Poetic License

I have been off work for my Christmas break for a week and a half. I’ve had this break planned for months. I’ve looked forward to it so very much.

I was going to bake, clean, finish decorating, visit with friends … but that all blew up. Looking back at my last few years of Facebook memories tells me I should have expected to–of course–get sick for Christmas and New Year’s Eve! I got RSV for Christmas, and trust me, you don’t want it, especially if you already have lung problems.

On the first Saturday I was off work, the 21st, my son flew home from seeing his dad in Delaware. On Sunday, we had a meal together and watched some football. We wrapped the presents together, which is always a fun time for us. On Monday, I had a mammogram appointment and then I met up with him at one of the local grocery stores, where I would leave my car while shopping with him, and then circle back to get it later. He brought me a chai from the Starbucks inside the store, and we headed to the mall. He wanted to get something special for his girlfriend, and he needed a couple of Christmas stockings, too. We were going to head to PetSmart, too, but I found what I needed in a store in the mall instead. I was already starting to get the sweats. I chalked that up to all the walking we did and the fact that I was just settling into my vacation. My eyes felt grainy, too, something that had started the previous week at work.

After we were done in the mall, he took me back to the grocery store, and we did a little more shopping. He didn’t need many items, and he had more places to go, so he took off right away. I loaded up my car and headed home, a bit tired. After putting the groceries away, I decided to lie down for a half hour. It helped strengthen me enough that I could get back up and bake some cookies.

Then I couldn’t find the 5-lb bag of flour I knew I had in the cupboard. I took everything out of the cupboards where I keep the dry goods and even looked in the lower cabinets. I knew I had seen it just a week or so before. So frustrating! I considered running back to the store for a bag of flour, but then I found a bag of gluten-free flour, unopened. It would just have to do, and it contained enough for a full batch. Cue the GF chocolate chip cookies!

After the cookies were done, I took a short rest break to cool down the cookies and myself. Once the cookies were in their tins, I pulled out the recipe for the fudge. It wasn’t the same recipe I made last year, which was rich and delicious, but it looked almost as good. If you didn’t already know, fudge takes some work. There’s a lot of stirring involved, and you never want to leave the pan unattended. Fudge can seize in the pan and be a real pain in the patootie to clean up, if you don’t pay attention. (And then there’s the expense of the ingredients, and the fact that I did not have 3 more cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips to spare. Unlike the flour, which I knew I had somewhere in the kitchen, I knew for a fact there were no more chocolate chips.)

Eventually the fudge was done, turned out into the pan, and set in the refrigerator to cool. It needed two hours, but it was going to chill for a full night. It was almost eleven o’clock at night by this time. Last year, I also made buckeyes and snow kiss cookies. This year, I didn’t have the oomph to do all that. I was planning to give three of my neighbors chocolate chip cookies and fudge, along with the gifts I had left for them and their dogs on their porches.

Listening to an Audible book has become a thing I do when I have trouble sleeping, but on Christmas Eve, I had no trouble falling asleep. I had set my alarm for seven so that I could get up and clean up the leftover dishes from the night before, bake some banana bread, and get a shower, not necessarily in that order. I meant to put the bread in the oven before I hit the shower, but I was putting around slowly, watching a little bit of television while I tried to find my motivation, and then moseying toward the bathroom. I’d told Sean and Andrea to come over some time between ten and noon. I was just putting the bread in the oven (after finding the flour inside a grocery bag, tucked into a baking dish in another cupboard), when my son sent a text to say they were on the way. I hopped into a higher gear and finished cleaning up the dishes I had just used, as well as giving a quick scrub to the bathroom.

By the time we had finished having coffee and fresh banana bread, and by the time I had handed out the presents from under my little white tree with the white lights and the red tree skirt, I was really starting to feel “a quart low,” as we say in the South. But we opened presents, watched The Holiday, which Andrea had never seen, and visited with each other. It was a wonderful way to spend Christmas Day.

After awhile, we cooked some lunch–cheeseburgers with all the fixings–and ate while we watched Trains Planes and Automobiles. The food was wonderful, but I felt myself sinking lower and lower. My throat was starting to feel scratchy. Again, I chalked it up to being run down. The previous week had been particularly stressful, and then there was all the excitement of getting ready for and through Christmas.

After the movie, I took the dishes into the kitchen and pulled out a tin for sending cookies and fudge home with Sean and Andrea. He put away the extra burger and veggies for me to have the next day. I hugged them both and apologized that I needed to cut it short, even though we had spent hours together. All I wanted to do was to lie down. Sean said they needed to go home and take care of the kitties anyway, so they gathered their gifts and food and headed home.

