No. 100: Trash chair thoughts

I wish I could strike a more celebratory tone for my centennial newsletter, but I’m currently recovering from my third bout of covid and focused on other numbers, either too small or too large, depending on your perspective: Two vaccines, two boosters, and two prior infections. Five days in isolation (if I’m following the advice of the Delta Airlines CEO) and five more days of masking in public (if I’m following the current CDC guidelines).

I’m more recluse than reveler, and I have even less of an idea where I got it from this time around—but the blame game is a dead end. It’s (still) circling us all.

One positive test (two lines is one too many), two negative, and 17 free government-issued rapid tests left. One perk of a household of one. Two more days of a five-day course of Paxlovid; the six pills a day make my mouth taste so bad that I almost look back on the Delta infection that stole my sense of taste and smell for months with wistful nostalgia.

I’m assured the bitter Paxlovid aftertaste—which some describe as metallic, but to me tastes more like pre-vomit bile—will disappear after I take my last pills tomorrow morning. Until then, I’ve mitigated the disgusting pharmacological phenomenon with cinnamon imperials leftover from the cicada cutout cookies I made for Christmas (they made excellent eyes) and one of a dozen boxes of hot tamales overnighted to me by a thoughtful friend.

I’ve developed at least one painful mouth sore from the influx of cinnamon, but the minor irritation is the least of my worries in a week full of them, real or imagined. I’ve been quarantined for days with a particularly evasive yet pervasive fruit fly that I can’t seem to kill. A tiny, temporary nuisance might seem like it would best the sore for the least of my worries, but the fly is a seemingly solvable issue that I can’t seem to solve.

I can’t control it.

I also can’t control the fact that covid seems to be obsessed with me or that my upstairs neighbor needs to rearrange her heavy furniture and racks of bowling balls while wearing concrete moon shoes at all hours of the day and night. I can’t control the fear of covid rebound (somewhat likely) that’s keeping me homebound while all of my coworkers clink cocktails without me this week, in our Cincinnati office for the first time since 2019.

I can’t control that my health insurance denied coverage for a new MS medication, despite the fact that it’s been 10 years since my diagnosis and I’ve been taking a comparable drug for the past seven years. I can’t control the fear of an in-between-meds MS rebound that will render me permanently disabled (somewhat unlikely) or the suspicion that I still feel crappy after two negative covid tests because I’m incubating a whole new legion of neurological lesions.

I stopped reading my daily paper for a few days, picking it up every morning only to recycle it moments later; these were the only seconds I spent outside, my only sense of each day’s time, temp, and weather. Finishing Chuck Klosterman’s book, The Nineties, led me to watch American Crime Story: Impeachment. Much like the actual Ken Starr report, the series is too long, but unlike the Starr Report, this dramatization does at least try to present a more complex portrayal of the women involved in Clinton’s corrosive orbit. Even Hillary. Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Monica. I feel bad for all of the women. Even Linda Tripp. Each woman was sold on a version of a person who didn’t really exist outside of their fantasies. I’ve been there.

You can’t control it.

I recently went off my old MS meds under advisement of my neurologist, who suspects they may be causing eye issues, despite three separate eye doctors insisting that my eyes are perfectly healthy. I’m not sure what’s worse: being told nothing is wrong when something clearly isn’t right, or receiving a definitive diagnosis from some professionals with a heavy dose of denial from others, real or imagined.

Sure, maybe I’m making it all up. I agree that something doesn’t add up.

If early anti-body tests are to be believed, I had a mild case of the original variant in early March 2020, while I was living in New York City. In early September 2021, an infusion of monoclonal antibodies—scored for free as part of my swag bag for participating in a research study at the NIH—jumpstarted my suppressed immune system enough to finally wage a protracted war against a definitive Delta diagnosis. A year later, I’m still drinking my coffee black and smothering my food in hot sauce, struggling to taste much of anything at all. Round three has been kinder in some ways and crueler in others, but ultimately, it’s a privilege to anecdotally compare multiple variants and new treatment options.

People have either expressed remorse for the reinfections or remarked on my luck in avoiding serious illness. I think luck is a fantasy of the fortunate and I’m fortunate in numerous ways, but I still sometimes struggle with admitting weakness or fallibility. I’ve always been too impatient to be a good patient.

An upside to contracting an isolating virus (or dealing with any other potentially-debilitating disease) is the connection it fosters: the outpouring of good deeds from friends and family near and far has been overwhelming. Just as powerful as the restorative powers of science and soup, is the support of those who support both.

Countless people have offered to bring me groceries or supplies; one friend picked up my putrid prescription and another dropped off three boxes of popsicles to help soothe the sores and mask the musty mouth. I’m using a borrowed thermometer and pulse oximeter (allow me to brag for a moment: my oxygen levels have remained at a steady 99-100%, I’m told this is excellent, thank you) and eating frozen meals and cans of soup from another friend’s freezer.

I began to wonder how many of my symptoms of the supposed covid were actually from an abrupt lack of coffee, so I this morning, I drank my first cup in days. I felt great. And then I didn’t. There could be an infinite number of reasons why.

But at the very least, I should be able to kill one fucking fruit fly.

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If you’ve read one—or 100—of these newsletters, thank you, seriously, I mean it. And if you don’t want to read my nightly ramblings but read this one expecting something worthy of the milestone, that’s ok too! I hope you’re not disappointed, and I appreciate you all no matter what. Subscribe if you like what you read, unsubscribe if you don’t. Your body, your choice!