I Have a New Girlfriend! Guess Her Name

The room is like most emergency room … um … rooms: taupe walls, white equipment with black accents, TV too small and far away to bother, cyborg bed, myriad wires attached to me and the machines. The controls for raising and lowering the bed are behind it so I can’t reach them. Don’t know if it’s hot in here or my fever has come back. I have a saline drip that’s supposed to rehydrate me but, frankly, it sucks at that. One job.

I don’t think it’s the rona.

They’ve given me All the Tests™ and now it’s just a waiting game.

Hard to say when it started. It got really bad for the first time on Monday. I woke up weak and achy, bad enough that I never got out of bed. I’d had this weird thing happening for several weeks where my sense of balance would suddenly disappear. I didn’t get dizzy, I would just instantly have no sense of balance. My head would sort of pick a direction, like a gyroscope when you hold it between thumb and forefinger, and my body would follow. I fell over a few times. Would have been more but I’d catch a wall or something and stop myself. Then balance would return until the next time. It felt like it came from a specific point on or inside my head, right side, at about 10:00 as you’re looking me in the face and about three inches back from my forehead.

Anyway, that got worse on Monday morning. Then I felt like every time I moved I had just finished a marathon and I’d collapse back onto the bed, exhausted. So I did my best all day not to move.

I watched the Eagles suck against the Seahawks. Only game on.

Tuesday was worse. More of the same, worse exhaustion. Again, no dizziness but my head felt … fuzzy. I could only stay in any one position for a few minutes because the aches would demand that I move to try to alleviate them. That didn’t work. Lying bastards. No food appealed to me, either, though I managed to eat a bit anyway.

So far, I either hadn’t been able to sleep nearly at all, or I would sleep like the dead until late morning. Online videos are my only friends. Took my sleep meds at 6:15 PM just to let blissful unconsciousness put me temporarily out of my misery. 12:30 – took ’em again. And at 4:15.

Thursday, I woke up at 6:00 AM. Again I felt like it was all gone. It even felt like sleep had done what it’s supposed to do. Did you know, however, that reheating leftover Chinese food in the microwave is more exhausting that anything Sisyphus ever had to do? Turns out it is. Didn’t see that coming. Back to bed, and now there are chills.

I live alone and I rarely go out for any reason. Joys of being an introvert. Hooray for Walmart+. But the way I was feeling by that point had me wishing for … a wife? A St Bernard? A pre-betrayal Saffron? Every time I struggled with some mundane task – rolling over in bed, anyone? – I would curse the god I know doesn’t exist. And all the other ones, who also don’t exist. Fuck off, Ganesha. Bastards. There’s no excuse for allowing this to happen. And not only to me, to anyone. I knew none of that would ameliorate my illness but it sure was psychologically satisfying.

Then came today. Again, I woke up feeling cured. Again I brushed my teeth. Again I collapsed back into bed. But this time, uncontrollable full-body shivers. Shaking like one of those loonies on the floor at a snake-handling church. A few seconds respite then again. And again. And again.

That was too much.

I spent the next hour dragging myself around the house, gathering things that would come in handy if I had to stay at the hospital. About a dozen things. Took an hour. Then I called 911.

The ambulance guys were dispassionate and professional. I vomited for the first time all week during the ride, though I’d had no nausea before that. Haven’t had any since. The ride to the hospital was otherwise uneventful.

And now here I am in that bog-standard ER cell, waiting on test results. I’m sure it’s not the rona because almost none of my symptoms match what I’ve been able to find for it. Maybe brain cancer causing the loss of balance? Maybe some weird systemic disease that affects everydamnthing? Maybe not enough roughage? Maybe hydrophobia chloride, the disease my mom made up when I was a kid to scare me into doing what she wanted? (“You better do it or you’ll catch hydrophobia chloride!”)

The doc came back with the test results. It’s the rona.

The hospital has four levels for rona patients: mild, meh, oh shit, and it goes to 11. I’ve chosen to call them, affectionately, Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Karl. I’m on Groucho level. Two days in Sing Sing, drinking and holding orgies, and I’m homeward bound. Not so bad. And the nurses are cute.

They just gave me dinner: broth that commits to a flavor like I commit to relationships since my divorce, red and green gelatin that taste exactly like red and green, tea that steeps in the lukewarm, faintly gray water-substance so that the brown part all sinks to the bottom, apple juice that claims to be pure apple juice but I’m suspicious because it’s too thick, and Luigi’s Intermezzo Lemon Ice (Gluten free! With turmeric because it’s 2020 and turmeric is the current “it” spice so it’s in everything, even dry toast.) The receipt says “ISOLATION ALERT. Paper and plastic ONLY.” None of my food is either paper or plastic, though I’d need to do chemical analyses to be sure. (What the hell is turmeric? Did it exist before June of 2017?) In any case, I didn’t ask for any of it. They just brought it.

Coming up on six hours in the ER. Got the rona diagnosis about 2½ hours ago. Saw the admitting doc at least an hour ago. Have had several different Hazmat-suited people in and out. Asked when I get my Hazmat suit – because who doesn’t want their own Hazmat suit, even in the days of no rona? – and was told that normally they’re free with purchase but the hospital has a supply problem so they might have to give me a ventilator instead. Cuomo, Newsom, and Whitmer have already ordered me shut down – they told me at dinner, which we shared without masks. By mistake, of course.

Uphill. Both ways. Thanks for reading.