On this Mother’s Day, we will be celebrating my mother, but in a different way. On Tuesday, she passed away in a hospital. She was a fighter, and we took her lead and fought for her. We had fought for her for four months, starting with the COVID that she was admitted with, visiting her every day without fail, and with the way we had to fight to have dialysis prescribed to save her life, which they wanted to discontinue, and to fight against the 15 doctors and staff who told us to give up. They said the words “palliative care” and “compassionate extubation” more times than I care to remember. But for the longest time, we didn’t give up.
On Tuesday, saw her draw her last breath.
In the last five days, we have remembered. When I was a child, she insisted that I take piano lessons, for which I’m grateful. She insisted that my father pay for an expensive university that I had been admitted to, but which they couldn’t really afford. She insisted that Mexican-Americans could earn a Master’s degree, which she did. And in her later years, she insisted in showing everyone how she saw the world–in loud colors and not bland “tasteful” ones. See her quilt below, which gives only a mild hint of her taste.
Today, I go out to a 5-star resort to perform magic tableside for other mothers and their families. And my only message will be love. Only love. Only love.
I knew Vanessa in high school. I remember her wearing peasant blouses with short blonde hair. She wasn’t a looker, but then, few people of either sex are. She was an average student, nothing special there. Most importantly, she wasn’t a screaming political right-winger.
After graduation, she married some guy named Bob as fast as she could and moved from the greater Los Angeles area up to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. They had a load of kids immediately and raised them in the sticks of the sticks.
At the 20-year reunion, Vanessa flew back for it. We were all 38 years old. I was the emcee, and we gave out prizes for alumni achievements. To Vanessa, we gave the prize for first grandmother, which meant, of course, that her young motherhood had given rise to a multitude of other young motherhoods, and higher education hadn’t had a chance.
By age 64, the pandemic hit. She had 29 great-grandchildren. Immersed in Idaho religious right-wing culture, she railed on Facebook about ungodliness, Satan as expressed in the practice of yoga, and evil big government. Over 70% of her county voted for Trump in the 2020 election. Over 19 hate and anti-government groups are operating in the state, according to the SPLC. In 2022, gays held a pride parade, and some local conservatives openly called for the use of snipers. As you may recall, local police received a tip and arrested a truckload of right-wingers in military formation on their way to the parade to break heads. [All of the Facebook posts below are from Vanessa’s account.]
Like millions of others in red America, Vanessa and her husband took pride in not vaxxing up.
Towards the end of the pandemic, her husband Bob died of COVID.
Even through her grief, which is immense, Vanessa still broadcasts her right to be “free” of what she sees as poisonous vaccinations. So do her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Their passion is immense, although passion may be too nice a name for it.
I dreamt of my ex, the one who was a wacky beauty, once flashing me while we drove side by side at 10 pm on the freeway at 75 mph, and then, arriving at her house in Studio City, breathed in my sweat and moved against me and swam in her ecstasy such that it betrayed the pious girl I first thought her to be.
My ex, the one who went on ten years later to have four girls with her high school sweetheart, I heard, home-schooled them in a red county, believing society to be impure, unworthy, ungodly. The one who moved further and further away from the sins of the city.
My ex, the one who skipped two grades in school but could never think for herself.
In the dream, her football coach father John, the one who prayed with his players in the locker room, sat next to us on a flaming iceberg, playing chess with children, harsh rules, liberty but not freedom, and I took a pitcher of rotgut communion wine and poured it over his head.
John melted, as in Oz, transforming into his wife Reb, screaming:
“Make America as it was! Don’t make me change! I never want my first self to die!”
And the wax melted into a red swastika candle, reborn and burning for another generation.
On Wednesday, I received an email that felt like a punch in the gut. I’m still not over it.
Let’s start here. I belong to a professional association. Let’s called it PA. I joined the DEAI committee (Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion) because I’m interested in those issues. My mother was born in East Los Angeles to two Mexican parents who were born in northern Mexico. Because of that, we carry an historic psychic load on our backs.
The DEAI committee was interviewing “DEAI facilitators” who would charge $15,000 to do…what? That wasn’t quite clear. One of them proposed that members play a “Be Inclusive” card game. We are not an organization that traditionally suffers from bigotry, but leadership was trying to make it sound like that was the case. Not only that, but since we don’t employ our members, we can’t require them to undergo diversity training, even if they had committed bigoted acts.
Other things about the committee bothered me, too. In the DEAI mission statement that they were writing, the president of the PA objected to using the word America. She said that to some, it represented oppression and imperialism. I thought that was insane, and said so. One member of the committee, a smart person of color, agreed with me and quit over that ridiculous battle.
We were all assigned The Racial Healing Handbook, a ludicrous volume that claims that if you believe that race exists, you are a white supremacist.
On Wednesday, I wrote an email airing my objections. In part, I wrote:
“The worst thing of all is that if we had started trying to recruit journalists from underrepresented groups in April, offering a free year’s membership to attract them, we could have been on our way to bringing aboard 80 new members in a single year at the same rate, $15,000, that we’re spending on some squidgy corporate play leader.”
By the end of the day, I received an email from the president of the PA. It claimed that my email was “both abusive and harassing.” The executive committee had voted that I had violated the PA Code of Conduct, and that I was being removed from the committee. Quite convenient, especially if you don’t want anyone on the committee who disagrees with you.
UPDATE: It’s a few months later now, and the members were just notified that the organization will be giving up its physical office because of lack of funds. They’ve had that office ever since I became a member in 1983. They complain that their management company had pledged to help them recruit new members, but they were unable to attract new members, and thus, unable to bring in new funds. There was some sort of “divorce” from the management company announced, but its details are mysterious. Leadership has said that their negotiations with the management company have been “delicate,” whatever that means.
