I can’t imagine other circumstances that would have me calling the family doctor just because my kid has a 100.0 fever.
A refresher here: My daughter Anna is 26 years old and has lived independently (sort of) in her own apartment for more than a year. But now I too have an apartment in the same building. She has cerebral palsy, a result of a stroke at birth. And other health conditions prevented her from striking out on her own until recently, upsetting her plans for college and career.
At 6 p.m. yesterday evening, she called me to report her fever and the beginning of a sore throat. Only one word describes my reaction — fear.
Tylenol brought the fever down to 99.4, bearable. Anna has a history of mysterious fevers, and her neurologist has openly wondered if she might have occasional neurogenic fevers. We’ve never pinned this down, and the sore throat indicates another cause in this instance.
It was too late to reach her doctor. Instead, a nurse on the phone confirmed the cause was likely viral. We looked for a rash, but other than the flushing brought on by the fever, we found nothing unusual. I write this at 6 a.m. — 12 hours after onset — from my own apartment after a fitful sleep last night.
Last week I learned my COVID test was negative. This I had expected, but still it provided some relief to family members who had spent a little time with me recently.
And Indiana began reopening. Many retail establishments are open. I’ve shopped a little myself and bought several book shelves for my apartment. Now most of my books are right here within reach.
Gyms have not yet reopened, but I think they will soon. This brings me to one question: should I resume going to the pool. My daughter and I typically engage in a vigorous deep-water running regimen. It’s a routine we discovered about seven years ago when we first moved to Illinois. There our local rec center had a beautiful lap pool that was far too under-utilized. Low impact pool workouts turned out to be perfect for both me with my arthritis and my athletic daughter with cerebral palsy. I believe there were days when that pool was my main motivation for getting out of bed.
It took me a couple months after moving here to find another pool for our workouts. In January we joined the Kroc Center. We were there three mornings most weeks. Again, I was beginning to feel like a fit human being once again. COVID brought those workouts to a grinding halt.
I’m trying to decide if better cardiovascular health and muscle tone is worth the small risk of once again returning to our pool workouts. I think it is. We could dress at home, wear cover-ups too and from the rec center, and when we get out of the pool after a workout, we would simply cover again and go straight home again to change. The pool has not been crowded in the early mornings when we are there. We should be able to achieve a workout without getting close to anyone else. At least, that is the plan for now.
I can dream anyway. In the meantime, I make do with yoga and pilates.
So today I was tested for COVID-19. (Read yesterday’s post to learn why.)
Since many of you have not been tested, I’ll elaborate.
My doctor called late yesterday to put my name of the list at the testing location. When I arrived this morning, there was a line of four cars. The three cars in front of me were directed to pull into the parking lot. Evidently, the folks in those cars were there for appointments and would wait until they were called to come inside.
When it was my turn to drive forward, I gave my name and birth date. This parking lot is for an immediate care center affiliated with the clinic where my family doctor practices. I’m sure they already had my insurance information, and since there was a prescribing physician, I’ll expect to hear directly from his office. I was not asked for identification, nor did I sign my name to anything. I was directed to pull forward and then turn right, which I did.
Greeting me there was a medical professional. He was good-natured and let me take a picture.
Again, there was no paperwork, no signature required. He told me it would be a throat swab, and I laughed, relieved. “No digging-out-the-brain nasal swab then? Cool.” He laughed a little too.
I opened my mouth wide. In went the swab. It felt pretty much like a flu test swab that I had had last December, uncomfortable but not painful. He swabbed around a bit for a few seconds. The December test had been negative. Another virus, the doctor had told me then. I hope – and expect – that today’s test will be negative as well. But I wanted to make sure I wasn’t unintentionally infecting anyone around me.
Mid-swab. (Anna snapped the pic.)
I left with directions to stay inside until I had the test results. No shopping trips. No visits with my grandchildren tomorrow on Mother’s Day. My son and I already had discussed this. For the time being, I’m keeping my distance. It’s okay. It’s supposed to be a rainy day anyway.
I spent the afternoon watching SVU reruns. It wasn’t difficult.
Four nights ago emergency workers showed up at the apartment directly across the hall from mine. When I realized they were there, I retreated to my own apartment to get out of the way. I didn’t know what had happened until I ran into my neighbor the following day. He looked stricken – disheveled and a bit ashen.
