My Backyard Deck
Frankfort Square, Illinois
“I had a dream last night that I was piloting a plane
And all the passengers were drunk and insane
I crash landed in a Louisiana swamp
Shot up a horde of zombies
But I come out on top
What's it all about?
Guess it just reflects my mood
Sitting in the dirt
Feeling kind of hurt
All I hear is doom and gloom
And all is darkness in my room...”
- Doom and Gloom, The Rolling Stones
“How you doin’?”
It’s a universal question, but it’s rooted in Jersey speak.
“How you doin’?”
“No, how you doin’?”
“No, how YOU doin’?”
Ask.
Repeat.
Ask again.
Since early February I bet I’ve been asked that question 100 times or more.
No, actually, much, much more.
I deeply appreciate the question, I truly do.
It’s a perfectly legit question.
It’s a well meaning question.
It’s a fair and sincere question.
I want to believe it’s a caring, honest question.
It’s just a really, really hard answer.
So hard.
I desperately want to say, “Me? I’m fine! I’m great! Oh man, everything is sweet! Couldn’t be better! Everything is perfectly normal! No problems here! That whole deal was just a blip on the screen! Life is hunky-dory! Que sera sera!”
(Take a minute to Google “hunky-dory” and “Que sera sera” if you need to...I’ll wait).
I mean it’s June for crying out loud.
Nothing worse than milking an illness for all it’s worth.
Come on, it’s time to move on.
Get over yourself.
Life is good, right?
Right?
Whispered tone...
“Um, kind of, sort of, I guess...not really...”
Smolder.
That’s the word.
That’s the answer.
Smolder.
Smoldering.
Things are smoldering.
The dictionary defines smolder this way:
“Burn slowly with smoke but no flame”.
The official word is I didn’t have Covid-19.
The other official word from my team of doctors is, “You did have Covid-19, the test was off, no question, you had it.”
At this point it doesn’t matter what I had, it really doesn’t.
I was sick.
Very sick.
But I’m here.
I’m alive.
I’m grateful.
I’m breathing.
But there’s stuff.
Either Covid-19 stuff or “what is this fresh hell?” stuff.
Smoldering stuff.
The greatest hits of Covid-19 (or whatever 21st century version of the Black Plague from Hades I contracted was) are cough, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, or at least two of the following symptoms: chills, shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, and sore throat.
Check, check, check, and checks.
I particularly like the “chills” or “shaking with chills” option.
You know, like an Olive Garden “cheese or no cheese on your salad” kind of thing.
If you’ve been following me on this blog, then you know this is old territory, this is ground we’ve already covered, this is rehashed old news, tell us something we don’t know stuff.
This is classic rock radio, spinning tunes we’ve heard ad infinitum.
This is a re-run.
It’s also not anything I currently deal with.
That was then this is now.
It’s in the past.
So when I show up for my physical therapy and they ask if I am experiencing any symptoms, they aren’t asking about anything other than the greatest hits.
They aren’t asking about the deep cuts, the B-sides, or the rarities that don’t get much airplay.
And that’s why the “how you doin’?” question is so difficult to answer, and frankly, it sucks.
The smolder.
The shit that hangs on that some people are still navigating through months later.
Some people.
Some.
People.
Aftershocks, as it were.
Nightmares.
Night terrors.
Depression.
Hair loss.
(Hair loss? Really? Yes, we’ll get to that.)
Anxiety.
Panic.
A sense of dread.
Confusion.
Future fear.
Ongoing respiratory issues.
The one hit wonders that get a little more airplay, the loss of taste and smell.
Suicidal thoughts.
Or at least the “what was that all about, will this happen again, am I going to be OK, will I ever be my old self again?” thoughts.
Heart issues.
Strokes.
In case for whatever reason you’re still on the fence at this point, no, this is not just “another flu”.
Believe what you want but this is not the latest version of The Flu.
Not. The. Flu.
If you believe that, switch the channel.
If you believe that, you aren’t listening, reading, or learning; or at least not listening to, reading, or learning the right stuff.
Not. The. Flu.
It’s the smolder now.
I’ve always been a nightmare kind of guy, always had very weird dreams.
Very weird.
I have no idea why.
I’m not sure at this late stage of my game I even want to know why.
Wake up in a sweat, heavy breathing, where am I, was that real, Technicolor, Steven Spielberg production level kind of dreams.
Plots, narratives, good versus evil, and to quote David Bowie:
“Scary monsters, super creeps/keep me running, running scared...”
Ask my wife, Lauren.
She can vouch for years worth of late night, early morning, all out what the hell is wrong with you weirdness, episodic, epic nightmares.
But lying in my ICU bed with my was it or wasn’t it Covid-19 sickness was an entirely new addition to my nightmare curriculum vitae.
I’d never experienced darkness to that degree before.
I came to dread night time.
The night terrors were fierce and furious.
When Lauren would leave my ICU room after some 12 hours of patiently sitting at my bedside, I truly feared what was about to transpire
A recent article in the Atlantic Monthly takes a deep dive into the ghoulish realm of ICU/COVID-19 after hours headplay.
It’s called “delirium” and it isn’t pretty.
The article begins:
“The prevalence of ICU delirium in patients with COVID-19 is sharply rising. If you had to design an experiment to make delirium as bad as it could be, COVID is it - COVID is essentially a delirium factory...”
A delirium factory.
Stay with it.
“Delirium is a strong predictor of adverse cognitive, physical, and psychological outcomes for ICU survivors. This cluster of problems that ICU patients can experience post-discharge, called post-intensive-care syndrome (PICS), affects up to 33% of all patients on ventilators and 50% of patients who stay in the ICU for at least one week...”
I did my time.
I logged a week, and then some.
That’s not a complaint or a brag; God knows it’s neither.
It’s just a calendar fact.
The Atlantic article goes on to compare ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) ICU survivors with those who develop PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
“One in four ARDS survivors develops PTSD...that’s a rate similar to that of soldiers returning from combat...”
Then, a survivor story:
“Amanda Grow remembers how she was blindsided by the symptoms of PTSD that cropped up nine months after her discharge from the ICU.
“They surprised me so much because I thought I was through it, then came the nightmares...I just kept having all these nightmares where I was fighting to wake up, fighting to wake up, fighting to wake up,” she said.
“I just reached a point where I wished I had died in the hospital.”
Her recovery involved a long process of acceptance.
“We have this perception that people are sick and then they bounce back, but that’s not the way it is at all,” Grow said.
“This chapter of your life happens, and it changes every chapter after that.
I worry about COVID-19 survivors experiencing kind of a breakdown of grief, having to go through this reality that their life has changed...”
My life has changed, regardless of what it was called.
This chapter of my life happened, and it is changing every chapter after that.
It just is.
But, you know, officially I didn’t have Covid-19.
Unofficially, well, you know the saying, “If it walks like a duck...”
John Mellencamp wrote a song called “Paper in Fire” that captures the vibe:
“Paper in fire
Stinkin' up the ashtrays
Paper in fire
Smokin' up the alleyways
Who's to say the way
A man should spend his days
Do you let them smolder
Like paper in fire...”
My ICU delirium has thankfully ended for now, hopefully for good, and my nightmares have receded back into a “we now return you to your regularly scheduled program” normalcy, if there is such a thing.
But there’s still some more lurky, dark, smoldering remnant type stuff under the surface.
Stuff like “telogen effluvium”.
Now that’s a fun follow-up to ICU delirium.
Stay tuned kids, you don’t want to miss that one...
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