Driving home (Pursued by Pandemic, Post 1)

Well, John and I are on our massive drive across the country trying to get home before this coronavirus gets any worse. I emailed my medical records to my primary care doctor in Albuquerque on Monday, and called them on Tuesday, but I haven’t heard anything back yet and now it’s late in the day on Thursday. I need to be assigned to an oncologist asap.

We left Boston around 5pm eastern time yesterday, Wednesday, and made it as far as a rest stop in upstate New York. The restrooms were closed, but they left the parking lot open for the trucks to park overnight. I think most of the big semi trucks have some basic facilities in their cabs.

So we did the same thing – parked the van and closed our curtains, ate some of the food we brought, set up our bed and fell asleep. It was loud sleeping that close to the freeway, but I don’t think I would have minded except I’ve been having bowel issues from the colorectal surgery. Nothing unexpected I don’t think, but a lot of discomfort and nuisance. Actually, I’m miserable. This trip would have been nearly impossible if it weren’t for the toilet and sink in our camper van. But even so, it’s been rough. I’m mean, I’m extremely grateful I didn’t have to have a colostomy bag, but the current situation is hardly an improvement. Presumably it will get better eventually.

Today, we’ve been driving across Pennsylvania and Ohio. John is doing all the driving. I’m feeling worse, if anything. I haven’t felt this bad since I was still in the hospital those first several days after the surgery. John is patient and tenacious, driving steadily through the rain.

I haven’t left the van since we started 24 hours ago, and he hasn’t either except to pump gas. He is very careful when he pumps gas – wearing rubber gloves and washing his hands afterwards. We don’t want me to have to try to fight off the coronavirus in my current state.

Most of the rest stops are fully closed, with the parking lots blocked off. So I’m not sure where we’re going to park the van to sleep tonight. I’ve heard that Walmart often lets you park in the back sections of their lots, but who knows now. Everything is changing so fast.

Of course if we were on vacation we would stay in state parks or we would have researched off-road places in the national forests. But right now we’re just trying to get across the country as fast as possible.

Some of my friends and family members are in regions of the country where they are under shelter-in-place orders. One thing that I haven’t seen in the copious amounts of news stories about the coronavirus is the issue of different members of the household taking self-isolation directives more or less seriously.

The press has mentioned that younger people seem to be taking it less seriously, and in one article I saw, the author tried to make an argument that it split down party lines (but I don’t think the data they were citing backed up their thesis very well). In my limited, not-a-significant-sample experience, it isn’t by specifically by age or politics. But situations are going to vary, and that does sort by age to some extent. John and I are trying to be super careful because of my cancer, and certainly there are more old people in our situation than young ones. Plus, some people simply have a much higher threshold for some types of risks than others do.

But back to the issue of large families, roommates, etc., not interpreting the shelter-in-place orders similarly – even if the majority of the household is sheltering in place, it only takes one person to not take it seriously, and the entire household is basically wide open and exposed and exposing others.

Most news articles seem to imagine that households consist either of just one single person, or a couple with small children. Hello. Household units are so very much more complicated than that, often with unrelated adults and different generations of adults under the same roof. If a household of 4 adults has 3 adults sheltering in place, and one friendly Joe coming in and out and having friends and family over, then the efforts of the other 3 are essentially wasted and we might as well give up and let this thing overwhelm our country.

Ok, I’ve been ranting a lot lately. It’s a difficult time for all of us. Earlier today I was looking for a phone app where I could just look at pictures of puppies for adoption. No, of course I’m not getting another dog! I’m not even well enough to take care of the dogs I have. I just wanted to look at the pictures because I’m too distraught to focus on anything harder than puppy pictures.

But all the apps wanted to know my location and it was just too much. Forget location! I don’t even know where I am right now. Ohio? Indiana? I just wanted the apps to show me puppy pictures from everywhere. I should have just randomly picked some large city somewhere, but everything is so mysteriously connected nowadays that next thing I know, my google maps will start defaulting to LA or something, which has happened to me before. So puppy pictures was my failed attempt at doing something light and happy today.

Speaking of puppies, we’ve asked Monica if she can watch our dogs for a little while longer. I am just not healthy enough yet. I can barely hobble-wobble, speed-stumble the 5 feet to the toilet, much less chase after 3 dogs. And the instant I try to sit down somewhere they’d be jumping onto my lap, which has numerous extremely painful incisions. The thought of a 20 lb dog launching itself onto my stomach is enough to make me want to pass out just from thinking about it. Plus, dogs complicate my relationship with John because we don’t do dogs the same way. And right now, we don’t need any more stressors. Life has been very difficult and he’s been very supportive.

At Emily’s house John had installed a strap to help me pull myself out of the chair, and both a rail and a strap so I could get out of bed.

He also installed a walker-type apparatus that goes on both sides of the toilet to give support getting on and off the toilet.

The van is small enough I mostly have hand-holds, although it’s complicated by the fact that the van is in nearly constant motion.

We stopped early tonight; it’s only about 7:30, but we found a good place to stop for the night. It’s a rest stop with lots of truck parking, significantly further back from the freeway than the one last night.

The back lot is still empty, but it’s early yet. Not even dark. The trucks will be coming in and out all night.

As soon as we got parked and settled the rain picked back up again. It’s pouring now. I’m so glad we’re stopped for the night. Here’s hoping for a better tomorrow.