I became a Covid victim this week. The timing was exceedingly unfriendly. And if anybody ever qualified for a guilt trip, it’d have to be me.

Last week, son Matthew’s peritoneal dialysis failed. After urgent phone calls, medical tests, exams, corrective surgery, and a total of four days without effective dialysis, we spent the weekend agonizing – while waiting to learn what the doctors would decide.

On Monday – Day 1 – I woke up with a sore throat, a cough and lots of sneezing. Must be a cold, I thought.

A couple of hours of encouraging phone support with the nurses at the kidney center was helping but not solving the dialysis problem. Son-in-law Curt and granddaughter Josie did the chores and bedded down the animals, and Curt ran errands and brought home fast food so we didn’t have to cook.

I think my own contribution to the activities that day involved a lot of worry, wringing of my hands, and nothing constructive. Also a lot of coughing, endless sneezing, and the infectious sharing of all manner of germs.. It finally dawned on me that I better put on a mask. Oddly, I couldn’t eat, and it was becoming obvious that maybe my “cold” had more evil intentions.

Coughed, coughed, and coughed all night till the phone rang that morning – Day 2. It was Matt’s nurse at the kidney center with more questions and instructions for Susy.

That’s when I knew I was sidelined! Matt was already at high risk. Any help I could give him or Susy could be bad for either of them and the whole family could get sick. By the end of Day 2, I was feeling miserable, partly because of the worsening “cold”, but also because I was watching and hearing all the effort Susy was making to keep everything going with no support from me. It was quite horrible.

Early the next morning – Day 3 of my inconvenient Covid germs – the doctor called to say that Matt’s peritoneal dialysis has to be discontinued and replaced with hemodialysis, a major change in his plan of care. The latter method has to be performed 3 days a week at a kidney center in nearby Enumclaw. We were to stand by and await a call for the day and time for the first procedure. Later, in Day 4, we got the call that it had been scheduled for the following day.

I spent most of Covid Days 3 and 4 in my room coughing and stewing with worry – and sleeping 12 hours per day – while Susy dealt with all of Matt’s intensive care, and the cooking, cleaning, laundry, phone calls, scheduling, and – aided and abetted by Curt and Josie – the farm chores and the care and feeding of 2 horses, a pony, and 7 donkeys. And she even kept all the vases full of fresh dahlias.

Then came Day 5. Matt’s new hemodialysis procedure was successful! Amazing! Deo gratias! Also either because of that good news, or the effects of whatever that Paxlovid medicine is, I started feeling better! Still germy though, so unless Susy is our next Covid victim, she’ll still have to continue to captain our “home hospital” solo while still deserted by her mother.

I’ll be saving this cartoon for when she can finally have an hour off!

, , , But this is what I hope she’ll be doing soon after.