In January of 2020, The Capt (aka The Fella) and I took a fun trip to the Florida Keys. We spent several days having a fantastic time, and came home. A few days later we both started feeling sick. Like a weird cold, only not, and after 3 days or so I felt better. He did not. He got worse. And worse, with fever and trouble breathing and all sorts of worrisome and "this ain't the flu but I don't know what else it might be" sorts of symptoms. After 12 days in the bed and coughing and trouble breathing I bullied him into going to the doctor. He was too sick to argue with me, and off we went. The doctor ordered some tests and said "It's not the flu or anything else we have tests for but I've heard of a strange new thing that's popping up, only we don't have a test for that and you are still alive and breathing so I'm going to say go home and treat it like the flu. I'm sorry I can't do more for you."
Through all of this I'm looking at the breathing issues and handing him my asthma inhaler a few times day. It seems to help. We have a couple of tanks of 32% Nitrox, for scuba diving and I'm eyeballing that pretty hard, thinking maybe I oughta attach a regulator and make him breathe on that instead of the normal 21% O2 air we all breathe. He's a certified O2 provider (as a DAN <dive medicine> instructor) so I could pump him full of enough drugs to briefly function and go to AirGas and get an O2 bottle. I didn't do that but sure thought about it hard.
After several weeks he's breathing better, still feeling crappy, but at least I'm not looking at his gums and nail beds to make sure he's getting enough air. He starts to feel a bit better, able to function and do the things he loves, like teaching scuba diving, work on getting his charter boat put together and ready for work, and do some stuff around here. Still not back to his old self, but improving so I am feeling good about his recovery. We make a few fun trips, do some diving, and I notice his stamina isn't what it used to be.
Nope, it's not. He was an all-day goer, prior to getting whatever this mysterious disease was. And...food ain't right. Everything smells weird, tastes weird, all the really good stuff like bacon and grilled steaks smell...ew. Like rotten meat. His favorite food of all time, shrimp....He eats a few and has to stop because he gags on it. When we met in 2017, he could go to Reinhart's in Augusta and put away 4 dozen. He could sit down to a plate of a dozen Oysters Bienville and then order more. and no, he wasn't fat. He was a muscular and solid beast of a man.
On particular dive trip down to Roatan, Honduras, we did what's called a "hot dive", that is, jumped into the water and immediately dropped down. Typically on a dive, you jump in, spend a moment on the surface, and slowly descend. But, the waters were rough that day, so down we went. Afterwards he experienced a sharp pain in his ear and he assumed that hot dive and messed with it. Then later on, after returning home, the pain was in a tooth, so he went to a dentist. The dentist determined it wasn't a tooth, and did a CT of his head. Sinuses, he said. Go to an ENT. That was done, and the ENT said sinus infection and here's some antibiotics. That didn't work so he did a "roto-rooter" surgery and figured out that infection had been there likely since...early 2020. When Capt was sick with (we figured it out) COVID. 18 months ago. He'd had a sinus infection for 18 months. Gross. Surgery cleared it all out (eventually, I won't go into the details of the recovery. Suffice to say it was...interesting.) Something happened during the surgery, we haven't gotten an answer. He came out of sinus surgery with bruises on his lower back and a vertebrae (L4) shifted out of alignment. Yes. It hurt and No, no one will tell us what happened, only that "No, of course you weren't dropped during surgery!"
And he has very gradually become weaker, more depressed, less able to function. Prior to being sick, he'd had a heart stress test and was informed that he had the heart of a 25 year old athlete (he was 53). Now he has blockages, including an 80% one that required a stent. Because of that he's on a blood thinner. More fatigue.
He can't eat much more than fruit and meal replacement shakes. Occasionally he'll crave something in particular, like fajitas, and we'll jump in the car and go to a Mexican restaurant and get fajitas. He has a few favorite foods from his childhood, a certain casserole in particular, that he can eat a bit of, but a full meal, of the sort you and I can sit down to and enjoy? Forgetaboutit. He's lost a lot of weight, a huge amount of his muscle mass (seriously. When we met he was STRONG, and a bulky chunk of solid muscle.), and has no energy.
We have been to multiple doctors, looking at every system for answers. They all say the same thing. "Your (enter system) seems to be fine, I can't find anything wrong with it. I've seen this in a few other patients. They all had COVID. You probably have Long COVID and we can't do anything for it. Run along." Chest pains? Cardiologist. Ook, yeah you've got a blockage.. here's a stent. Irregular heart beat, yeah I see that, here's a pill (that didn't help. Here's a different one. Same thing. Here's a different one.) 4 pills later one has been found that seems to be working a bit. Still chest pains, so a pulmonologist does some tests. Nothing wrong, move on, move on. Digestive, can't swallow, stomach pains, gastroenterologist runs tests, nothing wrong, Long COVID probably. Sorry, can't help. Back surgeon, yep, can see the problem with your back, I can fix that.
In the mean time, he can't sleep, has anxiety attacks, can't run charters or teach diving, can't eat, loses weight, gets weaker, angrier, more frustrated, more depressed. I try to help and fail. I've got all kinds of shortcomings of my own (mainly personality stuff) and am also frustrated and feel helpless.
So I wonder if the issues are side effects from his medications, and look all that up. They can be, only everything started before the heart stuff. I look up Long COVID and go down the list of symptoms. Check, check, checkity check. Is the fatigue a result of not being able to eat full meals, medication, or syndrome? This huge constellation of symptoms, seemingly unrelated but apparently all caused by the same thing (according to the doctors)is frustrating beyond belief.
The big question behind all of it is WHY? Let's say it was purely an accident that this disease was let loose on the world, part of a Pandora's Box situation. WHY has a previously strong and healthy man been laid low? then let's say it wasn't an accident and the conspiracy theorists are right. I don't even want to go there but that could be my own propensity to bury my head in the sand and want it all to go away and we return to 2019 and dreams of a charter business and scuba instructing and a place to live that's tropical. *poof*
But, you know, they say if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. Every day I pray for God to heal him, for the doctors to have wisdom and come up with a solution, for a return to Life as we knew it. God will do what God will do and I can ask for all sorts of things and He will still do what He does. Planned out from the beginning of time, we're threads in a tapestry that we can't see in it's entirety.
In the mean time, I see how plans and dreams were thwarted for no apparent reason but in retrospect, how terrible it would be if we were stuck in a place with financial obligations and work obligations and an inability to fulfill them due to infirmity. We'd looked at Panama (the country), even talked to a real estate agent and an immigration attorney. The day before we were to fly there I got sick with a cold. The idea of flying to a tropical paradise only to be quarantined in a hotel for 2 weeks was unpleasant, so we cancelled the trip. Not long after, all hell broke loose there and we recognized God's hand in stopping that endeavor. If Capt had been able to follow through on the myriad job offers for running charters for others, then got so ill as he did after the sinus surgery, we'd be stuck some place with financial obligations that couldn't be met because of the inability to work. As unpleasant as the whole situation is right now, God's hand in closing windows and doors is very apparent.
So now, we wait to see where and what it is we're meant to do. Neither of us wait very well.
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