COVID-19 Arrives At Last to My Household

Four weeks ago I wrote that one of my resolutions for 2022 was the following — “Don’t try to get COVID, but don’t exactly go out of your way NOT to get COVID.” I wrote that because it seemed like everyone was falling ill with the Omicron variant in late 2021, and sooner or later the virus would find me, unless I wanted to live like a monk, which was not an option, since I have two daughters and a job.

Well, I came back from a men’s-only weekend in Palm Desert representing Ventura County at the United States Tennis Association 18-and-over regional sectionals to find my youngest daughter had a fever of 101 degrees and a positive COVID-19 test. Well, there it is.

I was not all that surprised. The Omicron variant COVID infection rates are through the roof. Seemingly everyone is getting it — supposedly everyone will get it, sooner or later.

And if I wasn’t that surprised I wasn’t that worried, either. In my family we were all vaccinated and boosted, so the data suggests a COVID illness would be mild or asymptomatic. We don’t come into regular contact with immunocompromised persons or anything like that, so that wasn’t so much a concern. But Elizabeth was definitely feeling poorly, and she slept an enormous amount that first day of her diagnosis. Her cheeks were flushed; she coughed loudly and often. There was no doubt she was sick. It was a shock: here it was, COVID-19 under my roof, finally.

Nobody else in the family was feeling ill. How can one person get sick and nobody else? Your garden variety flu or cold would normally make its way through the entire household over a week or two. We would pass it around without trying.

Maybe we will all get COVID, too? My wife, older daughter, myself? All of us? Or will nobody besides my younger daughter test COVID positive? Some yes, some no?

Time will tell.

Again, from my new year’s resolution: “And then after you have a mild case of COVID in 2022 you will have natural antibodies for defense and will be good well into 2023 for the next variant(s).” So I am almost hoping I get the SARS-CoV-2 virus from Elizabeth, suffer whatever symptoms might come my way, fight off the infection with my immune system, gain additional protections for my T-cells to fight COVID in the future, and move forward with my life.

One begins to conclude that the people most at risk from this virus are precisely the ones with the least exposure to it, through vaccination or natural exposure. Getting the virus and surviving it, or getting vaccinated, or most likely both, is the only realistic path forward. You are not going to evade this virus forever, unless you move to a cave and make your home there, and never leave it.

Two years ago everyone was desperate to avoid COVID-19. But I suspected a uncomfortable truth even back then: this coronavirus is going to make its way to everyone, sooner or later. The virus is gonna virus. So extraordinary measures to avoid it — locking down entire populations, shutting down large swathes of the economy, canceling school for month after month, etc — was a lot of noise, activity, and suffering signifying not much in terms of finding a long-term fix for this outbreak. This is much more so the case twenty-two months into the pandemic.

I live my life in accordance with this understanding.

So I spent all last weekend with friends in Palm Desert playing competitive tennis at sectionals. Here is my team —

After our tennis matches we would go to dinner together and laugh late into the night. A couple of us rented a house for two days. None of us spent much time fretting about the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19. We drank beer and watched Australian Open tennis matches. We had a great time.

The more of us who get sick and subsequently gain antibodies, the sooner we can all move beyond this mess. Those most vulnerable can do what they need to do to stay safe, and the rest of us can get on with it. Control what you can control, and leave the rest alone.

Another sort of person would be entirely in the opposite camp in terms of how to exist in the age of COVID. They lived semi-secluded in anxiety and isolation. They weren’t exercising often; they weren’t socializing much. Two years into it they were “doing their duty in the face of a global pandemic,” as they saw it. “Stay home and stay safe!” they warned. Anyone who acted otherwise they sought to shame publicly.

And they were probably much more overweight and stressed out than me and my friends were — their immune systems much less able to cope with an infection, when it comes.

Who is living the better, more sustainable lifestyle two years into all this? Who is healthier? Who will be doing better three, five, or ten years from now?

I hope you had as enjoyable a last weekend as I did, dear reader. I really hope you did. And what do you have planned for next weekend? That is an important question.

Will you have more of the same misery you have experienced since March of 2020? What plans have you cancelled because of the coronavirus? What in your life has gone away which was worthwhile? Which friendships have you lost? What opportunities have you left fallow?

I will choose to chart a different path than “stay home and stay safe,” thank you very much. But you are free to choose for yourself. We all make choices.

So we shall see if I get COVID from my daughter (or anyone else). I am not eager to experience any illness, but if it is going to happen… well, let’s get it over with. I’m ready.

We shall see.

I won a tight, tense tennis match at sectionals with my good friend against solid competition on Saturday — 

— and it reminds me of making it all the way to the runner-up status in the annual club doubles tournament at the height of COVID, another happy tennis memory from March 2021 amidst pandemia —

— while you were cocooned with indoor living, social distancing, and nagging anxiety.

You are of course free to choose how you live, esteemed reader, although the public health department will want to have its say. You can move to re-emerge into the world. The government won’t try to put you in jail — or, at least, it probably won’t.

But it worries me. People are creatures of habit, and the unhealthy COVID lifestyle will persist for many long after this novel coronavirus is more endemic than pandemic.

Look for isolation, loneliness, obesity, screen addiction, drug abuse, anxiety, anger, and depression to be even worse problems than they used to be in America — and that is saying A LOT. Maybe we are just getting started.

Will I feel sorry for the victims?

Or contempt?

A bit of both probably.

We shall see.

What I can’t do is what many others seem to have decided to do: put most of my life on hold for almost two long years, while waiting for all of this to play out. 

I am done.

I have moved on.

The tennis weekend in Palm Springs was great. 

What might be the next adventure I can pursue? 

What can I do next weekend? Next month?

I have planned a Disney cruise with the entire extended family in August to the Bahamas. Should I spend much of the rest my summer vacation in Central America? Start testing the expatriate lifestyle for a retirement overseas?

There are 11 months left in 2022.

And 11 years until I am 65.

My blood sugar levels are higher than they should be. Same with my cholesterol. The doctor says it is more genetics and getting older than anything else. I am aging, slowly but surely, like everyone else.

Time to live my life — before it is too late.

There will always be some semi-valid reason to LANGUISH.

But you always have the choice to try to THRIVE.

Carpe diem.

P.S. I had a bit of the sniffles this evening after writing this essay. So I sat down and took an at-home COVID test. The result was negative. I was a bit disappointed. How can I not have it while living in close-quarters with someone who does? We shall see what the next few days brings.

P.P.S. My wife and younger daughter came down with COVID, but my older daughter and myself never did. I tested myself multiple times over the next week and all negative. I did just about EVERYTHING I could to get COVID, but still nothing. Whatever.