Today is Wednesday, but I’ve begun to lose track. Like other writers, I am no stranger to long hours alone at home. Perhaps a little more comfortable as this is round two for me. Who knew I was practising for a pandemic while undergoing chemotherapy over a 16-month period? Back then, on day three and day four of every week, I was not allowed, use the oven, go outside, apply night cream, shave anything, touch anyone, or put myself in harm’s way while neutropenic—a state of critically low white blood cells.
We’re all more or less in equal danger unless you lived at the Herron senior residence in Dorval. I cried when I read the details in the Montreal Gazette last Saturday. Bags of urine spilling on the floor. People who hadn’t been fed in three days. The staff had fled because they weren’t given PPE, or any kind of danger pay raise to encourage them to stay until it was too late. I feel utter privilege right now. I’m not experiencing acute hunger or hanging by a thread like millions of others. I don’t have a small business that may never return to its pre-existing status. My worries are for my 91-year-old mother, and her hypoxia as she waits for a non-essential stent for a blocked artery. Still, she feels blessed and has never complained.
My husband is cooking for the first time in our long marriage. We ate clam chowder last week, which I do not recall buying. (I also do the shopping.) He said he found the tin in the pantry. I retrieved it from the recycling bin and the expiry date printed on the can read 2009. We are alive!! Now either that exercise of stamping expiration dates on tin cans is a make-work project, or the risk of botulism is in fact quite low.
I’m writing a new book, watching Netflix, (loved Unorthodox and The English Game and the Biggest Little Farm) and I’m following Pluto’s guideline to wear button-up pants from time to time, as the stretchy ones give us a false sense of hope about our waistlines. Speaking of baking, flour sales are right up there next to toilet paper hoarding. I loved the story of the man in the US who asked to return 16 jumbo rolls of TP, only to be screamed at, “We don’t take returns from ass-wipes like you,” which I thought was a pretty clever answer.
On March 11th, in Covent Garden, I had lunch with my stem cell donor — hours of storytelling followed by several goodbye hugs. On the 12th, William was rushed to hospital by ambulance with breathing issues. On that day in William’s town, one hour north of London, there was no coronavirus test available, and he was sent home. Oddly, he could not smell or taste, but those side effects had yet to be added to the Covid-19 symptom list. B
Back in Canada I was coughing and sneezing and had developed a migraine. No biggy. My life has been one long cold since my transplant in 2016. My lungs took a bit of a hit. My bones too but I’m not complaining.
Ten days later William called to “check-in.” A few hours after the call, I was in the queue asking to be tested. I gave my story, or rather William’s, and was green-lighted for the test. The test site is very “Margaret Atwood.” It was surreal when gowned, gloved and masked medical personnel silently beckoned us into an enormous white tent. There was a hush inside, a certain gravitas that belied the number of people receiving the nose swabs.
Six days later I received an email. Negative. I do feel I dodged a bullet. Along with the elderly, I was, (past tense), considered to be in the category of high risk. It has taken a pandemic to realize I have a healthy immune system and can expect to receive a letter from the PMO when I turn 100.