I will preface today’s offering with an admission. Today is yet another one of those MS-tired days, the ones where I wake up exhausted and the day goes downhill from there. If you’ve ever heard of spoon theory (and please follow that link if you haven’t. It’s both fascinating and very informative), then It’s a day the cutlery started disappearing with hideous alacrity, leaving me short on energy, concentration, and patience.
I’m telling you this in case today’s blog post makes even less sense than normal. If you find misspellings, odd word choices, and punctuation that looks like it’s been applied with a shotgun, it’s not my fault, it’s my disease (this time).
All of which brings me nicely to the main thrust of today’s post. The thorny issue of health.
Family Man
On this occasion, it’s not the health of your erstwhile blogger that’s up for discussion. I won’t be talking about my Spina Bifida, my Multiple Sclerosis, my Optic Neuritis, my Pernicious Anemia, or the chronic case of extreme handsomeness I can never seem to shake. No, this time it’s the health of others I’m more concerned with. More particularly, the health of my family.
Case one is my wife, Tina, who has had to take the last two weeks on sick leave from a job she loves. This is due to undiagnosed pain around the pelvic area, weakness, dizziness, and a lethargy that makes my day look energetic. She’s had some bloods taken and then some more, which going from the difficulties the nurse had extracting the red stuff, might have been the last few drops. The tests highlighted what Tina calls ‘wonky blood’. Basically, several levels are low, including vitamin D, something being corrected with a course of mega-doses of the vital vit. We’re also going to the hospital on Sunday (I know! Sunday! What’s all that about?) so Tina can have a scan. Hopefully, this will generate a diagnosis of whatever’d going on and from there we can proceed to treatment.
The second case is a lot less mysterious, but still one that has led to a lot of stress and worry in the Rankin household over the last ten days or so. My sister tested positive for COVID-19.
Bad Taste
I say my sister, but in truth the diagnosis is not constrained to herself. The virus has managed to infect my brother-in-law, Stuart, and also my nieces Gabby and Holly. It's also hit my aunt, but that seems to be unconnected. Whichever way, it’s a family package they could all have done without.
The two girls seem, at the time of typing, to have escaped with reasonably mild symptoms. A little shortness of breath and a loss of taste and smell being the ones which stand out. My sister, Janine, and Stuart both seem to have had a more adult-sized dose, complete with cough, lack of taste and smell, shortness of breath, tummy issues, and complete exhaustion.
The news was leaked to me by my mother, who herself had a case of suspected Covid back in March. I say suspected because, although the symptoms fit rather snugly, tests were a thing of the far-flung future back then, as was tracking and tracing. Now, admittedly, both of these have their issues. Both have been found to not perform quite as advertised (And for the record, it’s a private company called Serco who run Test Track and Trace, not the NHS). At least we have them now. At least something is better than nothing.
It would appear that Janine and her brood have beaten the virus. Speaking to her today, there was still the odd cough; still the odd wheeze, but she sounded so much better than a week ago. The girls have bounced back from their milder symptoms with the elastic snappiness of teenagers, and Stuart, although still tired, has proven to be his indefatigable self. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for the country as a whole.
Lock And Key
Tomorrow sees us head back into lockdown. It is a measure which is regrettable. One which will see countless people’s financial and mental health stretched again. It also seems unavoidable. I know there are those who believe these measures should not be taken. That the country's wealth outstrips its health and schemes like Furlough are unsustainable. That personal liberty is more important than a strangers wellbeing. That lockdown will cause more casualties than it will prevent, through domestic violence, suicide, and overworked hospitals having to delay important operations. Those people may have a point. From the point of view of a vulnerable person; a person for whom Covid hold additional terrors, it is necessary however. A shorter, sharper lockdown might have been better, but until a vaccine is manufactured containing the disease is all we can do, and the best, perhaps the only way of doing that is if we all work together.
Our modern society is run based on the principal of the strong caring for the weak. In these difficult times, that principal will be tested to breaking point, but I trust, and I hope it’s a test we can pass.
Until next time…
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