Back From the Dead

By Bruce Dobb, Los Angeles, California, U.S.

I’ve always thought of myself lucky, but until I caught the COVID-19 virus, I didn’t realize how lucky.

As a 70-year old-overweight guy who biked a lot but still had all the other risk factors, I thought, if I get this virus, I’m a goner.

The news of 2020 Pandemic hit me as the start of a collapse of life as I knew it, and I’d assumed that part of that deal was, if I caught the virus, I’d be dead. Made sense. The virus targeted my generation and was gunning for me, kinda like the Arnold nut job character in “The Terminator.” Every time I looked over my shoulder, there it was.

Right after 2021 started, I took sick– not all the symptoms, but enough that my heart sank. Testing took forever, and a positive result came back on January 6th– just in time to watch the Capital get over-run. I felt like I was being over-run by an invader, as well. I couldn’t sleep, I started drifting in and out of consciousness, I had no appetite, constipation, and non-stop nausea.

My nights were filled with bad radio voices, endless channel flipping on unwatchable cable TV. The exception was vague chants; my neighbors kept nudging me. They were rooting for me to stay alive. The Terminator had caught me, but these guys in my housing cooperative figured I could beat it. Imagine that; these much younger voices drowned out all the other bad news and self-doubt and old movies.

It turns out, those voices were right. It started with me getting hungry again. That’s what happened first. In the middle of the night, I grabbed a week-old rotisserie chicken in the fridge that had been given to me by a neighbor, threw it in a dirty baking dish, and warmed it up. In the dark, at 3 am, I wolfed that chicken down like a caveman. I ate half of it, not even putting salt on it, just slicing it with a Swiss Army penknife. It was the first real food I had eaten in 10 days.

That protein craving was my body screaming out for energy for the fight. My body kept telling me, if you don’t help me with this virus, you will die. I’m struggling here to stay alive.

I forget my doom and gloom stuff and started listening to this, my beat-up old body.

I’ve been symptom free now for six days, and as the 45th President left my old hometown, D.C., other clouds have started to lift. I’m sleeping again, eating, and yes, even going to the bathroom like normal. Clarity of thinking has returned. I’m recovering nicely, according to my HMO. One more negative test result, and I'm good to go. Imagine that– I’m still alive.

Things look to be pretty clear for now. It feels great– like a new movie playing in the mental VCR: it’s Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and I’m Scrooge, back from the dead on Christmas morning. But all that could change with yet another health reversal. I hope it’s not like Arnold always says: “ I’ll be back.”