Rocky, a Bout with Covid and Trusting God.

Our entire family, my wife and all three kids, got the coronavirus.  But, unlike me, they recovered fairly quickly and with much milder symptoms. 

To be frank, I refuse to live in fear.  Now, you can call it faith, denial, ignorance or defiance, but an old Cuban saying always came to mind, "Cuando te toca, te toca," which translates to: when it's your turn, it's your turn.  Not to mention, my prayer mantra from St. Sister Faustina's Devine Mercy vision, Jesus I trust in you, which I repeat throughout the day.  In other words, as Blue Oyster Cult would sing, don't fear the reaper (with or without more cowbell).  I entrusted myself and family to God.  

Now, don't get me wrong.  I did take precautions as recommended by civil authorities.  I did lockdown in March with the exception of going to work, the market for necessities and running and walking the dogs on a daily basis, which were a great way to get out of the house (I even started a habit of praying the Rosary whenever I walked them, which I have continued).  However, I wasn't going to let the virus or fear rule my world.  I never did.  And, I refused to let my family be ruled by fear either.    

By the time summer came around, and things started to reopen, we were trying to live our lives as normally as we could, albeit limited by governmental restrictions and our estranged living conditions (more on that shortly).   

We started attending weekly Mass.  I would take my son to his catching lessons weekly.  We went on vacation to Sanibel Beach, as we normally do every year, and my son attended baseball summer camp in July and started practicing four times per week with his academy in late August.  We went to a baseball tournament in Ft. Myers in September.  

Meanwhile, our daughter started dancing as soon as her studio reopened.  Our kids attended in-person school when the new schoolyear began.  We started dining out at restaurants on a limited basis.  And, while hesitant at first, we allowed my high school daughter to resume her social life and get together with friends (Let's just say, we gave her a finger and she took the hand but we weren't about to stop living).      

Now, we always wore masks and tried to maintain social distancing, although it doesn't always work, and washed our hands, to the point where I had to start putting a bottle of moisturizer in my briefcase.  We ordered groceries delivered, which we have continued to do.  But, we never obsessed about the death toll or infection rates.  As I told a coworker recently, if I listened to Dr. Anthony Fauci, possibly the best known infectious disease expert in the history of infectious diseases, I'd be living in a bubble. 

I realize a lot of people died; over 500 thousand in the U.S. alone and counting.  Some were people that I knew or, better stated, knew of.  Many friends lost family members, including moms and dads, aunts and uncles, grandparents.  There was an old friend of my wife and father at my daughter's high school who was fifty-one when he died of Covid.  A teacher from my daughter's school also passed away.  I know the dangers.  I work in TV news and that was part of my daily bread but I kept it in perspective.    

I saw that most people that I knew personally, including extended family, recovered.  Moreover,  according to the CDC, between 97-99 percent do.  

My biggest concern was getting sick and passing it onto my octogenarian parents, who I was living with from the time of the shutdown in March until our house remodeling was completed in May (Did I mention we were remodeling our house during Covid?).  

After our college daughter was forced to return from Tallahassee because her school shutdown to in-person classes, my wife and kids stayed at my Mother-In-Law's one-bedroom condo during the week and I was living with my parents at their house.  Because of curfews and restrictions, we saw each other on weekends.

Even when we moved back home after the remodeling work was completed, I was always cautious every morning when I visited my parents on my way to work.  Fortunately, God protected them.  They recently got the booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine (2nd shot).   

Anyhow, there I was in early January falling asleep at the drop of a hat, fatigued, depleted after having lost eighteen pounds (I've gained them all back!) and feeling like I just went 15-rounds with Apollo Creed but after two weeks, my wife started asking when I was going to start helping out around the house (there's nothing like the love of a pragmatic woman to jumpstart the healing process.  Do you want to talk about fear?) and I told myself that was it, I wasn't going to continue being sick.  

I looked at Covid in the eye and said, "C'mon.  C'mon."  Some of it must have been mental.  I started feeling better within a couple of days.  And, about a week later, I tried running for the first time (which went as well as Rocky's first attempt at running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, sans the raw eggs).  I've been feeling well ever since.

Not long after our recovery, I tell my high schooler, "Now we don't have to really worry about getting Covid for a while because of the antibodies."  She looks at me slyly and says with a smile, "I know.  I really wanted to get it for that reason."  The mind of a teenager!  

So it wasn't the best way to start the year but we realize how blessed we are.  

God is good and, while we sometimes have to face the Apollo Creeds in our lives, and I'm not talking about the fun-loving friend in the later Rocky movies but the taunting, mean, undisputed heavyweight champion who is so imposing that no one wants to fight, or a microscopic infection, if we face them with God by our side, there is nothing to fear...