A Plague upon ALL of Your Houses

It's a pretty little bugger of a virus, ain't it?

I picked a helluva time to be immunocompromised.

Sigh.

This whole COVID-19 is the strangest thing, isn't it? Due to the stay-at-home non-orders in place (at least where I live... thanks, Herbert), a good portion of the population is cooped up at home. Not nearly as many as should be, but whatever. That's a topic for another day. Here's the thing about being confined to the house: home feels normal. I mean, this much time at home maybe doesn't, but home is usually a sanctuary. A place to feel safe and secure.

So, for maybe three-quarters of the time, I feel like I'm fine. This is fine. Everything's fine.

Totally fine.

The other one-quarter of the time is me thinking we're all going to die.

Something like that.

The discordance between these two states causes a real sense of surreality. Nothing feels real right now. It's like we're in the middle of some horrific gameshow.

Man, I loved that show.

I want to be very clear about something. I am very privileged. I have a job (for the moment) that I can do from home. I have a home. I have food. I have toilet paper, y'all. I have family members quarantined with me I happen to like as well as love. There are so many who are in far worse circumstances than those in which I find myself.

That doesn't keep me from having some VERY BIG FEELINGS about all of this.

All of these, with some additional ones for seasoning.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm also quarantined with a PMSy 15-year-old girl in the middle of her first breakup? Yeah. That's happening too.

I've said that my wife's a nurse. I'm pretty sure I've also stated that she works in high-risk labor and delivery. What may not be as apparent to those not-in-the-know is that she works in only one of two departments in the hospital that are currently taking people right off the street.

In every department but the emergency room and labor and delivery, there's now some kind of a vetting process in place to screen for the 'rona. But when you've got a woman in the throes of a current contraction, ain't nobody gonna stand in her way. Which poses a problem for the nurses. Essentially, every patient has to be treated as if they have the virus.

My wife, who already has WAY TOO MUCH on her plate, now has to worry about whether or not she's transporting the dreaded COVID home to her at-risk husband. And, once again, we go through cycles of "hey, this is okay... there's nothing to worry about" and "I am a harbinger of death. Abandon hope, all ye with whom I come into contact."

With many, MANY apologies to Dante.

Soooooo... that's happening.

I guess I should catch everyone up on what my myriad tests have told me. Or rather, NOT told me. I no longer have pneumonia (yay). I have no vegetation growing in my heart (yay). I am not, as far as anyone can tell, the victim of a vampire (double yay).

My red blood cell count refuses to go up. I am currently operating on about half what a normal, healthy male has. This causes me to be perpetually tired, as if that weren't already a thing. It also causes me to get easily winded if I walk from one end of the house to the other. Finally, I start to pass out if I stand up too fast.

Good times. Good times.

The two main potential culprits are the antibiotic I'm on and the maintenance chemotherapy drug I started about a month ago. Either way, it's no bueno. I need the antibiotic as a prophylactic measure against the nasties and uglies out there wanting to invade my poor, compromised body. The chemo drug is what lowers the possibility of my cancer coming back.

Double sigh.

In spite of all of that, I'm feeling pretty good. I haven't, from the beginning of all this, felt like it was "my time to go." I still don't. Yes, I'm being super careful, but even if I get the 'rona, I do not plan on going gentle into that good night. I will rage, rage against the dying of the light. This virus will not be what takes me down.

I got $#!+ to do here still.
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Up next: the whole Coronavirus situation from the perspective of my dog.