Our Covid Journey

 Well, so much for my hopes for good health around here in the new year. Despite being boosted, and generally avoiding risks, Wifey came down with Covid.

We played the game of trying to figure out where - but the most likely culprit is her recent trip to Atlanta. She was in a limo for her friend Edna's daughter's party, and the birthday girl Erica came down with a nasty case, but that was a few weeks back. I'm guessing Erica passed to her Mom or step dad, who remained asymptomatic, but then passed it on to Wifey last Tuesday. That timing makes sense, as she started feeling sick Friday night. But then again, we were also with friends for dinner Thursday, including Mike and Christine from Tampa. I guess that window might be too small -- but who knows?

Saturday she was sick, like a bad cold, and a bit better Sunday. The problem is, Jonathan was due to fly to Argentina for work, and though he tested negative Saturday, in prep of his international travel, he was concerned he might turn positive while in Buenos Aires, which would trigger a long hotel room quarantine. 

Yesterday, Wifey, Jonathan, and D2 all got rapid PCRs at a great clinic Jonathan found -- they give you results within the hour. The millennials were negative; Wifey was positive. But the trip was still cancelled.

We got home, and Wifey reported she was "deteriorating," and so called her family doc. He's a nice fellow, and connected to Wifey through her dear departed friend, but I never got the sense he was a cutting edge practitioner. Sure enough, he told Wifey that given her age, which I can never mention but she's now fully on Medicare, he wanted her to go get the monoclonal antibody treatment, though he thought that might require a trip to West Palm.

I sprung into action, as I did last January for her stroke treatment and rehab. Sure enough, the state site at Tropical Park had an open appointment -- at 3:45. I bundled the Covid, masked Wifey into the car and headed there -- it was strangely uncrowded. She got 4 shots to her belly and reported they burned like fire.

I texted this information to some of the former Team Wifey -- Eric and Barry -- and they immediately seized upon something troubling: Regeneron doesn't work on Omicron, which Wifey was 99% likely to have! I kept the frustrating information to myself, knowing the treatment wouldn't hurt but likely wouldn't help either, but then, as if on cue, last night the state closed the sites after the FDA ruled that indeed Regeneron for Omicron was the proverbial tit on a bull -- useless.

When Wifey arises, assuming she's still feeling poorly, will attempt to get a prescription for the new Pfizer drug, Paxlovid, which DOES tamp down Omicron. Alternatively, she can just ride it out, which everyone with "breakthrough infections" seems to have done successfully. 

Man -- the freaking Plague is like the weather -- everybody talks about it, and nobody does anything about it. On March 12 TWO YEARS AGO we went into lockdown #1. Basta, as the Cubans say. Or enough, already, as the old Jews say.

Still -- things have improved. In March of 2020, we feared dying of the thing -- we really no longer do. Albert Bourla, the Pfizer CEO who I call the world's smartest Sephardic Jew, says the thing ought to be endemic by March -- and Pfizer will have a once per year vaccine to deal with it like we deal with seasonal flu -- and deniers will be free to die at their will.

Tomorrow marks D2 and Jonathan's second wedding anniversary. We were all gathered at the beautiful Betsy Hotel, in evening light out of a Hollywood lighting director's imagination, hearing the sage words of Rabbi Harlig. Somehow he brought up the Holocaust without being maudlin -- pointing out how those two grandchildren of Survivors were a testament to the future, the triumph of good over evil.

So I hope their anniversary marks the true beginning of the end of this damned viral disease. I am MORE than ready to get back to worrying about other ways to die.