Lucky Me

LUCKY ME

 

Like so many

I lived exhaustion

Like the sandman

Whispering in my ear

Just lie down

Driving home from Brooklyn

At war with eyes

Longing to close

Reach my home and office

Fully clothed on my couch

Sleep till morning

 

The day starts again

Chills off and on

Every room cold

Working because

Joint Commission

Survey of Surveys

Is coming soon

Our work lives

Depend on it we think

Then it’s here and gone

Then I’m out sick

 

Urgent care

Twice in 8 days

Flu-like, no flu

Short of breath?

Chest x-ray

Some labs

Then home again

Food don’t care

Just sleep

Whatever this is

My liver is unhappy

 

Two more days

Same old same old

No better

Off to hospital

CT Scan surprise!

Pneumonia

COVID suspicions

Going nowhere

But isolation

 

Alone, but for

Doctors and nurses

NPs and PCAs

No family farewell

No visitors

Learning to keep

Oxygen tubes

From falling out my nose

Learning, my blood ox

Drops down like lung disease

If they stop it

To see how I’ll do �"

For 4 days not so well

 

I know no one with COVID

I’ve traveled nowhere

And no one I know

Has gone anywhere

We are just too boring

To get sick

In a foreign land

So I blame my job

The crowded city hospital

My visits to ER triage

And call my boss

To say “Guess what?”

 

Hospital Day 2

Afebrile in the morning

Not in the PM, though

Nearly 102 at 1

Feeling awful

Not looking good

Says the doc

Fully 102

As Tylenol

Wears off at 9

COVID swab #1

In the pipeline

 

Hospital Day 3

Starts like Day 2

Pleases the doctors

Scares me

One-thirty PM

Shivering non-stop

Still no fever

By 3 climbs to 105

Ice packs all around

By 11,

COVID results

Negative

Wednesday 1:20 AM

COVID retested

 

 

Last low grade temp Day 4

On and off oxygen

Days 5 and 6

Weak but breathing

Days sitting in a chair

Old Vanderbilt estate

From the window

Big upgrade

Commode to bathroom

Bed for night

 

Slacker Coffeehouse

Streams from my phone

All day and night

On the mend

Nurses hinting

Heading home soon

And COVID test 2

Comes positive.

 

Day 8

Second Sunday

Good News!

You leave today

Arranging ride home

Office isolation

10 more days

My family

Home quarantined

One more week

Daily chats

Department of Health

 

The road back

Takes patience

How safe am I

Outside my home

Back at work

Anywhere?

Lucky to reach the ER

Before the heaviest surf

Crashes upon

Hospital doors

And everyone inside

I will be fine

But not the same.

 

David P. Eckert

2020 March