Parkinson's: Covid and Thanksgiving

 

A Journey Into Parkinson's with Nancy Mellon

Coordinated by Corrine Bayraktaroglu

 Thanksgiving

A Time for Giving Thanks

 On Tuesday morning, Kelsey, Emberlee and I found out we were Covid positive.

It felt strange because none of us were very ill, we thought we had colds.  Knowing it was Covid made a difference to the story for us. For one thing, we canceled our Thanksgiving plans.  Steven came home from work. We stayed in our rooms, separated from the rest of our crew and each other. I also felt I wanted to tell people that we had Covid.  For 3 years we had done many things to not get Covid.

First we tried making cloth masks.  Then we started buying “better versions” of cloth masks made by others in town. As time went on we shopped online for n95 masks.  We stopped going into stores. (I remember the first time in 2 years when I walked downtown again.  It was achingly good.) We had our groceries delivered and had a production line to disinfect them or wash them, or put them in our clean containers before putting them into our cabinets.  When we went for a walk, we crossed the street when people came towards us.   Some walks we spent the whole time crisscrossing back and forth across the street. We didn't talk in person, to anyone outside of our house.

Then came the amazing vaccination news.  We were vaccinated and boosted and then boosted again.

Getting Covid, had felt for 3 years like the most frightening thing that could happen. What did it mean now?

We had slowly been getting used to being out and about again. We stopped to chat to neighbors now and went into the local stores, (sometimes forgetting to wear a mask. Oh my!) We had dinner out, in a restaurant. It felt uncomfortable, daring and strange. I worried for days afterward, if we would get Covid. 

(Say it quietly in your head Nance. We are vaccinated and boosted and boosted again.)

It turned out that Corrine had Covid at exactly the same time I got it.  We couldn't believe it. She and Burhan isolated.  She said he wore a mask and sprayed down everything with Lysol. We didn't do that, this time.  We put out paper towels in the bathrooms and removed the hand towels.

I realized late in the night, that I had shared the toothpaste.  (Breathe  Nancy, we are vaccinated and boosted and boosted again.)

It has been strange.  We didn't celebrate this Thanksgiving.   But I felt we had so much to be thankful for!  I am so very thankful for the scientists who invented the vaccines.  They made it such a different story for us than it could have been. We had Covid. We got better. Thank you to all our medical scientists and researchers. This was a year of wonderful moments of thanks giving!

With a thankful heart,

Nancy and the Snark

Footnotes From Corrine

I guess we like to do almost everything together Nancy but this was a doozy. Like you I am so very very grateful this thanksgiving that we had such dedicated researches working on this and we've been vaccinated. I dread to think what havoc covid the barbarian would have unleashed otherwise. 

One night I dreamed all these this little rainbow unicorn cells were harrassing Covid the Barbarian and  sprinkling glitter everywhere and telling Covid to GET LOST.

Stay Safe and Stay Well