant unto Luigi, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May God have mercy on his soul and may he rest in eternal peace.

After Luigi passed away, I got to meet (virtually, not through in person contact) one of the nurses who had taken care of him in ICU.  Her name is Florence.  This is what she wrote about being an ICU nurse during the height of the inflammation:

"The corona virus is an unforgiving entity. Most of what it ravages are the elderly, but it has also taken the lives of as young as healthy 21 year olds that we've seen. These past few days, the disease had started to slow down, but midway March was hell I tell you. The number of cases and the severity of it was bad. Horrible. Our hospital was not ready and the workers were overwhelmed, turning about fifteen units into COVID ICUs and the rest into regular COVID units. I feel lucky that I got critical care experience which had been useful in this pandemic. I feel sympathetic to the nurses who turned into ICU nurses overnight, titrating medications and dealing with ventilators for the first time. Every night there are code blues after code blues overhead, and there was not a night where nobody died. It's especially heartbreaking that visitations are restricted, so most of the patients die alone. We can't even properly mourn for the patient--we would shed a tear, say a prayer, but then we have to get back to work because there are still the living to tend to."

That comment about the hell of mid-March reminded me of an observation I had at the time.  On the hour I would be hearing sirens.  More than on the hour.  Several siren brays per hour.  How many fires could there possibly be, I asked myself?  And then I realized it wasn’t fire engines or police cars but ambulances.  Ambulances were in constant rush, and I realized that with each ambulance blare some poor soul was in a state of mortal crises.  Every time I heard a siren, I would stop and say a prayer for that soul.  I saw in the news at some point that at the height there were literally hundreds of ambulance calls per day.

That has been my experience when it comes for those infected. My personal experience has been significantly more pleasant.  At least my commute is simpler.  Instead of an hour each way, now it’s thirty seconds.  I roll out of bed and stroll to my study! 

Fortunately (or unfortunately) I have to report that I’m as efficient teleworking as I am physically in the office.  Conference calls can be a bit of a struggle with people talking over each other, but things get done.  The experience must be mirrored across the organization.  Maybe even the nation.  There is no rush to end the teleworking, and there has been a discussion on having cyclical teleworking groups, even after this is all over. 

I’ve read in the news that kids are either doing poorly or behind in their school work.  Not my son.  I can’t speak for the others in his class, but he has been doing super.  His grades are way up.  Matthew happens to be a very social and gregarious kid, so I think being away from his classmates reduces the distractions and makes him focus.  He has classes on Zoom and gets email assignments.  He submits through email and gets graded through email.  Thank God his school was on top of this.  They’ve done a great job.

Also, Matthew gets to see me work and interact on my conference calls.  I think watching a professional work environment conditions his behavior since so much of what kids do is emulative.  Plus he can take breaks and go out front and dribble his basketball in between the Zoom classes.  This has been a blessing in disguise when it comes to my son’s education.

Thank God all my conference calls have been over the phone.  I am not prepared for a visual conference.  When I had a real commute, I would shower and shave every morning.  Now I do it every few days and it’s not in the morning.  Plus I don’t get out of sweat clothes until after work either.  I’m not a sight to see.  And I can really use a haircut.  Please Lord, let the barbershops open soon.

I think my health has also improved from the lockdown.  Without that commute I get an extra hour of sleep and I take the dog for a forty-five minute walk before dinner.  I’ve actually lost a couple of pounds.  It might even be more than that since I think the hair on my head now must be adding a pound or two to my weight…lol.  How much does hair weigh anyway?

Being constantly home does get boring.  We haven’t been out for dinner the whole time.  Occasionally we order something in, but that’s been a way to give us a treat.  My wife and I try to beat each other for a reason to go out to the store.  Wearing mask and gloves of course.  One day she’ll call dibs and another day I’ll box her out and call first.  Anything to get a change of scenery.  I don’t know if that’s what God intended when He created marriage, but that’s what it has come down to.  "With this ring, I thee wed, in sickness and in health, in pandemic or in wealth, till corona do us part." 

The worst part of the lockdown I think has been not being able to go to church on Sunday.  We watch Mass on TV but it’s not the same.  Roman Catholics require the physical communion of the Blessed Sacrament.  You can’t get that over a screen.  Still, given the relative age of our parish congregation, I think it was the right thing to stop Mass.  The virus would have spread like wild fire throughout the parish. 

Has this all been worth it?  My experience would say yes.  People from other parts of the country tell me they don’t know of anyone who has come down with the virus, let alone someone who has died from it.  Here it’s quite different.  Everyone knows of someone, and everyone knows of a death.  Certainly with foreknown knowledge of everything we could have had a more optimized plan.  Some claim it is no different than the flu.  That’s was my opinion back in early March.  My opinion evolved dramatically.  We’ve more than exceeded the number of deaths of the worst flu season in less than three months, and while going through extreme preventative and lockdown procedures, and it’s not over yet.  My guess at looking at the different curves of transmission and fatality rates, I would estimate we would have had three to four times the mortality if we had done nothing.  Except for the horrendous decision to send virus infected patients to nursing homes, I feel the process was as best as could be expected given the level of knowledge we had.

That’s my New York experience.  I can understand how people in the open air states in the west see it differently.  But be aware, even in those western states when people in factories are placed in close proximity, the infection rates go up.  Enclosed space seems to be one of the leading variables.