I asked him, “Are you okay?” I addressed him by name, but I don’t want to encroach on his privacy here, at least not without his permission. There are only four apartments on my floor, and we all know each other.
He shook his head. “No, I guess I’m not,” he answered.
“What’s wrong?”
“My son died last night,” he said.
I was dumbstruck. “I’m so sorry,” I said. I was at a loss for words. I could tell he just wanted to get on the elevator and flee, so I quickly told him we could talk later. Today, when I met him again at the elevators, I learned the rest of the story.
His son had moved in with him a few months ago. I’d seen them together a few times, but I hadn’t been introduced, and I didn’t know he actually was living there. The young man had been sick, probably with the flu, his dad said. His dad left briefly for an errand and when he returned and checked on him, he was gone. He was 23 years old.
“I think he might have choked on his vomit,” his dad said. “I was gone only about 45 minutes.”
When I asked if it might have been the coronavirus, and my neighbor shook his head. There would be an autopsy, of course. “We can’t have a funeral or a viewing until things open up more.” He was his only son, but he had two step-children who were helping him with the arrangements.
Yesterday, the company that manages our apartment informed us there was a “possible confirmed case of COVID-19” in the building. Putting aside the ambiguity of that message, knowing of my neighbor’s sudden loss has made COVID-19 exceedingly immediate and within reach.
The State of Indiana began it’s reopening process this past weekend. The local mall is open, and retail stores have begun to reopen too. Restaurants are allowed to open at half capacity. People are venturing out more. A friend said that there had been a block party in her neighborhood, complete with inflatable bounce houses.
I told my daughter Anna on Wednesday that I didn’t think we could continue to walk at Notre Dame from now on. There were too many others on the paths too, and they frequently did not move over to leave good distance between us as we passed. Yesterday we walked instead in a nearby cemetery.
Tomorrow, by the way, I will be tested for COVID-19. After processing what I learned today, I called my doctor. He thought it probably would be a good idea. I don’t have any symptoms, apart from seasonal allergies that are no different than any other year at this time. Still, if I’m infected, I don’t want to infect others.
For several weeks now my daughter and I have been wearing masks that I’ve made out of blue shop towels. There are a number of articles online that have identified blue shop towels as a particularly good filter for COVID-19, and I have found them to be an inexpensive and easy medium to work with.
For those of you who’d like to give it a try, here’s my method for constructing the masks.
Here are the basic supplies: Blue shop towels, rubber bands (big enough to encircle ears), and a stapler with staples. I bought everything in this picture – including the little stapler – from my local Walmart for less than five dollars. Since there are 100 rubber bands in the package, that means I can make 50 masks without spending another cent.
The towels come in a roll much like a roll of paper towels. In fact, if they weren’t blue, you could easily mistake it for a roll of paper towels. There are 55 squares in each roll. First, we start with one square.
Notice that the square is not exactly square.
Now, because the square is not exactly square, you will need to decide whether you want your mask to fit tightly or more loosely. I am not particularly big or small, and I chose the tighter fit and it’s comfortable on my face. If you have a larger face, you may choose looser. For a tighter fit, fold the square in half with the perforated edges on each end. For a looser fit, do the opposite.
Here I have folded the towel square in half with the perforated edges on each side.
Then I fold again and crease.
Fold again and crease.
Unfold the square just once and mark lightly on each side where the center is creased.
Unfold and mark the center crease lightly on each side.
Flip the folded square over and pin back a pleat on each top and bottom edge. The pleat should be folded about one-third of the distance toward the inner crease that was marked in the previous step. I find it helpful to pin the pleats in place.
Pleat and fasten.
Flip the mask over again. This is the most difficult step, and still it isn’t particularly hard. Place a rubber band at each end of the mask. Fold each pleat over the rubber band to the marked center and fasten it there.
With a rubber band and each side of the mask, fold the pleats over the band to the previously marked center and pin in place.
Now all you have to do is fasten each pleat with a staple. If you are able to sew the pleats in place, either by hand or by machine, that’s an option as well. I’ve also used fabric glue successfully instead of stapling, although I find glue a little more messy than desirable. And of course glue takes a little time to dry and may leave a slight odor behind for a time.
