I’m still weaker than I understood. I am holding a ceramic cup I got from the potter when on one of my book tours at a rez near Red Wing, Minnesota. Every so often I spill some coffee because the cup has just gotten too heavy.
What I want to tell you is not about me except in the sense I bring news from where you don’t get lots of reports.
On Easter, I was taken to an isolation ward because my symptoms all matched an infection from this beast the entire world is fighting. The outcome was that I had a serious infection but not that infection.
What I want to report back to you is what went through my mind on that ride because your family or you might face the same thing.
It was so much, so much, so much worse than my (correct) diagnosis of cancer a couple of years ago.
The difference was that when I had cancer every one of my kids and most of my older grandkids visited me in the hospital. I heard from old friends and some old enemies. Before long, I was viewing cancer from within a cocoon of love and support that made me feel that my life, if it was about to end, counted for something.
Contrast my Easter ambulance ride.
That door in the back slammed shut with Tracy on the other side. I was really sick, but it still penetrated the fog that I might have just seen my wife of 25 years for the last time.
I time-traveled those 25 years, starting with how she accepted me into her bed and her life knowing I was damaged goods. She knew that I had just lost the love of my life….she once told me flat out that she knew that if we met again in the spirit world, she would have to share me with Donna.
She did not require me to not feel what I was feeling. She took me the way I was.
The relationship started on an extreme high, aided by the fact that Donna had been gravely ill and fought through open heart surgery such that preparations had been made. I arranged what loot we had to avoid probate and she didn’t exactly “give me permission” to remarry — she told me I would in no uncertain terms. Then she lived though the awful stuff…only to have a very unexpected stroke much later.
Donna and I had been good for each other.
Tracy picked me up from the emotional crash and of course the next 25 years had ups and downs but it was all in all a great movie playing in my head on the way to the hospital with a sad ending.
Adding to not being able to say goodbye was there would be no more human touch. The people at St. David’s were kind and concerned for my comfort…or so I thought from being able to see their eyes and hear their voices somewhat muffled by the masks.
Should you be ambushed by the enemy, you probably ought to shoo away your family yourself to minimize danger to them.
So, from the time of diagnosis, there will be no hugs, no kisses, and not even skin-to-skin contact with those paladins in scrubs who will fight like hell to save your life or, failing that, try to make you comfortable.
The major thing I’m trying to warn you about is the suddenness of your human ties breaking. Try to keep your relationships in good repair, because if you are attacked by coronavirus you will fight alone and there will be no do-overs.
I end with thanks to the medical people in the moon suits who took care of me. The people who go to work every day in those isolation wards are truly the paladins of the 21st century and we should all acquaint them with the phrase that follows around ex-GIs:
Thank you for your service.
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Previously Published on Medium
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