I decided to spend the rest of my day in pajamas and maybe watch one of the Christmas Day football games from bed. But no sooner had I turned on the television than I realized I seriously needed to rest. Football could wait (thank you, Netflix)!

The nap was good but was not enough. I went to bed early, but at two o’clock, I woke up with a raging sore throat. I mean, it really hurt. “Oh no! It’s COVID,” I thought. I started to run a low-grade fever by the next morning, but I tried to manage with rest and Tylenol.

I kept thinking, “If this doesn’t go away by tomorrow, I’ll call the doctor.” Well, something happened to Thursday, and then something happened to Friday. By Friday evening, one of my neighbors reached out by text to see how I was doing. She said she was off work and could stop by the store for me. I know I had thought about doing an Instacart delivery at one point, but that thought got lost sometime on Thursday or Friday. So I told her I was on my last can of soup and could use some. She also offered to bring me oranges or anything else I needed. It was so incredibly nice of her. She did a porch drop-off of the soup, which really saved me. (I have the best neighbors.)

The next morning, she asked me if I had tested for COVID. I had not, because I was out of tests. Again, in my foggy brain, I kept wondering if I could do a DoorDash to get test kits delivered, but I never got around to doing it. She said she had an extra kit, so she dropped it off on the porch for me, as well as bringing up my recycling bin (which was open and was collecting rain in my driveway). She also asked if I had talked to the doctor yet. I told her I was thinking of trying to get myself out to an urgent care, but she pointed out, “This is why they have virtual visits now, for things like you have.”

Again, I can’t emphasize enough how foggy my head was. I couldn’t even think to check the patient portal to see if I could get a virtual visit. I also can’t emphasize enough what it means to have someone (who works in healthcare) check on you when you are older and sick. I mean, she really saved me.

Right after she dropped off the COVID test kit, I managed to get in the queue for a virtual visit. I had to wait on hold for twenty minutes, but then I spoke with a very nice, competent NP who went through a short medical history and illness history with me. She wanted me to do the COVID test and send her the results if they were positive (they weren’t), and she listened (as much as she could over a virtual meeting) to my breathing. She told me that she was sure I had RSV, something that they have seen increase to 30% of sick patients lately, and something I was going to get vaccinated for but hadn’t made the time to do so. (I should have made the time.) With my pre-existing lung conditions, this put me at great risk. I was lucky I wasn’t hospitalized. Although at different times during this illness, I almost wish that they had put me in the hospital for a couple of days. I think some fluids and IV steroids might have gotten me through this faster.

So what happened? I told my neighbors I was tossing out the cookies and fudge. I wasn’t going to share my germs with them! Then my next-door neighbor said her husband had tested positive for COVID and was really sick, and then the neighbors across the street from her were both sick with a flu-like illness. My other neighbor who took care of me said she and her husband had some crud after Thanksgiving and were really sick. And then my next-door neighbor told us today (via text) that she got hit with Norovirus! We have really had a struggle in our neighborhood this season. It was definitely not a good time to be sharing cookies!

Here it is New Year’s Eve, just about a half hour away from 2025. I am still coughing pretty hard, but I’m almost done with my medications. I can feel that I’m finally turning a corner. My holiday break was supposed to end with me going back to work this Thursday, but I talked to my boss (all via text, because I have a weak voice right now) and am taking the rest of the week off. When I’m at work, it’s meeting after meeting on Teams, all day, every day. I need to feel stronger and have my voice.

My vacation was supposed to be spent writing. Ha! God laughed at that. So I figured I’d spend the evening leading up to the new year with my laptop, writing. I couldn’t let the entire vacation go by with no words written. I still have a few days, but that will be in the new year. I needed to make something happen in this year before it’s over.

And if you’ve also been sick for the holidays, I’m really sorry. There are so many illnesses going around right now! We’re all indoors with dry, heated air and other people. It’s a perfect breeding ground for germs to be shared. I think maybe I need to make a plan to share baked goods with my neighbors sometime in February, when it’s still cold enough for baking but past the point of all these holiday delights, like Norovirus.

I hope that wherever you are, you are with someone you love, even if that is your furry companion. Honestly, I prefer their company now, because the thought of being in a relationship again, given my track record, is anxiety-producing! I hope that you have a wonderful 2025, even though, you know, you might not be getting what you want in January, if you know what I mean. Let’s try to stick together and make the best of every single day we’re here on earth. Shut out the noise and be kind to yourself.

I know that 2024 felt like a really long year. It was stressful in ways that I don’t even want to think about tonight, but if you’re reading this, you’re still here. So am I.

And if you happen to see one of those New Year’s memes floating around, talking about “This is day 365”, etc., just remind them. No, this was a longer year, a leap year. It was 366 days, darling. You made it!

Happy New Year!

Love, Jude