Covid 365 – an unfinished puzzle
It has been one year since I received the news that I tested positive for Covid -19 (January 21, 2021). I was hospitalized on January 23, 2021 and spent the first three weeks in an ICU at St. George Regional Hospital. For the first two weeks, my fate was uncertain, as I fought to stay off the ventilator. Thanks to the care and compassion provided by my health care providers, I survived and was released for home care in late February 2021. For the next three months, I struggled to regain some sense of normalcy in my life, only to realize that my life had taken on a new normal. Thanks to family and friends, and mental health care professionals, I embraced radical acceptance of the disease. I don’t like or agree with what happened to me, and frankly I still am angry, but I cannot change it.
This past year has brought other changes. In October, I traveled with my grandson back to North Dakota to see my 92 year-old father. I had spent time with him in July when I attended my 50-year high school reunion. When I was hospitalized he was probably the person most worried about me, and probably prayed harder for my recovery more than anyone. He called my spouse daily and when I was able to communicate, I called him regularly. Our relationship has been close, but probably became much closer when my brother, the oldest in the family, took his life in 2020. He had a lot of questions as to why. I didn’t have any answers, as I was still searching for the why myself, but it was good to talk about things we never had been able or willing to talk about before.
My father had a minor surgical procedure (not sure any medical procedure at 92 is minor) and was hospitalized at a regional hospital to treat an infection and to rest. We visited him in the hospital and made plans to pick him up the following day and take him home to his apartment. At 7:02 pm that evening received a call from him that he had fallen in his hospital room. The fall broke his hip and he was transported to a larger facility for possible hip replacement surgery. My grandson and I spend the next day by his bedside providing comfort and care.
That afternoon we learned his organs were shutting down and were told he would have 24-36 hours to live. He passed away on Friday, and on the following Monday, per his wishes, we held a graveside service attended by family and friends. When we left Utah to visit him, I never thought, we would be burying him.
Such is life ! No matter the best made plans, it is full of unexpected turns and consequences. However, with each challenge comes opportunity. Last year our plans were to complete a sabbatical to work on issues I perceived as high priority. Covid pre-empted those plans and changed my priorities. One of the new priorities was to complete planning our family estate. The merit of doing this, was evident in my fathers’ planning not only for his estate, but his final rest.
He had meticulously planned for his death, all we had to do was honor his wishes.
The second priority was to continue to find ways to do good. Doing good is an elusive and subjective term. For me, it simply means paying back and forward for all the good I have received. I am not sure what the future holds for me. I still struggle with lung and breathing issues thanks to Covid. I have also had some other medical things show up since my “dance with the devil”. I don’t know if all are Covid-related or just a matter that in am a year older. When responding to family and friend inquiries about my health, I joke that Covid is a lot like the proverbial game show host, in that it keeps wanting to given participant parting gifts.
We have started another sabbatical to do over the 2021 attempt. This one is more about personal and family, rather than professional priorities. Prior to starting it, my wife and I set up a family foundation, to help pay back and pay forward. We hope over this next year, the foundation will be able to provide scholarships for students entering medical fields.
As I left my Dads’ apartment for the last time, I walked by a table where he had just started a new puzzle. My father had gotten into completing puzzles later in life and I was always on the lookout for sales on puzzles to send him. This puzzle was of a farm landscape and it was unfinished. The landscape scene was not unlike the scene he had etched into the granite slab covering his and my mother’s final resting place. In a lot of ways, the puzzle reminded me of our lives, for that matter aren’t our lives much like unfinished puzzles? Covid-19 has left more puzzles unfinished than any other virus before it.
I often quoted Voltaire in my blog and I can’t think of a better way to end this post. “Every man is guilty of the good they did not do.”