COVID: my journey to hell and back

A good friend of mine, some 50 years ago, was a basketball coach for a team I covered for my newspaper.

Having just won an important district game over a tall and talented opponent, I told him, “Your boys did a great job last Saturday night.” (His tallest of 12 team members was 5’10”; the opponents had a much taller team.)

The coach replied, “You gotta’ have a little luck, too.”

Likewise, while playing fast-pitch softball, our team played in a 16-team league at Harvey. We qualified for the N.D. State Amateur Fast Pitch Tournament (played all in one day) and were in the championship game against a loaded team from Minot Air Force Base. They were good, so were we.

Good, because we had a pitcher who carried us all year. In the state tourney, he pitched three and-a-half games.

At the end of the third inning, he came off the field and said, “My arm is gone, Myron you take over.”

First off, Bruce had every pitch in the book that a fast-pitch thrower could have. He threw riser, drops, curves either way, a knuckle ball that hopped like a rabbit and an extreme fast ball.

Myron had two pitches; the knuckle ball and a good fast ball.

“I can’t give them much,” Myron said. Bruce told him to keep the opponent batters guessing which he did – and we won the game and the 1965 Class B title.

Myron later went on to be a captain in the Air Force, in active duty and spent his pre-retirement years working in the Pentagon.

Ya’ got to have a little luck!

So as I write this column this week, I can only think of one thing to say, “You gotta’ have a little luck.”

And, I did. A whole lot of luck.

I’m playing that terrible game of COVID and it’s been a long, drawn out scenario, but I’m still here … lucky to be here!

It all started the first of December, when after months of doctoring in Bismarck, I had surgery on my heart where two stents were inserted to increase my heart strength. I had and still have, very low functioning of my heart, although it is improving.

I worked on all phases of recuperation including a strict diet of none to very little salt and lots of physical therapy.

Then, later in December, after I had all my COVID shots and a flu shot (the first for me), the words came to me after entering the emergency room at CHI St. Alexis Health Carrington Health Center.

“YOU HAVE COVID,” they said following a mouth swabbing.

And that’s the last thing I remember hearing or knowing about for the two-plus weeks I was hospitalized there. I don’t remember visitors, doctors, nurses and all who worked on me during that time. I was out.

COVID, pneumonia and fluid in the lungs, all at once, will do that to you!

What I do know, is that the staff at the hospital kept me alive, when reports I learned about later had me very close to checking out!

Thanks to the staff there, I was “very lucky, very, very, lucky!”

I didn’t wake up from that time in the hospital until I was taken to Golden Acres nursing home, when I stepped out of the car and was placed in a wheelchair.

I remember that as well as the ride to my room at the nursing home, where I spent a month-and-a-half. I had extended physical therapy and care provided by a great team of nurses and aides who kept me in check with my medications, food and exercise.

What a great group of caretakers. I was very, very lucky, again!

While at the home, I met several new friends and dined with a group of other guys who were home-bound. I knew I wouldn’t be there for long, so made the most of my time visiting about nursing home living.

(Note: I will forever take time to visit those friends at the home; some who never receive visitations and someone to talk to. For that, too, I was and am very lucky!)

I had many visitors at the home, all of whom I thank including some I didn’t know, who stopped by my room and offered caring words. My wife, Pat, who spent countless hours at the hospital and at the home. My daughter, Shelly and hubby Brad, with their special favors, also made my stay more pleasurable. Thanks, too, to all who sent cards and letters.

For all this, the staffs, nurses, aides, dietary and all – I am so lucky to be here. And one cannot leave out a most important phase of the situation … divine intervention.

Thank you, God, for answering prayers.

So, as I am into the fourth month of recovery, I need to add a few pounds to my frame (I lost 50 pounds during this fiasco) and am working on trying to rid myself of constant dizziness. Also, my sense of taste and smell is gone. I have learned these are after effects of COVID, which many address during the healing period.

So now, with God willing and the snow stops falling, I hope to do as many have asked, “When will you be writing more columns?”

Soon, I hope, but for now I’m just so, so darn lucky to be writing this column.

Again, thanks to all.

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Parting Shot: You don’t truly know someone until you see how they react to their bag of chips getting stuck in a vending machine.

We live in a world in which it’s easier to get out of a marriage than a mobile-phone contract.