One Day at A Time

When COVID Hits Close to Home

By Jason Jones

Messenger Reporter

PALESTINE – You don’t understand, I’m not supposed to be here!

The Shawshank Redemption was released in 1994. Strange… in some ways it feels much newer, and in other ways it seems as if it’s always been here. It is, quite possibly, the best movie of our generation – possibly of all time. But that’s neither here nor there.

At the beginning of the movie, as Andy Dufresne is being brought into Shawshank Penitentiary for the first time, the inmates take bets on who will break first. Morgan Freeman’s character, Red, thought it would be Andy. It wasn’t. It was a short, overweight guy who lost his composure and cried out first.

“I’m not supposed to be here!” He was promptly beaten to death by the guards.

For 27 years, that scene never registered in my brain with much importance. And it might be a stretch to label it as “important” now. But those words… the desperate cry out by a scared grown man… “You don’t understand, I’m not supposed to be here!” are deeply etched in my brain, and likely to stay for a while.

A little over a week ago, I watched two EMTs load my wife into an ambulance in my driveway. She had been on oxygen for several days – after having tested positive for COVID – with the goal of getting her O2 level to above 95 percent. When the ambulance arrived, she was too weak to stand, and you could see the fear in her eyes. Her O2 level at that point was just above 60 percent. Had the ambulance not arrived when it did, she doesn’t believe she would have made it. Turns out, there was not only COVID, along with the load of problems and symptoms that accompany it, but she also had developed pneumonia.

I know COVID is a thing. I know it’s real. I actually had COVID in December of 2019, though nobody knew what it was at the time. It was horrible and I wondered what kind of permanent damage was being done. Clearing my lungs was a daily thing, and quite painful. This wasn’t the normal stuff that one coughs up during allergy season. This stuff was thick and partially solid, and was dark in color. It was scary to witness, and took some major effort to expel.

But in about a month, I was back to normal. Doctors had no clue what it was… only what it wasn’t. About three months later I felt like I had my answer.

My wife, Angie, and I are physically very different. I am hardly fit, but I’m relatively hearty and healthy. I fight things off and go about my business. She, on the other hand, is compromised. To say she is weak would be a major fallacy; she is quite the opposite. Two natural childbirths with zero drugs – I was begging for an epidural for myself, but she muscled through the pain to keep our children as healthy as possible.

Since that time, she has dealt with a lot. Breast tumors. Cervical tumors. A double mastectomy and radical hysterectomy. Emergency gall bladder removal. The list is long and distinguished, and has taken its toll on her. She beat it all, but the fight has left her without a lot of armor or weapons with which to do battle.

Subsequently, COVID latched on and dug in.

But I’m not supposed to be here. COVID was real in my head. As is cancer and AIDS and the Black Plague. All real but all abstract. We read about it. We see it on the news. We know people who have suffered from it, and many of us have lost someone from it. But it doesn’t register as real until it’s in your house.

My moment was when those ambulance doors closed. I peered inside and held up the only sign language I know – all my fingers extended except for the middle and ring, much like “Hook ‘em Horns” or “Rock and Roll” except with an extended thumb. It means “I love you” and it’s a woefully inadequate sentiment at that moment, but it’s all I could muster. The ambulance drove away, and I suddenly felt like I was directly in the center of one of those news stories… you know, the worst ones. In my head, she would be taken to ICU, put into an induced coma, put on a ventilator, and in a few days, I would hear, “There’s nothing more we can do.”

I walked into my house, fell to the floor and lost it. All of it. After 33 years of marriage, my last grand gesture would be to strategically hold up three fingers. So, I wept.

At the hospital, the doctor looked into her eyes and saw her fear. He later told her, at that time, there was a high probability that she would be intubated. He held off to see how she would respond to the initial treatment, and her fighting spirit woke up. She decided to beat it.

We were extremely blessed and fortunate. Calling the ambulance turned out to be a Godsend. The fact that she was evaluated as an emergency earned her a path directly into the ER, and eventually to a room. She was supposed to be in ICU, but it was full, so her intensive treatment was given in a semi-private room. As I type this, there are patients in the hallway at Palestine Regional Medical Center, and they also have the Civic Center set up to treat COVID patients. The fact that Angie ended up in a bed at all is nothing short of a miracle.

For the past eight days, I have been at her beck and call. While PRMC has provided excellent care, the breakfast crew leaves a little to be desired. Subsequently, I bring breakfast every day. I also took her several bags of goodies to occupy her mind. Not only am I not allowed to see her in person, she gets very little human contact in the hospital at all. It’s extremely lonely, and keeping her spirits up is not only challenging, but necessary for healing.

But in typical Angie fashion, she has found a way to approach things with a humorous tone. Having been encumbered with so many tubes, hoses and leads, she was tethered closely to her bed for the early part of her treatment. Because of this, she had to use a portable potty chair at her bedside. Early one morning, I was awakened by a text explaining that the night shift hadn’t emptied it. I won’t repeat the actual line, but she quoted Cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation as he was emptying his RV septic tank into the storm sewer.

Yes. That line. I haven’t laughed so uncontrollably in a long time.

This morning she is being tested heavily. About three days ago, she turned a corner. She went from desperate and scared, to powerful and confident.

“I will beat this,” she said.

So far it seems that she’s beating it unmercifully. If the tests go well, we’ve been told she may be able to come home tomorrow… which is when the hard part starts for me. She will need assistance to do literally everything, and I look forward to every moment of it. Thinking that I might be seeing her for the last time made an impact on both of us. There’s simply no longer time to entertain drama, discourse or sadness. Life is too short and fleeting. So, we choose to be happy. Just have to figure out the details.

I guess maybe I am supposed to be here.

Jason Jones may be reached at [email protected].