Good morning from rainy St. Paul!
I’m writing this in Notepad while I wait for my WordPress update to install. It’s hard to believe that I haven’t posted since the death of Queen Elizabeth..
Since then, an NFL season has come and gone, another wine trip with my friends is in the books, my gallbladder removed, caught COVID, brought home a new puppy, and tried to get my act together.
The gallbladder removal and COVID came after Thanksgiving, one right after the other. In fact, I picked up COVID during my second emergency room visit. My husband and I sat for ten hours with people who were in various forms of respiratory illness. It was peak COVID-flu-RSV season around Thanksgiving.
I was waiting ten hours in the ER because the hospital was completely full, and they were waiting for a bed to become available. On my first visit, the hospital and emergency room were full, too. I was sent home after two days because they couldn’t fit me into the surgery schedule.
The morning after being sent home, I was in such misery that I was back in the ER. They decided that I was to be kept until they could get me into surgery.
The four incisions to remove my gallbladder became an issue when I started coughing hard, and then started feeling like crap. The positive COVID test sent me for loop, and to a call to my surgical nurse who got me the info I needed to get Paxlovid and how to deal with the coughing.
When my husband started feeling ill, I pulled out my notes from the nurse got him on the Paxlovid bandwagon, too. And thus all December plans went out the window.
Rachel picked up COVID from me when she visited after my surgery, and before I knew I was contagious. She spent part of her Christmas vacation in quarrantine at college, because she had no one to bring her home. I finally tested negative and picked her up a week late, but at least she was home with her beloved dogs to help her recover.
My husband had the infamous PaxLovid COVID rebound and wasn’t negative until Christmas Eve. Christmas was quiet and low key. Not many presents because who could shop? But it was good to be together.
Next time I’ll write about the puppy, who is as adorable and mischievous as they get.