Mask Up First For Your Families

Lap #1

Every fall and spring, my lungs would fill with cement. As a child, my allergies were severe and would then trigger severe asthma. This was before widely available breathing treatments. I don't really remember what, if anything, my mom did for me, or my doctor. I don't remember having any inhalers as a child either, but I do remember my mom telling me when I was really little she'd take me to get an adrenaline shot to help me breathe. 

I just remember having to deal with it and how unbearably uncomfortable I was, how hard it was to breathe simply walking from room to room. I remember looking sick, like I had the flu, my face pasty and eyes sunken, shoulders hunched forward to help me breathe. 

One of the things I dreaded during the school year was the Presidential Fitness Test, especially the mile run we had to do in order to get the official patch award showing we completed it. Push ups, sits ups and more, it was the four long unbearable laps around the track that were the worst part of it all. They felt like eternities woven into eternities when my asthma activated. 

Then, when I turned 15, the asthma began to subside, year after year. Amen. 

Lap #2

A few years later, I started smoking cigarettes. Clove cigarettes at first that then became Marlboro Reds. I went from being a skinny, asthmatic kid who was very athletic later in grade school, junior high and high school, playing soccer, baseball and football, to a troubled young adult with severe anxiety and a new addiction. Ugh. It sucked, and the cigarettes sucked the life out of me. Addiction is a bitch, no matter the drug of choice, and mine was nicotine and multiple other carcinogens that compromised my health from the first cigarette. 

In college I remember getting colds that would turn into nasty coughs. And I'd make them worse by smoking at least a pack a day. I'd tell myself this time I'd quit, to break the monkey's back on my back, but I never did. I kept on smoking and my physical health continued to deteriorate. Little exercise, crappy food and I gained a lot of weight in my mid-20's. Emotionally unhappy as well, the cigarettes were the only things that made me feel better. My ex-wife's family also smoked cigarettes -- her dad, mom and sister (although my ex did not smoke) -- and so we all smoked it up every time we visited. 

Years later, I'd move to Santa Cruz and start a new life, meeting Amy, who also smoked. Not as much as my pack-plus a day habit, but a few cigarettes here and there. She would quit soon after we were dating, eventually motivating me if I wanted to marry her. 

"I don't want to be married to a smoker," she said. "I want us to be healthy for the rest of our lives."

And so after many failed attempts, on September 22, 2002, I officially quit. 

Lap #3

My birth father, Jerry, smoked cigarettes when my sister and I were born and throughout our childhood. That made my allergies and asthma even worse, which I didn't think was possible when I was at my most miserable. 

My sister and I stopped seeing Jerry when I was 13. It would be decades later when I read his obituary online. My mom still heard from his sister once and awhile, and I believe that's how she heard he had died. His obit was less than 30 words in total. It said he died on January 2, 2012, in a hospital in Redding, CA, and that he had lung cancer. He was only 69 years old. 

Lung cancer jumped out at me like an abusive PE coach trailing close behind me on the track. Every so often I look behind me figuratively and I take a deep breath. 

Lap #4

Eight years after his stroke, my dad developed an abscess on his lung. He nearly died in our hometown hospital, developing secondary infections, and had to be moved to the UCLA Medical Center in Southern California. The doctors there helped him recover and heal after removing the abscess and part of his lung. 

When he and our mom was married in 1979, he also was a smoker. Mom never was, thankfully, but Dad smoked for decades. He was a police officer and detective for 32 years, smoked over two packs a day, and then in 1984 he quit cold turkey. Ironically that's about the time I started smoking. 10 years later he'd have that stroke, right after he retired from the police department. 

Dad died in 2012 from advanced melanoma, the same year my birth father died, although due to different circumstances. Thankfully both he and Mom got to hold our girls when they were very little. I miss them both terribly. 

The Longest Mile

Seasonal allergies and adult asthma came back to haunt me about 14 years ago. The asthma activates when I have a surge of allergies or catch a cold, usually in the fall and then again in the spring. I also worry about the years I smoked cigarettes and the damage done to my lungs. I'm healthy overall and exercise regularly, but I still think about that metaphorical PE coach along the way. 

And today, we're still neck deep in a pandemic, the virus known as COVID-19, which affects the lungs among other organs and destructive symptoms. The last time I flew in a plane was in March when I went to one of my last in-person conferences this year, where (again ironically) I had an allergy/cold combo going that had activated my asthma. Where everyone around me got a little freaky wondering if I had the coronavirus. 

