Op-Ed: Dispatches from the pandemic: I was laid off and denied unemployment. Now I could lose my home of 15 years (via latimesopinion)
In the best of times — the before times — the accomplishments and fascinating lives of my friends, colleagues, and students on social media could be overwhelming. I didn’t begrudge them their successes exactly, but only because I could tell myself that as soon as I had time, I too would write an annotated version of “War and Peace.”
Meanwhile, I stare out my window at the bird feeder. I haven’t managed to clean out a closet, organize my desk or read even one issue of the New Yorker. It is all I can do to walk my dog around the block.I can’t complain. My daughter came home from New York just before things got really bad there. I’m lucky that she and my son and his wife and my husband and his mother — who is living with us for now — are all healthy.
It took us about a year to figure out how to reach Lily. Since then, progress has been slow but steady. Today, she comes into the classroom, independently puts away her backpack and gets her morning work. She matches pictures. She matches coins to purchase a snack for herself. She says, “Hi!” and, “Imagination!” She counts with her classmates. She knows about a hundred words in sign language. And she now says the word “Papa.
The patient was taken by ambulance to the emergency department where I work in Fresno because she was having trouble breathing. In trying to diagnose her condition, I considered an asthma flare-up as well as congestive heart failure … and then the X-ray showed a dense haziness in both lower lungs that suggested an atypical pneumonia. COVID-19 suddenly rose to the top of the list.
As I was suiting up, I got a little emotional thinking, “Is this really happening?” Unfortunately, I fear it’s going to be the new normal as we fight this virus. It’s emotionally hard to intubate someone who is alert and active — and wants to be kept alive. She had told me: “I have some more years to go yet. Do everything.”After work, I find that I’m not as transparent as I usually am with my husband and family. I didn’t expect to feel this way.
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