This is 43

One movie that I have watched multiple times is "This is 40." It's one of those movies that will come on tv and if I come across it, I'll pick it. It's about a couple who are 40 somethings. They have 2 daughters - one a surly adolescent, the other an elementary aged. The husband is having financial problems with work. The wife is trying to stay youthful and fit when she finds out that she is pregnant. Having another child was not in their plans and life clearly feels chaotic and out of control, but ultimately they are ok. 

I like it because it makes sense. Life is messy, but that mess is where we find joy.

My 43rd birthday is on February 15, 2021. There will be no party invites. We are under quarantine for the foreseeable future. Yep. COVID 19 has us under house arrest. 

In late January, we found out that a teacher at preschool had been exposed. Then she tested positive. She is ok, thank goodness. While we don't know which teacher it was, we love all the teachers at the preschool and want all of them to be well. The thought of anyone of them being sick or feeling guilty about exposing others really breaks our hearts. 

This in turn, shut down the preschool for a couple of weeks and changed some of the guidelines for when they return. It also meant that we were considered exposed and couldn't return to our work place. All four of us were now officially in quarantine. 

Eli tested positive and was sick for a couple of days. It was extremely minor. He was basically sleepy. No real congestion, no fever - just sleepy and an upset tummy. In fact, even during that he was extremely happy. This extended our quarantine dates to late February.

Everyone tested negative and we continued to work from home. I however, found it extremely frustrating. I had the constant nag of work and no private place to do it. Not only that, Aaron HAD to teach. There were kids expecting him to be on screen teaching math at a certain time each day. I wanted to make sure Eli was taken care of and snuggled because no mama likes it when her baby is sick. Poor Josiah couldn't understand why we couldn't go to school. By Thursday I was so exhausted and frustrated with the whole scene I was in tears.  

Friday I woke up congested and exhausted. I called in sick to work. Got another COVID test. And just like that, our quarantine days were extended into March.

I have the COVID. 

When someone test positive, it's essentially 24 days of being shut down. It's 10 days for the person who is sick and 14 days on top of that for everyone else in the house. At this point, if anyone else in the house gets it, our quarantine days will run into late March or even April. For a family of 4 in a little old house, in winter, this is tough. It's house arrest. It's safe to say that for the first week of this we were all a little stir crazy in making the adjustment. But when I got sick and the timeline extended, we all just kind of threw our hands up and settled in.

By Saturday, I was just congested and tired. Superbowl Sunday, I felt pretty good. But by Monday morning, it was woman down. I got up, I drank my coffee, I walked to the kitchen to get some food where I ended up sitting on the floor gasping for air for a few minutes. We called my doctor when they opened and they sent me to a respiratory diagnostic clinic. 

The clinic idea was presented to me as something very benign, just gonna check you out, no big deal. Within 5 minutes of being in the parking lot I realized this is not where people go who are well and just getting checked out. A nurse in full protective gear escorted me up a ramp where I had to stop twice to catch my breath to a trailer where no one touched the door handles. They listened to my raspy lungs, checked my oxygen levels, checked my neurological signs to make sure I wasn't having a stroke, made me walk down the hallway, took some blood to make sure I didn't have a blood clot, and gave me an EKG. Then they offered the emergency room where they thought a CT scan would be a good idea. Or maybe an xray. 

How did I go from sitting on the couch drinking coffee feeling fine to being this weak and having lungs on fire and having this fully suited up person checking me out with these aggressive measures? Yes I felt awful. But was I really that awful? 

All my results came back fine. I didn't go to the ER. No blood clot. Great EKG. The conclusion was, and I quote, "This is a very typical presentation of COVID 19 in females in their mid to late forties. At your age what we need to watch for is signs of blood clots...."

Just a lady in her mid to late forties with COVID. No big deal. Here's an inhaler and some prednisone. Watch for signs of a blood clot and for pneumonia. Thanks for coming in.

I wanted to stop at Chic-fil-a on the way home. Because when you go to a doctor's appointment you should always get some of God's chosen chicken and waffle fries. You should always get it when you go shopping too. But there was no point. I couldn't smell or taste anything. And can you imagine anything worse that having a warm bag of Chic-fil-a next to you after a doctor's appointment like that and not being able to taste or smell the pure comfort and joy that it brings to core of your soul? That's when I knew that COVID 19 came straight from the depths of hell. Only Satan himself would create something so heinous, so cruel. 

I ended up getting a chest xray a couple days later. My lungs are clear. Just an lady in her mid to late forties with COVID 19. No big deal. 

Currently I have had COVID for 10 days. So, what has it been like? What should a woman in her mid to late forties expect this to look like? It's different for everyone. But here's what I had:

1 - Fatigue and fuzzy thinking. To the point where I got emotional. 

2 - Congestion and runny nose, on top of fatigue and fuzzy thinking. By the end of the day, no taste, no smell.

3 - Same.

4 - Felt amazingly better.

5 - Officially and literally on my butt. Fatigue, dizziness, gasping for air, lungs on fire, runny nose, weak all over, must lay down. 

6 - Same but tried to work through it a little bit for the sake of the family.

7 - Surrender. No working through it. Go to sleep. Allow the house to fall apart and let your husband take care of the kids. Less gasping for air because I wasn't moving around that much. Fatigue like I've never experienced. Lungs on FIRE. 

8 - Same.

9 - Same, but with slight fever. 

Here we are on day 10 and I just got a fever yesterday. If you google it, fever should be the first sign. COVID is simply inconsistent. And that's why for the past year of this pandemic, we've been frozen. We can't figure out how to move forward because we don't know how to move forward. So here we are, almost a year later frustrated, tired, worried, confused, angry, wanting to be "normal" and free but not knowing how to make that happen. So instead we point our fingers and shame others. Or hide behind multiple masks in a cloud of 90% alcohol hand sanitizer that smells like tequila. Or we stand in defiance bare faced and free. All because of a very inconsistent virus. 

For the record - I have been all of the above. At times, defiant and angry and other times, fearful I've made no progress on wrapping my head around it all. 

Except for the moment in the car when I realized it all came from the devil himself. 

Seriously. 

Anything that gets in the way of the enjoyment and celebration of God's chosen chicken is nothing short of pure evil. 

So for my 43rd birthday, I won't eat cake because I can't taste it and that's just a waste of calories. I won't sing because I can't get enough air. I won't have a party because I'm not able to be around others. I'll probably have hot flashes because I'm 43 and that's a thing now.  

I will snuggle my precious infant son and make him laugh because that is the best sound I've ever heard. I will also get tight squeezes and ugga mugga's from my almost 4 year old because those things truly heal me. I'll be extremely thankful to a husband who has kept the house running while I've been crippled by COVID for over a week. 

I might even wear new pajamas.