
Itâs almost always isolating to have a chronic illness. Most people donât understand, and many of us look very ânormalâ on the outside. In any given year, we hold secret pain and hidden fears. But 2020 has amped up the weird factor, at least for me.
As a person at high risk, itâs been weird watching the entire world fuss about a mask to stave off a virus that likely wonât hurt some, but would probably kill me.
Itâs weird witnessing life returning to normal without me as another wave surges, and wondering if everyone else is irrational, or if I am.
Itâs weird seeing friendsâ vacation photos, knowing they have decided to take the chance of catching the virus, and realizing that means our society has become an âevery person for themselvesâ situation. And itâs doubly weird to be sad over this: in so many ways, concern for the most vulnerable has been abandoned. Which forces me to be even more careful.
Itâs weird hearing one of the lingering effects of COVID is heart inflammation, and remembering that a much gentler, recognized, everyday virus nearly stretched my own heart to death. That much-less-lethal virus caused my Cleveland Clinic cardiologist to call mine one of the largest hearts sheâd ever seen.
Itâs weird cheering for the quick approval of a vaccine, yet doubting whether Iâll ever be 100% comfortable letting even the genetic code of that monster virus into my body.
Itâs weird deliberating whether to get health screenings for diseases that run in my family, and wondering if postponing them puts me more at risk than COVID itself.
Whether chronically ill or not, itâs weird to still be talking about all of this as the year slogs to a close.
But more than anything, itâs weird being in the eye of a lingering mask/vaccine/social distancing controversy, recognizing that the person everyone is debating about protecting is me.
source https://www.programage.com/news/_1605513625821054.html
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