Dying… Or Not. Better Days
Dying… Or Not, Better Days
By Karen Strickholm 22/02/2021
Fall 2020 through 2021 – Long Covid, coupled with more severe endocrine/TBI symptoms, grinds on – An addled brain, micro-seizures, double vision, loss of bowel control, severe headache, multiple re-hospitalizations (bouncing from rehab to hospital to rehab, etc.) for cellulitis, pneumonia, UTIs and extreme sinus infections. Massive IV administration of triple antibiotics, steroids, plasma, iron, fluids, via PICC line from arm to heart to deliver. Completely bed-bound, unable to stand. Plus, trapped in Texas <ugh> since NM governor had closed borders due to pandemic.
“The COVID ran through here like wildfire.” So says Nurse Kim.
Thirty four residents at this small facility (a specialty wound care hospital in El Paso, Texas) died in December.
“We gave them morphine for the pain, and Ativan to keep them calm,” she shared. “Sometimes we were able to sit with them until they passed.”
Karen Strickholm fighting the good fight.
I don’t think we have, as a nation, even begun to digest our shared trauma – a pandemic, an insurgency, and a recession matched in scope only by the Great Depression. Not to mention, Texas.
It’s been a lot, hasn’t it?!! We are making it through though. We are certainly making it through. And, we should all be proud of that. Phew!
So now what? Clean up the wreckage. Reconstruct. Re-invent. We can do it. We are already doing it.
I know I am. Bringing this body along, steering it to strength and health, inch by inch, day by day.
Progress is now undeniable… I will walk again. Now, it is only a matter of hard work and time.
May this update find you blessed in this new year. Planting seeds for the future, living fully in the present. Dylan Thomas said it best:
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Read the rest here:
https://poets.org/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night
Better Days. (Posted to Karen’s Mail Chimp feed 4 January 2021)
Heya 2020, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I awoke New Year’s Day to this One Republic tune on repeat in my head, then found this inspiring video (above) and just had to share it with you. May 2021 bring blessings upon blessings in all our lives. <3 K.
Better Days ~ One Republic
https://youtu.be/fnHlRQZZbbY?si=_0jv_9XZgq0mM5u9
Oh, I know that there’ll be better days
Oh, that sunshine ’bout to come my way
May we never ever shed another tear for today
‘Cause oh, I know that there’ll be better days
(full lyrics here)
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