Covid the Delta Variant

As a public service, let me tell you, just because you are vaccinated doesn't mean you can't get COVID the Delta Variant. Sounds like a novel, doesn't it? Like the disaster movies I am now watching on You Tube. This morning at 2:00 I could not sleep and assessed the deep cough, runny nose, slight headache behind my eyeballs, and aches and pains (arthritis right?). No fever registering on my new fangled thermometer that scans and you don't have to stick under your tongue. No fever, no infection. Right? Wrong. So why would I decide to leave my comfy bed and go to the Emergency room? Apparently God was not going to let me sleep unless I did. 

Cecily Ramsey]who is usually with me was in Mobile with Drew. Thank God. With her chronic illness here with me was the last place she should have been. And going anywhere at night is just not my style anymore. But Flowers is close. The nurse who checked me in stuck the long q-tips up my nose and did a thorough smear. Painful, but brief. When they brought me back to the ER I also got an X-Ray. Fortunately it looked good. But I tested positive for Covid the Delta Variant. 

 Because I thought my vaccination made me immune to Covid, I attended the Marjorie Taylor Green Event, went to UPS to mail medicine to Cecily Ramsey, had sense enough to skip Sunday school, attended the Republican Executive Committee Meeting, Signed papers to sell our home in PC and faxed them to the title company at UPS on Apple Drive, felt bad enough to cancel two appointments on Wednesday, and by this morning at 2 am decided I should go to the Flowers ER and let them check me out. I must admit I was shocked when the nurse came in and said, "You tested POSITIVE for Covid." 

I came home and texted my family and friends that I had been with recently to put them on the alert for symptoms. Sister Sylvia (Dr. Rushing who insisted that I get the vaccine) and brother-in-law Tom were packing up to go out of town for a seminar when Tom brought his phone off the charger and told Sylvia, "Sharman has Covid. We're not going anywhere." She called immediately after canceling with the seminar and later went and picked up the Z-Pak (Zythromycin) and the steroid the ER doctor and nurse practitioner prescribed) for me along with every vitamin the herbalist at CVS recommended. She also brought Mucus Extended Relief with (and this is important) Guaifenesin Extended release. Elkanah Burson emphasizes that I need to take two 1200 mg to loosen the mucous in the lungs. You do not want to drown in those fluids! I have been instructed to keep a record of my oxygen levels (she brought me an oxygen checker, temperature, blood pressure, etc. and to write a journal to write THE BOOK). She brings these things to the front door and I pull the shades from the window and she inspects me. I am blessed. So far I pass muster. Between her and Dr. Frank Crocket, I will make it through this. 

 Sylvia is sooo concerned about people not getting the vaccine. She reminds me that the ones she sees in the hospital on ventilators are mainly not those who have been vaccinated. So many previously healthy young people and now, children. Tomorrow I will call the places I visited and inform them. 

 Have any of you read Alexander Solzeneitzyn's novel, The Cancer Ward. It is a story of a ward of cancer victims in the Gulag (a Russian point of horror, incarceration, and cold.) The book builds around the people the hero encounters there in that ward. I must say I was reminded of that book today as I went to have the INFUSION the nurse practitioner recommended and told me to call and get in line for at Flowers. You cannot get this infusion if you are sick enough to be admitted to the hospital. It is Out Patient. But one enters through the Digestive Health Entrance next door. The whole group taking the infusion is called from their cars to meet the nurse at the door who guides you through a labyrinth of corridors back to the corner of the hospital with one examining table and one chair. The infusion machine can handle two lines. 

Abby, a beautiful wonderful nurse, skillfully put in the IV, something very important to me because I have a phobia about needles. Something about my Daddy chasing me around the table in the examining room at his office on South Oates with me screaming with every step and the waiting room full of patients waiting to be seen and listening and then giving up only to bring the shots home from then on to pull me out from under the beds with mother helping to give me a shot. I go weak in the knees and the blood drains.... you get the picture. And then once I had a vein burst and the contents of an IV leak out onto the floor and flood the room while swelling up my hand and my arm. Memories... 

Susan, my roommate who had already claimed the cot, had different symptoms than me. She was throwing up and had diarrhea. She was doing everything she could to hold it in but she needed more covers, a throw up bowl and some ice bits to help settle her stomach. I assured her my sister said her partner, Dr. Gale, told Sylvia that the infusion made him feel better immediately when he had Covid. Unfortunately, the busy nurses were unaware of her needs and I was able to help get her another blanket, a pan o throw up in and some ice and water. It turned out it was a good thing that Susan was truly just a friend I just hadn't met yet and somehow we bonded. I gave her my card because I told her I want her to email me and let me know how she is doing after we part! 

I asked her where she thought she got Covid and she told me that a woman in her office got sick and told them she had gotten tested and was negative. She wasn't tested. She did. And everyone in the office got Covid. 

 I had noticed a lovely blonde woman sitting in the chair Cattycorner across the hall from our room. When they were able to complete the infusions on everyone in our little corner of the hospital, we lined up behind the Pied Piper nurse to leave. The lovely woman I had noticed across the hall looked up at me from her wheel chair to say, "Mrs. Ramsey, you were my eighth grade teacher. I am Caroline Holman." How delightful that was even in the middle of our current weird setting to see my sweet Caroline. I do hope my Headland friends will pray for her and check to make sure she and her family are taken care of. 

 Joseph in Genesis 45:5 And now, do not be distressed or angry with yourselves that you sold me into this place, because it was to save lives that God sent me before you. Genesis 50:20 As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this--to preserve the lives of many people. 

 We do not know why we are where we are. But we had to be where we were to be where we are and God will use it for good. 

 So today, in spite of having the shock of Covid, God has blessed me in so many ways. Drew Ramsey and Brittany Ballard Ramsey sent me lunch from Longhorn, Brooke Ramsey Evans went to the grocery store for me, and Sylvia and Tom brought me a fish sandwich from the wharf. I still have an appetite. Drew and Brittany in spite of already having had Covid went today and took the vaccine. They have children and the new form of Covid can be much more serious for children according to my sister who sees the consequences in her cardiology practice. 

When the nurse taking our history asked me if I had been losing weight I laughed and said, "That will never happen until I have been dead ten days." Susan laughed and said, "Me too." (I told you she and I bonded. Soul sisters. Though with her form of Covid she probably is losing weight. She lost taste and smell Sunday.) 

 Two guys from directly across the hall greeted us with "Roll Tide!" To which all of us in that hall responded with a "Roll Tide" back. Reminds me of when Joe and I would say our prayers. I would end with "Amen" and Joe would add "Roll Tide!" The Pied Piper nurse led us through a torturous maneuver of halls averting as many people as possible to the door at the Digestive Health some into rho part of the Flowers. I was glad to get home. 

 As part of the equipment Sylvia brought me I now have my very own oxygen measurer. I am warned if the oxygen measures less than 90 I am to go immediately to the Hospital. I an also chronicling Blood pressure, and temperature. I am well equipped now. You may also want to acquire these health meters. 

 I am ready to go onto heaven anytime but apparently God has some reason that I need to stay on here for awhile. 

Otherwise why did he send me to the hospital? 

 I'm curious why the papers I was given mention being quarantined even from our pet. Fortunately, Gigi sleeps in the shower and will still comfort me. I sure do miss Joe. All of us from the Infusion Ward appreciate your prayers. 

 See Also for description of Delta Variant https://www.modernhealthcare.com/clinical/unraveling-mysterious-mutations-make-delta-most-transmissible-covid-virus-yet