Additionally, if you can find larger hair ties – ones intended for thicker hair – those can be used instead of rubber bands. Obviously, that drives the cost up considerably. I’ve been able to get one package of twenty hair ties for a little less than five dollars, so using hair ties instead of rubber bands costs about fifty cents per mask. Frankly, larger hair ties have been pretty hard to find right now with everyone busy sewing and making masks.
Because the blue towel and rubber band masks cost less than a dime and take less than five minutes to make each, I’ve been giving these away in my apartment building. I make them on my disinfected kitchen counter while wearing rubber gloves and a face mask, then seal them in a ziplock sandwich bag. It isn’t a sterile manufacturing line, but it’s clean and I’m comfortable that I’m not unwittingly transmitting the virus myself.
If you can sew, I find it helpful to stitch and gather about two inches in the center of both the top and bottom of the mask, where it will be positioned over the chin and nose. This helps to form a better seal so that more breath is taken through the mask rather than from around it. That’s optional of course, but the stitching does protect the wearer of the mask a little further.
This is what the mask looks like when you gather up the towel a bit at the nose and the chin.
Masks made of blue shop towels will last multiple wearings. In fact, my daughter and I each have a stash of several masks and rotate them from day to day. To this point not one has fallen apart. I did try washing one, just to see what would happen. It didn’t fall apart, but it didn’t look very happy either after the experience. I threw that one out. Since the masks are so inexpensive, I suppose you could dispose of them after each wearing. But I’m not entirely confident we have an endless supply of blue shop towels in this country.
I’ve also found that you can use this same method outline in this post to make a mask out of a paper towel. That is a less sturdy mask with less filtering properties. But it would work in a pinch.
I’ve been away for a while. Frankly, I had to take a break. Too much focus on this novel coronavirus was getting a little too heavy for me to carry.
So what did I do in the past week?
I read Albert Camus’ book The Plague. It was first published in 1947, and I was astonished at how many parallels could be found in this fictionalized account of a French city hit hard by plague and our world today in a global pandemic. Wikipedia calls the book an “existentialist classic.” It certainly does reflect intently on the human condition, the meaning of suffering, the intent of God, and all those deep questions that I love but probably bore the average person. I intend to reread it again in a week or too, after I’ve considered it a bit more. It’s certainly a book I can recommend, although I’m not entirely sure that it lightened the emotional heaviness any.
The weather has been chilly, and my feet were aching badly due to my intense walking regimen. So I stayed inside for most of the week. I don’t like missing my usual exercise – deep water running in the Kroc Center pool. The Kroc Center is a recreation center located a little more than a mile from my apartment, a gift to the community from Joan Kroc, the widow of McDonald’s Corporation founder Ray Kroc. Generally, I run (yes, run) laps in the pool several times a week for a little more than an hour, which is about a mile and a vigorous workout. But the Kroc Center shuttered its facility the middle of March under the governor’s social distancing guidelines, and I’ve struggled to find a substitute. Well, all this is to say, I bought a bike.
My new bike.
I took a spin on the bike on Sunday. I believe it is the first time I’ve been on a bike in nearly forty years. Turns out, you really don’t forget how to ride. I’ll have to work up to any real distance, but this should help quite a bit as the weather warms up more.
Yesterday, we met up with my grandchildren, sitting outside in the piazza in front of Morris Civic Auditorium. We’re being exceedingly careful, since my son Zac is still going to his workplace every day. He’s our weak like. But we’ve done this a number of times in the past weeks, just to talk or walk together. Can I say for certain that the children are always at least six feet away from us? Probably not. But we do all try to follow the rules, and our visits help ease the loneliness for everyone.
My grandchildren, social distancing.
What else am I doing? I have a picture puzzle almost finished. I’m making masks out of blue shop rags, which posts on the Internet are claiming offer some decent filtering. I’m hand-washing much of our daily laundry, to put off using public laundry facilities as much as possible.
And, like everyone else is finding, enduring a month with all salons closed is taking a toll. My bangs no longer are bangs. Ordinarily I wouldn’t let my hair grow this long, but now that I can tie it back, maybe I’ll be less likely to touch my face.
Anna’s hair is getting long too, but thankfully it’s still holding a nice shape. I told her, if nothing else, there are always headbands.
