It all started while I was visiting my 90 year old mother on August 2nd and she wasn’t feeling well. We thought it was a bad reaction to the fourth Covid vaccine she had the week before, but it turned out she had Covid. I took her to the hospital, not knowing she had Covid, and hung out with her for several hours before my brother Fred came to relieve me. Two days later I had Covid too. Even though the nurse told Fred he must have contracted it too, he didn’t despite only wearing a paper mask (and being vaccinated).
I had contracted a 100-101 fever that lasted about four days. Nobody could visit Mom in the hospital, which was very hard on her. Fred took her home after three days and he still dodged the Covid bug again, this time with a double mask and driving with the windows open. Mom started to feel better as she was on a course of the Paxlovid, while my fever subsided and morphed into a nasty cough that stuck around for another week. As I was getting better, unfortunately Mom was getting worse. Meanwhile Covid gave me something to remember it by, the most extreme neck pain I’ve ever felt. That too lasted for more days than I care to recall, and only began to subside once I started taking a Dr’s prescription.
Paxlovid is notorious for allowing reinfection, and for a second time we needed to take my Mom to the hospital in August. Only this time she was too infirmed and we called for ambulance transportation. She stayed in the hospital another three nights, and since she was far enough removed from the original infection, they allowed two family members to visit her per day. My brother Bob came down from Sacramento because we didn’t know how much longer she was going to be with us. Bob stayed that entire weekend, now the third weekend in a row he and his family have come down. They’ve been a real blessing, along with the rest of my family.
Mom is getting hospice help, and when the people at the hospital sent her home it was again to give her a peaceful place to pass. Mom had other plans though. We’ve all been visiting her regularly in her room where she is confined to a hospital bed and on - needs morphine to keep the pain tolerable. Our family is quite large with 5 kids plus 4 spouses and 7 grandkids, and we all want to be there for her, so she’s seldom alone during waking hours. She loves it when we talk and sing around her bedside. She lights up whenever we come into the room, despite the immense pain she is going through.
I was on my way to visit mom during the last Sunday in August and decided to get a couple of skate runs in before dropping by. I’ve been skateboarding for a half century, and been on the board as a regular form of exercise for the past four years. I was enjoying my time skating until my front wheel hit a piece of petrified pigeon poop, which sent my board sliding out from under me. I landed on my side and actually bounced off the pavement. My number 6 rib broke on impact, and I was unable to visit Mom for another three days before my own pain allowed it again. Then my back went out behind my rib for a couple of days, because it’s all connected and I was overcompensating. Being unable to do my daily stretching exercises, it was bound to happen with my history of back issues.
Mom has been pretty stable at home, surrounded by the love of her family, and I’m back to being able to visit her again. It’s remarkable, as several times I thought she had reached the end of the trail, but she keeps riding. Nobody can tell us how much time she has left, so we are cherishing each and every smile. I’m convinced it’s the love of our family that has kept her going. She and that love will always be with us, and it is the greatest gift she has given to us all.