My mind is foggy and a bit blurry. It was all about putting one foot in front of the other. Covid-19 was exhausting but I live (thank God) to tell the tale. Medium bear brought it home from school and Big bear and Baby bear were already isolating due to cases in their bubbles. A fairly typical story for the times we are in, it started with a low fever on the first Saturday after school closed.
I have seen fevers that are higher and experienced illnesses that have floored my children more. The kids all got through it quickly enough. We – the parents — eventually got it — and so did the grandparents. The virus slinks its way into the house and those initial days when we had one confirmed positive case but waiting and distancing to see who was affected was not a fun place to be. The fear and impending doom, watching and wondering how bad it would get and how the story would be told.
We isolated Medium bear and kept her away from the grandparents. There were a couple of nights that were particularly bad when all three children were ill; trying to keep the sick ones separated from the even sicker ones. I cursed myself for not having trained Baby bear to sleep and stay asleep in his bed. Truth be told, I still love cuddling up to him. It’s just a bit of a hassle when I have work to finish off and, it’s hard to stay awake when I’m snuggling into a blanket with him. It’s just that I know this time will pass, so am not putting in the extra work to shift a habit that I know he will phase out of – eventually.
Medium bear — on the other hand — was having the time of her life. She got isolated in a room with a TV. Her meals served into her room and, by the time she was getting better, I was under the weather and didn’t have the energy to censor the amount of TV she was watching. The other two bears got better pretty quick and shared the bounty of a TV in the bedroom. I hope the month of binge-watching TV doesn’t stunt them developmentally. 2020 was the year we – finally – got our money’s worth from the Christmas TV guide purchase.
What did I learn from this experience? As lovely as texts and phone calls were, there were random acts of people dropping off food that touched me. Words are the easy part, those that translated into action were at a different level. I could never get myself to ask for help, but when it was given without asking, it helped me to heal.
I had the shock of my life when I started cooking again and couldn’t smell the spices that I was tempering! My nose was not blocked, but I had lost my ability to smell! On the other hand, I do not have to endure the nasal onslaught of the storms that occur under our duvets after a bean curry dinner.
Every cloud has a silver lining my mother always said.
On the tail end of things, the grandparents got it with the smoker amongst them faring well. I told Papa bear that maybe we should take up smoking to stay on the safer side of things. He was not amused – there is a reason that he is the saner half.
Grandma has taken a longer time to recover, developing a secondary infection that is difficult to shake off. The virus is a curious one; you cannot predict who it will impact and to what extent. I can breathe (but not smell) easy again, an achievement in these times.
Aasiya I Versi