18 Time May 18, 2020
TheView Essays
FAMILY
Nursing my husband
back to health, badly
By Belinda Luscombe
I realized that
being alone
was not the
same thing as
going it aloneIt took me longer to accept my fate
than it should have. I needed to ask for
help. Actually, I didn’t need to ask;
I just needed to accept the help being
offered. When a colleague gently in
sisted on dropping by with her own
thermometer and acetaminophen—and
threw in lemons, bread, vitamin drinks,
chocolate and latex gloves—the flood
gates broke. She left a bag at the door,
waved and walked away, and I realized
that being alone was not the same thing
as going it alone.
This was confirmed when the ther
mometer read 104°F.Here is tHe skill set that is use
ful in both journalism and the caregiv
ing professions: a willingness to pursue
people for information. All the tele
medicine lines I tried had long wait
times. So I texted a nurse in Tennessee
we had houseswapped with
but never met. In the wee
hours of the morning, I called
a friend in Australia, where it
was mid afternoon. I emailed
a kidneyspecialist neighbor,
even though the only corre
spondence we’d had previ
ously was when I “acciden
tally” took her newspaper.
Mostly what these friends
and strangers told me was
that I was doing what could
be done: providing fluids,
trying to keep the fever in
check, monitoring his breath
ing. They helped me make a
plan in case things got worse.
While my husband slept, I occasionally
counted his breaths—one doctor said
more than 25 a minute meant he might
be struggling to get enough oxygen.
I tracked his temperature and noticed
when it seemed to rage. Routine re
placed panic. And after about 10 days,
he began to get better.
Possibly, we would have come
through it without help, but I wouldn’t
have wanted to. One of the most indel
ible lessons of this scary time is that you
can survive alone, but you need others
to flourish. The most dangerous pre
existing condition my husband and I had
for fighting the virus was our devotion
to selfsufficiency. Independence can
be its own kind of social isolation. □When my husband began To shoW sympToms of CoVid
19, about a week after we found out one of his coworkers had
a positive test, I wasn’t particularly worried. He’s a middle
aged, athletic, healthy guy. Our kids live elsewhere. We would
just hunker down for a few days and get through it together.
After all, the pandemic has forced many people to do work
that they have traditionally outsourced: homeschooling,
cleaning, cooking, home repairs. Even if nobody in their home
has fallen ill, people have had to behave more like health
workers, by maintaining a hygienic environment, avoiding
contamination and wearing protective garb. So, big deal,
I would get to be a nurse for a while. (I had symptoms too,
but they were much milder.)
Admittedly, the talents nursing requires—compassion,
patience, the ability to offer comfort—are not my strong suits.
My skill set lies more in pestering people
and being prepared to make them uncom
fortable. The only medical skill I’ve ever
mastered is making a bed with hospital
corners. But I knew it would be impos
sible to get a test in New York City; only
hospitals were administering them at
the time, and overwhelmed medical staff
didn’t want anyone there unless they were
having difficulty breathing. Seeing a doc
tor was out of the question. Going to the
pharmacy was also out of the question.
In fact, for probable corona virus carriers,
stepping outside was out of the question.
I felt we could manage on our own.
I was wrong. I soon discovered our
many shortcomings, which included main
taining a home without a working ther
mometer. And failing to keep the supply lines of Tylenol intact.
I didn’t even have a personal physician, because we just used the
walkin clinic. In normal times, these were small oversights. Dur
ing a pandemic, they were disastrous.
Still, I didn’t want to let anybody know too many details of
my situation. I felt a little ashamed of catching the virus, even
though my husband probably got it before the lockdown. Part
of it was a fear of ostracism. But mostly, it was pride. We were
immigrants to New York City who had done O.K. We were peo
ple who offered assistance, not people who needed it.
One particularly grim night, I awoke to find my husband
walking our home in misery, his forehead burning. He was ex
hausted and couldn’t sleep. He hadn’t had food in days but
didn’t want to eat. No identifiable body part hurt, but he felt
awful. There was nothing to do but just share the misery.
I rubbed his back. We sat in silence. Eventually I remade the
bed. That finally helped him get some rest. (Let’s hear it for
hospital corners!)