current affairs, medical, personal, ramblings

Horrible Times 20: One Year!

Midday today marked exactly 365 days of, partly self-imposed, isolation. What a strange year it’s been! Who could have guessed it would be thus. In the last 365 days:

  • I’ve been off the premises just four times. Twice to go to the dentist. Once for a flu jab and blood test. And most recently for my first Covid vaccination.
  • Noreen has done a little better in that she’s been making forays to the postbox and occasionally the post office.
  • I’ve generally been well. That’s apart from the depression which is, if anything, worse – but then who’s surprised about that?! But it does make motivating oneself to do anything a struggle. It hasn’t been helped by my back and a lot of tension across my neck and shoulders; unrelieved as I’ve not been able to get any massage.
  • However Noreen has had a nasty cellulitis infection and shingles. The former required many trips to the hospital.
  • We’ve been totally dependent on online shopping, and luckily have had no problems with supermarket delivery slots (except in the very early days when things were being sorted out). Everyone in the food supply chain has been doing heroic work through all this.
  • And we’ve been using our supermarket deliveries to also get provisions for our friend across the road, who is also isolating.
  • We’ve both managed to get our first Covid vaccination – something which wasn’t even a possibility this time last year. And we’ve been mightily impressed with the way the NHS has coped with all this. We await jab number two.
  • We’ve lost my aunt (to Covid, although aged 90 and with dementia), and three or four friends (apparently not to Covid). How odd are “Zoom funerals”?!
  • Needless to say face-to-face meetings and events have not happened. We’ve managed to continue some over Zoom, which is not a problem for me as I’ve been used to teleconference meetings since before the millennium.
  • We’ve added some extra, informal, meetings for our doctor’s patient group (of which I’m Chairman) just to enable people to keep in touch and have some additional social contact.
  • Meanwhile the house is a disgusting rat’s nest – which really doesn’t help the depression. When Covid struck we were trying to dredge the accumulated silt of 40 years, three parents, two jobs, and voluntary work. That has stalled, mainly because we cannot shift stuff out of the house: charity shops are closed and not taking donations, and without transport we can’t get anything to the tip.
  • The garden is pretty much a wreck. Although we managed to keep it roughly in order last summer, without our regular gardener the winter maintenance and pruning has gone by the board. The lawn is a meadow which comes half way up our fox. Besides it is so wet out there (yet more rain as I write this) the ground is like jelly, which makes working on it impossible.
  • On the good side, we’re both still plugged into life supply.
  • And we’ve been able to have some good food and wine – something we’ve made sure we do more of to add a little joy to the misery.

So what happens next?

The government is clearly keeping its fingers crossed and hoping for the best. Meanwhile everyone is expecting the worst with the medical experts warning:

All in all I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re still in this same position a year hence. It will be immensely depressing and disheartening, but I wouldn’t find it surprising. This, of course, assumes we’re still receiving supplies of life force!

Jolly times!