After the first very worrisome, middle-of-night upper lung pain and breathing heaviness, and seriously considering driving to an ER connected with a hospital (the ER of my COVID testing last Monday does not have hospital with it, not yet), I decided to wait an hour, take another cough suppressing pill, use the inhaler, take a pain med, and trust in the Lord.
Awoke in morning from phone ringing. Was the COVID-19 test results. Negative! Elated and grateful, I was told upper respiratory infection but not the coronavirus. I am convinced that the Lord brought me to the middle-of-night concern as lungs were worst thus far, and then offered the good news of negative test result. I also reflect upon why I had such a difficult time getting a simple prescription of Azithromycin from two separate health care providers, but thanks be to God for the ER medical doctor who prescribed that plus inhaler and cough suppressant.
Took the last of the "z-pack" yesterday, and today while still mostly in bed resting, I'm definitely on the mend. Had I not gone to the ER to ask a third medical provider for Azithromycin, this prolonged (or not treated accurately for a crucial week-before-last), the infection would have moved into the lower lungs as that was where the cough was starting to come from in middle of night scare. The Lord has also worked out for me to get a new medical doctor--an internist.
God provides so beautifully and generously in our lives! As a consecrated in Christ, Catholic hermit, all the more I marvel that I needed no assistance in these past three weeks other than was prudent to have a person, wearing gloves and with hand sanitizer, to take the antibiotic, inhaler, and cough med prescription to the pharmacy and set outside my hermitage the medications. No other interchange, no proximity other than 20' distance for I put the script in tailgate of truck so the kindly helper only had to reach for it with my standing 20' downwind from truck, mask on, and held the coughs until the person left and I was back in my truck.
These and others were instructions from ER doctor and nurse, as to the care and precautions people need to be taking if having any symptoms of COVID-19. My not receiving the z-pack when I knew I first needed it caused time and precautions and concerns for ER COVID team, plus flu test and COVID-test and state lab analysis. I likely would have been well by now or even a few days ago with correct antibiotic 12 days ago. But I know how others feel with such symptoms and sickness, their thoughts and wondering, and I'd not have done as much research which has helped guide my choices going forward.
This is a serious virus of so many unknowns such as lasting effects on the human body. (They know already that it can create permanent lung damage in some older COVID survivors; and many studies covering various facets will be on-going for a long time on this virus. After myself being so ill with the sinus infection run amuck without proper, earlier treatment, I can assume my resistance is lower than normal. And I am quite susceptible to COVID-19 now, as is everyone else who's not contracted it and survived it. Even with those who recover, there have been cases of those who have re-contracted the virus, possibly in a different strain, l or s.
I'm going to follow all the procedures which I discovered while researching COVID-19. I'll keep up with the wiping of surfaces, precautions that are recommended, and will stay inside other than in my yard wearing a mask or if need to go somewhere in an emergency type need. I have someone young and without symptoms who must go to grocery for young family needs who is willing to pick up any items I may need. The only item would be a prescription, but even that--I can hold out a bit longer. The person is going tomorrow for their own needs, so will accept kind offer. Will have that person drop it off outside hermitage.
I simply do not want to risk catching COVID-19 or being exposed to it through the various ways it is so easily transmitted nor to transfer from me to someone other. Nor do I want to pass on whatever it is that I have suffered as while I know I did not have either flu strain, there is no way to know what I have other than severe upper respiratory ailment.
As to my trying to impress upon the few others who I encountered via email or a phone call or some text messages--the importance of cooperating with the President's Task Forces' "15 Days to Stop the Spread" guidelines--I've come to realize that by now people are entrenched in what they want to do and how they choose to think and nothing I can say or write further is going to change their choices and behaviors.
I've returned to praise of God and prayer for the world. Today a morning text from someone in position of Church leadership and vocation, shared the person's plan to offer confession 6 hours a day, plus encourage adoration as would be exposing the Blessed Sacrament in a large chapel/facility Tabernacle. Included in that facility is a health care unit for elderly persons. I did text back that this time period in our lives certainly calls upon us to have much greater faith that Christ is in the Tabernacle in our hearts and souls. I mentioned that I can remain His, solus Deus, until the pandemic has lessened.
I did not directly state but is so true: we can adore Christ within us and adore Him from within our abodes; we can ask God to forgive our sins and in greater faith trust in His mercy at this time. This is prudence and charity toward others.
We can partake of the tangible, physical aspects of Sacraments when the dangers have passed. We can gather physically together in chapels and churches to adore Christ in the Tabernacle. And while I did not text this as I know my words will not dampen the determination for the person who so wants "to do" something helpful which is not helpful in this time of heath crisis requiring physical distancing--I prayed that the person might consider own age--past 70, and not in best of health.
The Lord continues to humble me in returning me to Him and to prayer and praise. In the Book of Hosea, 6:1-6 of today's first reading at Mass (with us no longer meeting together for Mass due to the wisdom of professionals whose research and statistics factually show us how this serious virus is transmitted and how to contain, mitigate, and eventually stop the rapid and can-be-deadly spread of COVID-19)--I find the Lord showing me the path forward in my own hermit way of helping, and also for anyone be they priest or lay person, religious order monk or nun, adult or child.
In these verses from the Living Word of God, some the reminder, reassurance, and faithful "action" we are to take in such times in which we now are living, with some suffering, recovering--but also some dying.
"Come, let us return to the Lord, it is He who has rent,
but He will heal us; He has struck us,
but He will bind our wounds.
He will revive us after two days;
on the third day He will raise us up,
to live in His presence.
Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD;
as certain as the dawn is His coming,
and His judgment shines forth like the light of day!
He will come to us like the rain,
like spring rain that waters the earth.
"'What can I do with you, Ephraim"
What can I do with you Judah?
Your piety is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that early passes away.
For this reason I smote them through the prophets;
I slew the by the words of my mouth;
For it is love that I desire not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God rather than holocausts.'"
As for my own frustrations in trying to break through to even a handful or so people who are literally, perhaps, hell-bent on going out and about with suspect yet minor symptoms, or asymptomatic but not at all heeding the advice and request to just STAY INSIDE. That is, stay inside only and unless we need to go out for medical care or groceries--and go once a week or ten days (or longer) to purchase what is needed; do not shop frequently, in other words. Exercise at home, pray at home, and work from home if possible. Otherwise, it is recommended for those only to work who are in medical profession, law enforcement, and other crucial employments necessary to help with global health crisis.
I will stop expressing the realities of concern and that are interpreted "stressed-out" or "over-reacting." I will stop silently calling out from my hermit cell via text or email or one rare caller. By now people have heard even if they do not heed the research being given hourly from the multiple news agencies online, via television, and in print media. My frustration, fueled by how very sick I have been --and that not even COVID-19, must cease. What sickness I had was awful enough; and it might be another week or more while the Azithromycin continues to work within this body, for me to resume some manual labor.
The Lord is calling His nothing Catholic hermit to return to my life devoted to praise of God and prayer for the world, in the silence of solitude and in stricter separation from the World. I return to being a silent preaching of Christ and a hidden reminder of the mystery of Christ in His Church. To be now, the humbled one praying. I must remain off and alone with God, in my hermitage bedroom. Not even raise my eyes to heaven but to beat my breast and pray, "Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner."
"Come, let us return to the Lord, it is He who has rent, but He will heal us...."
God bless His Real Presence in us, always!
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