I haven't talked about this on social media, but it's been preying on my mind all day, and I'm finding it difficult to shift. So here. Vomited out of my brain to hopefully make space for something else.

Just over a week ago, my dad went into an ICU with suspected COVID-19. (1/?)

He rang me at 9:01 (he's of the generation that believe phone calls outside work hours are unacceptable under any circumstances) saying he was having real trouble breathing. I called an ambulance (he wouldn't have wanted to bother them) & got there in time to wave him off. (2/?)

He wasn't able to breathe on his own as the day progressed, his chest X-rays were "awful" according to the doctor, and by the end of the day he was on a ventilator.

I'd seen him briefly, in a mask, from a distance. All of this was done by phone.

And all I could feel was guilt.

There was guilt that I hadn't seen him since taking him for an eye operation in mid-March. My wife had gone around to drop off food. I stayed with the children because I can't drive (there's some more guilt). We texted every day, but he hadn't told me he was feeling ill (4/?)

He couldn't get priority food deliveries because he was merely clinically vulnerable (diabetes, 75, male) not clinicallt extremely vulnerable (solid organ transplants, some cancers). So we felt guilty that he'd gone out to top up on foods or something. (5/?)

And the crushing guilt about not having been able to see him through weeks when he must have been terribly lonely. The only solace was that we thought we had been doing the right thing, exposing him to as few people as possible, waiting it out. Like the government said. (6/?)

So that's what the news today has made me think about. All the lonely people. All the guilt. All the pain we were told was necessary except for those for whom it isn't necessary. All of those who tried to protect our parents by staying away from them. (7/8)

Anyway. That's what the news is making me think about.

Update: my dad was taken off the ventilator yesterday. He is breathing with just supplementary oxygen now. His COVID tests have come back negative.

So we're feeling more hopeful. But the guilt is still there. (8/8)