We got home about the 21st of last month, COVID-free, I think. My first COVID symptoms were on October 10th when we were at Harper’s Ferry. I read that symptoms can appear two to fourteen days after exposure which means I could have been exposed anytime, anywhere, on our trip. But, on this Veterans’ Day, 2023, I am COVID-free. Yeah!

But I’m not symptom-free. My smell and taste are back, I don’t have a headache or body aches, and I don’t have a fever. But – and it is a big but – I am still fatigued. I think I still have something, maybe long COVID, whatever that is. I am exhausted all the time.

I wrote the end of the above about three or four days ago, and I started it close to three weeks ago. Most of those days were filled with my just staring into space. It was concerning. But, for the last three days, I’ve felt better – substantially so – every day. Yeah! Indeed.

In what seems like weeks ago, I went to the doctor’s, a new General Practitioner recommended by Michele. The first White Male I’ve had for a doctor in, I think, twenty-one years. He ordered blood work and a chest X-ray which I got at Sequoia Hospital, the day before yesterday. The X-ray Department is right next to the Emergency Department at Sequoia, BTW. After the X-ray, just as I left the changing room, I got dizzy. Standing there, sweating, trying to stand up by holding on to the chair rail for dear life, trying to catch my breath, somebody asked if I was OK, and I said, “No”. A minute, two at the most, later I was in the Emergency Department, and three hours later, Michele gave me a ride home. I have no idea what happened. Neither does anybody else. Still, Life Is Good. Grand, even.