How and why am I able to dodge the Covid bullet?

 

As you can see for the umpteenth time, I registered negative for Covid.

I live in a sparsely populated area in Yonkers.  When Covid hit New York, guns blazing, I immediately ensconced myself in my apartment.  I counted my “blessings”…

I work from home.  There’s no need for me to go in a densely populated area like the city.

As I said above, I work in the middle of nowhere.  Odds are I won’t bump into someone who might be carrying the bug.

I learned basic hygiene as far back as nursery school.  I probably learned it even earlier since mom bordered on germophobia in the presence of a newborn babe.

Sure and I stocked up on masks and hand cleaner sprays, courtesy of New York State.

We had a decent amount of toilet paper, so we wouldn’t wind up wiping our asses with issues of the New York Post.

As an aside, what was the BIG DEAL about stockpiling on toilet paper?  There was an airborne virus that attacked the lungs, and we were obsessed with not having brown crust accumulating on our ass cracks?  Well, yeah, that’s embarrassing, but lungs versus ass crack?  Priorities, people!

Then I counted the cons in my predicament with Susan.

Susan works in the city.  There’s bacteria and viruses spewing into the air willy nilly in the Big Apple.  Mask or no, could she catch the bug?  Worse still, what if she shows symptoms?  Worst possible scenario, the love of my life is killed by this unknown invader?  What does that mean for me?

Yeah, that’s a heavy load for me.

During a dental appointment in early September 2020, my dentist asked me, “How long will it be before we make a vaccine, do you think?”

My innate pessimism was filtered with an iota of reason.  “I don’t know, doc.  I really don’t know.  It could be years.”  I avoided my most acute anxiety of Covid being an extinction level event.  Yeah, it sounds silly now, but my imagination ran wild.  In case you don’t know me now, everything is a catastrophe for me - whether it’s “Where are my glasses?” or “What’s the number of Covid fatalities nationwide?  Globally?”  Turkey Lurkey, the SKY is falling!!!

We all know how the movie ends:  2021, Two vaccines are synthesized:  Two shots in the space of a month.  Take a booster by the end of the year.  I even had a colonoscopy as a bonus by the beginning of the year!

To backtrack:  Suze and I took Covid tests at the local City MD every two months or so.  We took one immediately after a visit from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  Negative.  Over and over:  Negative.

Was it the protocols?  Was it dumb luck?  Was it a bit of both?  I can’t overthink it even as I write this.

In time, the Covid-19 home tests arrived.  Every two weeks, Suze and I would apply the nasal swab and finish the ritual to see if we were positive or negative.  Negative, over and over again.

During the height of the pandemic, I fretted over the health of my mother, who at the time was in her late eighties.  She’s alive and well, by the way.  Check out my earlier blog entries, I go into more detail.  She’s alive and loving it.  I digress.

Mom lives alone, so she wasn’t in an assisted living facility, which were hives of Covid-19 infection.  She wore masks and gloves as she performed her daily errands.  She was vaccinated and boosted as soon as they were available.  Fit as a fiddle.

This Thanksgiving, we arranged a dinner:  Mom, Susan, and myself.  Before we picked her up to go to our home, we performed the somewhat elaborate ritual of testing again.  I feared that I had caught a weak strain of the bug that may affect Mom.  A few days before, I was working out with my physical trainer.  My trainer tested positive the day after Thanksgiving.  Did I catch it from him or not?

As you see from the above image, I’m negative again.

I have been in public places between my booster and the present.  I’ve been on MetroNorth, the subway, restaurants, libraries, Grand Central, Times Square, Madison Square Garden.  My wife and I keep dodging the Covid bullet.  Are we pushing our luck?  Am I gonna eat my words as I write this entry in the local library where I am surrounded by readers and researchers (libraries are more densely populated than you would think) all unmasked?  I am unmasked.  Susan is unmasked.  What gives our respiratory system the Matrix-like reflexes that allows us to evade Covid over and over and OVER again?

Susan hypothesizes that the pair of us have immune systems that are in overdrive.  Even then, there would be evidence of Covid in our snot.  Bear in mind, Idris Elba tested positive for Covid-19, albeit asymptomatic.  Elba is a powerhouse of brawn and masculinity.  How could two doughy couch potatoes like ourselves prove negative— okay we’ve been over this.

This is not the best thought out entry.  It’s a mix of forethought and stream of consciousness.  Yeah, that sounds like a paradox.  I have been thinking over writing this entry for a long time.

My digits are aching even with the ergonomically correct keyboard.  Laters, gators.

- JJB