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I'm going to share my #COVID19 experience. If you might know someone who won't mask or distance, feel free to share this with them. I was in isolation, one room, nobody but me, for 8 weeks. I've been out of isolation for 4 weeks now. So I'm fine, right? Well...
No. I got the "moderate" case of it. Even now, I struggle to breathe. Showering exhausts me to the point where I must sit (or better, lie down) and rest. I gasp for air. My heart pounds. My pulse is more regular than it was, but can still jump around. For comparison...
I was the person who was so busy, I'd tell someone what I was up to and they'd say, "I don't know how you do it!" Now? Some days, it's hard just to think. Some days, the effort to inflate my lungs is so hard, it's all I can do. 3 months later.
It's not a hoax. 114,000 people dead from this in the U.S. alone. We'll be at over 200,000 by the end of this year. Why? In part, it's because people won't take the simple, easy precautions that would defeat this illness. Wearing a mask, keeping 6' apart, is too much effort...
to save their friends, family, neighbors, even themselves. Over 2 million U.S. cases, yet they choose to believe they have no responsibility to do anything. Some would rather kill themselves spraying bleach on their food than wear a mask, which is much simpler and safer.
Here's where I get wide-open real. I contemplated suicide. It seemed there was no hope. Sometimes I struggle just to sit up. I found a way to keep fighting, but don't believe you couldn't reach that point. I wouldn't have thought I could. That's what this can do.
Keep on doing what you're doing, even as infections & death tolls rise. You could find yourself, head in your hands, all cried out, wondering if a loved one will survive, unable even to say goodbye. Or the person in that hospital bed could be you. All because...
wearing a mask and keeping your distance was too much effort. If you can read this an be unmoved, nothing anyone can say will reach you. If not, if you still have a human heart capable of caring for anyone, even just yourself, put that mask on and keep your distance. Save lives.
