The ‘vid

Well, after avoiding it for 4 years, I finally caught Covid. I caught it on a long work trip, one where the exposure to large numbers of people mean there’s really nothing you can do to protect yourself. I mean, if you’re there to go to certain events, you have to go to the events. And if you want people to talk to you, do business with you, and understand what you’re saying, you can’t wear a mask.

I’d like to say it wasn’t as bad as I’d spent these years envisioning, but it was worse. Significantly so. Such that it took up the entire month of February. I’m still waiting for the tail end of the symptoms to finally give up and leave, and it’s such a strange thing to think of an illness completely taking over an entire month. I missed Valentine’s Day, my anniversary (I did get sweet care packages like the one pictured), the superbowl party, and had to cancel a trip to see my nephews perform in a couple of theater productions. Not to mention nothing got done around the house, no errands run, and sleep was incredibly hard to come by. I’m grateful I didn’t have a more serious case, but it was rough.

About the only thing I COULD do was read and edit, so it was fortuitous that my editor got back to me about my new manuscript while I was sick. The great news is that she had very positive things to say about the book (always what you hope for as an author), and not being able to do much else, I was able to spend time going through the suggested changes, particularly changing up the order of the ending sections, and writing the introduction the editor suggested.

I’m thrilled this weekend to finally start to get out and about, to clean up the backyard, to go to lunch with friends, to pick some lemons from the tree, to bake something with lemon juice, to deep clean the house, and yes, to continue working on manuscript edits that will get it ready for the next stage. Here’s to being healthy…and hopefully staying that way.