Nearly 220,000 people have died in the U.S. alone from covid. There have been nearly 40 million cases worldwide. Cases are surging again as well, just in time for flu season, with covid still being 10 times as lethal as the seasonal flu. Our family got our flu shots, which we've done every year since having children. I'm 55 now and although not everyone shows symptoms with covid, I'm in a more susceptible group due to my history. My dad had health issues and nearly died in the hospital, my mom had health issues and did die in the hospital, and my sister had a random infection a few years ago and nearly died in the hospital. I had another type of abscess infection three years ago, unrelated to the lungs, and I do not want to be in the hospital ever again. 

Although I haven't flown on a plane for eight months, I remember all too well the pre-flight reminder of what to do if the plane lost cabin pressure and the oxygen masks dropped down. You put your mask on first, and then you help your loved ones and your children. 

The infectious disease experts tell us the only thing we can do today about COVID-19, until a viable vaccine is available, is to wear our masks, stay socially distanced, do not gather in large groups and wash our hands, a lot. I believe the science of this; it's not about personal freedoms to get sick or make others sick. The pandemic sucks for sure on so many levels, and like many others, we don't have the resources to go on and on if one of us got sick. That's why nothing else matters to me except to keep myself healthy -- for me -- and for my wife and daughters. For my family and friends as well. 

This has been the longest mile for many of us and it's far from over. My lungs are currently clear as is my mandate: mask up first for your families. 

Be safe and well. 

Other "Days of Coronavirus" posts:

All Because of One Day on the Beach

Awash in Love and Hope

The Building Blocks of Healthy Lives

The Part Where All Lives Matter

The Clarity Bridge for Homelessness

Stars to Shine

Loving Community Wide Shots Abound

A Foundation Worth Saving

This Hit-And-Run Thunderstorm

Help Prevent the Back-to-School Bullying

Memories Now and to Come

Especially Our Kids

This Old "No" Guy Jedi

Choose Eyes of Love

The Morning Work

We Shared Blue Genes

Agree to Disintegration

The Teacher Parade

All These Things Can Lead To Grace

Our Freedom Is Always Welcome

A Well of Strength

This Bad History

No Shirts, No Shoes, No Problem

The Iceberg Underneath

The Healing Hope We Can Give

Donate Your Date Nights and Help Feed Families

About All The Things

Dad, Our Family's Computer Guy

The Newest Normal

Where Our Troubles Are All The Same

This Is The Life

When There's Nowhere to Go

Jenny, Jenny, Who Can I Turn To

Jenny, Jenny, Who Can I Turn To

On the day we adopted our first dog in 16 years, my allergies and asthma were killing me, and the virus began to spread everywhere.

And that's what I'll remember until the end of days, which hopefully this isn't. Based on all the reliable information my wife and I have consumed to date, we must be vigilant without hysteria, which unfortunately is spreading faster than the coronavirus is (COVID-19).

Our new dog, Jenny, is such a sweet and loving girl, longing to belong to a family. She's a four-year-old terrier-pug-and-other-stuff mix, with short but very strong legs (more on that later), covered in thick and wiry creme-colored fur, and ending with a wound pug-like tail. Named Genesis at birth, our daughters decided they wanted to call her Jenny for short, with a J instead of a G. The 1981 hit song 867-5309 / Jenny by Tommy Tutone kept running through my mind as we drove her home from the Monterey shelter called Peace of Mind Dog Rescue, where they find homes for usually older dogs of seniors who can no longer care for them. Jenny's also a veteran mama having two litters of her own.

"...Jenny, Jenny, who can I turn to..."

Everything went well for the first three days, Jenny getting used to her new home, and us to her. There was at least one pee accident, but that was fine. Plus, we were all home with her, and hadn't left her alone yet. That changed when I left on a work trip to go to a conference (that hadn't been canceled like so many now are).

After I left, Amy took the girls to school on a Tuesday and left Jenny in the house alone. She howls and barks, and that much we knew since we had worked out together in the garage the day before and left her in the house (the girls were at school). That we can deal with. She's a dog, and that's what many dogs do, especially when they're in a new environment. But when Amy returned home from work later in the day, there was poop and pee on the floor, and scratch marks on the front door molding.

Meanwhile, I was in a large metal tube in the sky, sniffling a little and hacking a little due to my allergies and asthma. I worried because I'd read that airlines were isolating people they thought were sick, although no one paid any attention to me. I didn't want to be locked in the baggage hold in a Hannibal Lecter glass case. Right before we took off, I heard a woman behind me say, “If you need to throw up, then use our bags. They have a better seal.” I assumed she was talking to one of her children, which I empathized, but of course didn't want the vomit noise and smell behind me. Fortunately, that didn't happen.

