04/15/2022
By Kate Stone Lombardi
Why did I think that if I dodged it this long, I was not going to get Covid? I felt especially cocky after getting my second booster. Even afterwards, I always wore a K-95 mask while out in public.
What’s that saying? “Confidence – that feeling you have just before something awful happens.”
Anyway, here in the House of Covid, we are having an unusual bonding experience. My daughter, her husband, and their 5-month-old baby are staying with us, while they wait for their furniture to arrive from the West Coast. They are moving to the East Coast, and we are thrilled to have them close by.
But I don’t think they bargained for this kind of togetherness. We have all tested positive; the baby is sick, and we keep the bottles of Advil and Tylenol in the upstairs hall, so that whoever needs it at any given time has access to it. Did I mention that their dog is here, which means our two cats are sequestered in the basement? At least they won’t get Covid.
We will all be fine and I’ve been duly humbled. I can’t imagine what this illness felt like for people who hadn’t gotten vaccinated and boosted. Not to mention those terrifying days of no treatment. So oddly enough, though we all feel like we’ve been run over by Mack trucks, we also feel incredibly grateful. We are together. When anyone is feeling slightly better, he or she takes care of the others. None of us are terribly sick.
And the family that quarantines together, stays together. Literally.