Side Effects

 

This ugly virus can be blamed for much more than the mayhem it causes directly. We have the joined the ranks of who knows how many thousands or millions who have loved ones in medical and long term facilities and can't visit to offer comfort or be involved in care.

You know it's horrible when you read about it. You feel compassion and deep sadness for those facing it. However, nothing can prepare you for what it is like to have no contact but telephone calls to overworked nurses and doctors who barely speak English. To be utterly helpless, prisoners of covid laws.

My poor mom, whom many of you know well from Facebook, is in ICU in Amsterdam and struggling against the treatment she needs to live. She does NOT have covid. The nurse says they explain to her why she needs the mask, but the low oxygen the the mask should correct makes her confused, and she won't let them keep it on her. I am beyond certain that if one her children or their families could be there holding her hand and reassuring her she would relent. 

Instead the best they can offer is an iPad chat when she feels better. Or should I say if?

 I would like to yell at someone or pound on something, but there is no one directly involved here that is responsible for what is happening. Distant lawmakers, distant criminals in distant countries, people with no dogs in our personal fight, have decreed that this is how life will continue or end and there isn't one damned thing we can do about it. That does not help with the stress of the situation.

Meanwhile I am staying with Dad, which is a struggle I don't discuss right now. Let's just say I need my home and the outdoors and my own bed and my peeps. I just sneaked out to walk up the field behind the house for a few minutes in the first hour of the sun and that helped a bit. Out seems to be my natural environment.

 At the same time it unleashed a cascade of memories of when this was home...mostly of winters, as the fields were in crops in summer. We slid down the big hill on boards strapped to our feet with bits of leather that were loosely known as skis in those days. Raced like mad down the same hill with more kids piled on toboggans and sleds than could be easily imagined. Tumbled off at the bottom losing boots, finding our socks full of snow, and sporting new bruises that didn't slow us down a bit.

Getting "lost" in the tall corn that grew almost up to the house in summer. As county kids we always knew our way out but it was fun to pretend.

I could go on and on about football, dummy training rifles and war games that were okay then, and yes I had one, and yes, I played too.

But I won't right now. It just was a shock to have all those bygone days come racing into my poor tired brain. I wasn't going to write about this personal battle we are facing, but I find that I need to put my thoughts into words, and many of us in the far flung internet community rely on one another in times like these. I would be most grateful for any prayers or good thoughts you could offer. And it makes me feel much better to "talk" to you.

Love to all.