An extended care facility about 13 blocks from our apartment building has become a local epicenter for COVID-19, with more than sixty confirmed cases and several deaths. Today another death was reported for our county (St. Joseph Co.), bringing the total fatalities here to 12. As of today there are 472 positive test results. Statewide, there are 670 deaths and 12,097 positive cases. If I understand correctly, we aren’t expected to peak locally for another two weeks yet.
(Ooops. I forgot to press publish last night. So it’s actually Easter. Oh, well.)
As I finish my series focusing on the stations of the cross, with pictures here from the stations that line the west side of Saint Joseph’s Lake on the University of Notre Dame campus, it occurs to me that contemplating these stations is an exercise of faith reminiscent of ancient pilgrimages. We know the ending of the story, the Easter resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. But for these few days, we instead meditate on his suffering and humiliation. Grace did not come cheap.
Jesus is nailed to the cross.Jesus dies upon the cross. This twelfth station here in a grove of sycamores on a hill near the lake, in sculpture rather than bas relief.Two of Jesus’s disciples, Joseph and Nicodemus, remove his body from the cross.The body of Jesus is placed in the tomb.
I took my daughter to the post office this morning to mail a card to a young friend here in town who’s fighting brain cancer. From there, we drove to the Grotto at Notre Dame to say a short prayer. It was chilly, and I had to retreat to the car early. A family of six gathered there at the same time as we, three small children with three adults and one dog.
After lunch we tuned in to a live video stream of a Good Friday service at the church where Anna was baptized. And again we participated in communion at Anna’s kitchen table — a piece of bagel dipped into fruit juice.
And in the afternoon I turn again to the Stations of the Cross to remember the day everything changed.
Veronica offers her veil to Jesus, and he wipes the sweat and blood from his face.Jesus falls the second time under the weight of the cross.When Jesus encountered a group of women wailing and lamenting for him, he said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.”Jesus falls a third time.The Roman soldiers stripped Jesus of his garments and cast lots for his coat.
Darkness. Suffering. Endurance. Sacrifice. Friday of Holy Week brings these words to the forefront of my attention. They are words that hold meaning as well for today.
I leave you there for tonight, and I will complete the stations tomorrow.
I took my daughter to the post office this morning to mail a card to a young friend here in town who’s fighting brain cancer. From there, we drove to the Grotto at Notre Dame to say a short prayer. It was chilly, and I had to retreat to the car early. A family of six gathered there at the same time as we, three small children with three adults and one dog.
After lunch we tuned in to a live video stream of a Good Friday service at the church where Anna was baptized. And again we participated in communion at Anna’s kitchen table — a piece of bagel dipped into fruit juice.
And in the afternoon I turn again to the Stations of the Cross to remember the day everything changed.
Veronica offers her veil to Jesus, and he wipes the sweat and blood from his face.Jesus falls the second time under the weight of the cross.When Jesus encountered a group of women wailing and lamenting for him, he said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.”Jesus falls a third time.The Roman soldiers stripped Jesus of his garments and cast lots for his coat.
Darkness. Suffering. Endurance. Sacrifice. Friday of Holy Week brings these words to the forefront of my attention. They are words that hold meaning as well for today.
I leave you there for tonight, and I will complete the stations tomorrow.
Holy week typically is filled with many traditions and observances, beginning with Palm Sunday, marking Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, carried by a colt. The week has seemed stripped bare this year. Today was no different, although Anna and I participated in an online Maundy Thursday observation tonight with our church family back in Illinois, remembering the night of the Last Supper.
However, one very meaningful addition to holy week this year has been our regular visits to the walking paths at the University of Notre Dame. The campus is just a few miles from our apartment building.
There we’ve paused regularly at the fourteen Stations of the Cross that have lined the path on the west end of Saint Joseph’s Lake for nearly a century. The story of Jesus’s crucifixion two thousand years ago seems particularly poignant this year. After all, it is ultimately a story of sacrifice. And this too is a season of sacrifice.
I thought I’d share pictures of the first five of the stations tonight, a series in cast bronze bas relief,
Pontius Pilate condemns Jesus.Jesus willingly takes up his cross.Jesus, weakened by whippings and blood loss, falls under the weight of the cross.Jesus meets his grieving mother.Roman soldiers force Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus’s cross.
COVID here 