Jenny had a few more accidents while I was gone. And so did I. Meaning, when it was my moment on stage at the Phenom conference I attend, everything went great until it didn't. Thankfully just momentarily. I moderated a panel of HR and recruiting leaders discussing job candidate and employee experiences. I didn't have a sniffle or a hack until about two-thirds of the way through the discussion. I tried to time the coughs in between the discussion and laughter after a panelist said something funny, but then I was trapped in the cough zone. It was only 5-10 seconds, but when I was done, my voice was gone. Literally gone.

And that's when everyone in the room held their collective breath. Even one of the panelists raised her hands in a defensive posture and leaned away from me, as if any alien was about to erupt from my chest. Someone in the front row brought me a bottle of water, I got my voice back and shared the vomit story above, everyone had a nervous laugh, and then all was well with the world again.

Amy and I have always loved end-of-the-world stories. Novels like The Andromeda Strain, Lucifer's Hammer, Swan Song, The Road, The Year of the Flood, The Age of Miracles, the Left Behind series and of course, The Stand, have always fascinated us. Add to that movies and shows like Planet of the Apes, Terminator (all of them, even the cheesy sequels Amy likes), The Walking Dead, Revolution (from a few years ago) and so many others always keeps our Armageddon cups runnething over! And have you every seen A Boy and His Dog? Yikes.

Now, don't get us wrong, we don't want the end of the world to come, but Amy is also a prepper and a planner and we do have earthquakes and fires and other possible natural disasters that can occur where we live. So, while she wasn't fighting anyone over toilet paper at Costco this last week, she did stock up with staples and such for us.

When I got home from the conference, we tried a baby gate in our kitchen to keep Jenny isolated while we were out, but she just jumped over it. Over three feet jumped over it. We couldn't believe it, but she did. We realized then we had to go to crating her while we're away for short periods of time and discovered that was something she was used to. Phew.

And again, this is all what I'll remember until the end of days, which hopefully this isn't. Again, based on all the reliable information my wife and I have consumed to date, and continue to consume, we must be vigilant without hysteria, which unfortunately is spreading faster than the coronavirus is (COVID-19). You've already heard it more than once -- wash your hands, stay home if you're sick or if you have respiratory problems, limit travel if you can, maybe avoid large gatherings. The CDC and John Hopkins are two sites full of resources to keep you and your families as safe as possible. There are many others as well. Make sure their reputable, though.

"...Jenny, Jenny, who can I turn to..."

"Dad, stop singing that -- it's in my head now and I can't get it out," Bryce just said to me.

Well, Bryce, if the coronavirus continues to spread, and it's now in our area, we're going to all be singing that song and many others together every day when schools are shut down and our entire family is schooling and working from home until the community spread subsides. And hey, a family and its dog that play together stays together! Again, not making light of this all, just living our lives and carrying on, because that's what we do.

"...Jenny, Jenny, who can I turn to..."

To each other, of course. Stay safe and sane, kids -- don't touch your face until you wash your hands for at least 20 seconds while singing:

"Jenny I've got your number
I need to make you mine
Jenny don't change your number
Eight six seven five three oh nine
Eight six seven five three oh nine
Eight six seven five three oh nine
Eight six seven five three oh nine..."

Enough snot to retrofit the entire west coast.

Poor Beatrice has got a bad cold and it's wracking her our very foundation. Sweet little bug is struggling to sleep and last night I spent another night snuggling the rumbling snot-fest so Mama could sleep (while Bryce tap danced in her belly).

Bea's only had a couple of bouts of snot-ness in her short life, and what exacerbated the one before this one was the teething, as it's doing again.

Oh, what big teeth you have baby, erupting along the gum faults while you buck, roll and shake and olfactory volcanoes spew and spew. We're sure there are some severe allergy storms in the mix as well.

Bea'ing 2012.

But this too will pass; we've only just begun to experience the bittersweet ill-cicles of parenthood.

Once you get past the "God, I really need to sleep, baby" -- which always passes quickly -- then it's about you nursing and wishing your child to be better.

It's so hard to witness their misery, especially for a toddler who still can't quite articulate the pain, only the seemingly infinite sharing of the seismic.

We try to limit the baby Tylenol and ibuprofen, and right now Mama's giving her a bath for relief.

We've been told by our pediatrician and other parents that they've got to ride out the cold, and they're going to have a lot of them.

But I've never seen so much snot. Really.

According to Wikipedia:

A major function of this mucus is to protect against infectious agents such as fungi, bacteria and viruses. The average human body produces about a litre of mucus per day.

Wait, this is America and we don't do the metric thang. How much is a friggin' litre?

A little over a quart?

Holy moly.

How much mucus from Bea-quake?

Enough snot to retrofit the entire west coast.

(Which is what this picture of mucus cells looks like, or at least the Bay Area.)