I figure it's just allergies, brought on by the unusually warm spring we’ve been having. I take a COVID test and it reads negative. While I know how unreliable those little plastic strips can be, I allow it to comfort me.
I go in for my treatment as usual but they send me home because my blood sugar is too low. I go back to bed and wake up hacking and sniffling. I finish watching the ugly, paranoid alien invasion show that is no doubt exacerbating my ugly, paranoid state of mind. Somewhere in there the Widder drops off some boxes along with fish from the food bank. I quickly fill the boxes, then try to sleep but only snatch a few minutes here and there.
There is a poetry reading that night. Before I go, I take another COVID test and once again it’s negative, so I put on a mask and head to the reading. It’s a good reading but I feel my brain fogging over. When I get home I take another test and this one is positive. The following morning I take one last one and that too is positive.
By this time, a constant stream of mucus is flowing out of me, and only with great concentration can I keep from coughing. I run out of ibuprofen to dull the rolling headaches, and start getting the chills. I had COVID three years ago, but this time feels much worse. I know I should be grateful; it wasn’t so long ago that the idea of catching this was calamitous rather than merely irritating.
I call wound care and they say to not come in until next week, that the interruption in my treatment shouldn’t be an issue. I then call my primary and he phones in an order for Paxlovid to help diminish my symptoms. After waiting a while and not getting a response from the pharmacy, I give them a call. They say my insurance ran out, and without it the medicine costs $1500. The panic I’ve been trying so hard to tamp down roars to life.
The timing of all of this could hardly be worse. I’m scheduled to get the keys to my new unit in four days, and I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. My biggest fear with this move was that I would get sick or hurt myself. Is this a sign that I’m making a terrible mistake? I feel swept downward in a whirlpool of shitty circumstances, and everything I try to do to improve my lot just sucks me in deeper. I can see the humor in the whole ridiculous situation, but I'm having trouble laughing about it. Besides, it would hurt my chest to do so.
The Widder drops off some more boxes, and I spend the day slowly packing books. I’m easily winded, and I lie down whenever I start to feel lightheaded, which is often. The cat seems puzzled that I’m home. I can barely walk, I can barely see, and now I can barely breathe. On top of it I’m trapped in my apartment until I’m not contagious. How many more obstacles do I have to hurdle? How small does my world have to shrink until there’s no room left for even me?
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