I’m in the process of learning Spanish, and I just learned a word that describes this situation perfectly: sospechoso.
Five days before Christmas, I began writing a post talking about the frustrations that I was having with people who kept denying the existence of this new virus. Apparently, it was incendiary. Sorry, no, it wasn’t. Even though I wasn’t attempting to undermine current efforts to battle COVID-19, the algorithm picked up on keywords that I was quoting–other people’s incendiary, ludicrous, and false words–and locked editing on my document.
I’d like you to read my post. If you’d like to read this post, which I consider to be one of the most important that I’ve written, and one that is in no way renegade, and one that I’d like you to read, and one that is exactly what we’re all dealing with now and will seem at once familiar and astonishing, email me at FreakedOutOhMyGod@gmail.com. I will send it to you as a PDF. I don’t believe the government is the enemy. I don’t believe in fanciful thinking. You know what I’m saying.
This evening, I took a trip to the grocery store. In the parking lot, I spotted an ebike jetting to the store at a speed that would have been alarming for even an automobile. I just shook my head. The guy, a seventysomething guy who was wearing a helmet and a mask, locked his ebike and walked into the store.
I shopped for about 10 items and then got into line behind the ebike guy. He was chatting to the checker, and somehow, the conversation veered to COVID-19.
“Yeah, I think it’s a fraud,” the guy said. “I don’t think it exists. And you know, the vaccine damages your RNA. You know what RNA is, don’t you?”
Recovering from COVID-19 by sleeping 12 hours a night and eating almost nothing.
He had the high, nervous voice of a conspiracy theorist, and he spun this web made entirely out of lies.
“I work in a company of 100 people, and not one person in the company came down with it,” he told the checker.
That really steamed me. I came down with COVID-19 on December 22, and it worked me over for two weeks hard, then kept working me over in a lesser way for two or three months after that.
“I had COVID,” I said.
Both the ebike guy and the checker looked at me. It was like I had unexpectedly burst into their dream, and they were stunned for a moment.
My chest X-ray, showing my damaged lungs.
“Oh, are you sure it was COVID, though?” he countered. “Because it could have just been….”
“I lost 30 pounds in two weeks,” I said. “And I consider it an insult what you just said.”
“Oh, wait….” the checker said.
“Oh, I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry,” the ebike guy said, his voice getting even more high-pitched and nervous.
He turned back to the checker and they talked about the transaction for a while. As he was wrapping up to leave, though, he turned back to me.
“Did you go into the hospital?” ebike guy asked.
“I went to the hospital,” I said, “but they sent me home. My hands were shaking on the wheel just from sitting up for six hours. I had a 102-degree temperature for 13 days.”
Sitting in the ER, feverish and weak, on Day 11.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said, and wrapped up his transaction and left.
I’m not really a guy who normally invites a physical altercation, but I can’t abide the lies that are tearing apart our country. I believe in doing my part, and I consider that this was just that.
I complain constantly about the idiots who take COVID-19 lightly. Guys who post photos of themselves drinking maskless in bars that are open despite the order to remain closed. People who walk into Staples with their masks below their noses and below their mouths (see photo below). It disgusts me, and for two reasons. One, 570,000 dead. And two, December 22, the day I came down with COVID, had a 102-degree temperature for 13 days, and lost 30 pounds.
Nearly four months later, I’m 99% well, but I know a woman who isn’t. She lives in New Jersey, and she caught COVID-19 from her son-in-law. She will never be the same. I read about her story on a COVID-19 recovery Facebook group, so I’ll just call her Fay.
Fay is 89 years old, and although she lives alone, she’s taken care of by her daughter, who lives nearby and whom we’ll call Corinne. In early February, Corinne’s husband (whom we’ll call Mikhail) started showing COVID-19 symptoms.
“You’ve got to get tested,” Corinne said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Mikhail said.
“It’s my job to worry about it,” Corinne said. “I’ve got my mother to worry about.”
“It’s just post-nasal drip,” Mikhail said. “Happens all the time.”
Still, Corinne continued asking Mikhail to get tested. She asked many times.
“Don’t be a nag,” he said.
“I’ve kept her well for a year now,” she said. “Let’s get you the test.”
“I’m not going to get tested, so forget it.”
“Let’s not give COVID to her now.”
“I don’t even have a temperature.”
“That’s not the only way to tell if you have it.”
“Look, I don’t like women who nag, get it?”
Corinne and Mikhail have been married for 30 years, but it’s only in recent years that she’s realized that he’s not the man she thought she married. He’s stubborn, narcissistic, and emotionally controlling, in her experience. Still, she stays with him for some unknown reason, perhaps momentum, or perhaps it’s the money.
A few days later, Corinne came down with symptoms, too. All three were tested for COVID-19, and unsurprisingly, they all came out positive.
Corinne had a really bad case. She had a 102+-degree temperature for three weeks. Her doctor diagnosed her with double-COVID-19 pneumonia. She passed out from the temperature, and her blood oxygen levels went down to 88, which is pretty bad (I had that reading a couple of times, too, so I know). She never went to the hospital, but she should have. Her lungs hurt so bad that she had to consciously force herself to keep breathing. For three weeks, she was too weak to get up from her bed.
Corinne’s mother had it worse, though. Corinne was too ill to drive to Fay’s house, so Mikhail drove over. He found her unconscious in her bed and called 911. She was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with double-COVID-19 pneumonia, too. Her blood oxygen level was precipitously low. She was bleeding internally in her leg and had to have blood transfusions, five in all.
After too short of a stay, the hospital decided that Fay could be transferred to a nursing home.
“But she’s not well enough,” Corinne said.
“Well, we don’t have enough beds,” the doctor replied. “We have 20 people in the emergency room who need a COVID bed.”
“Well, can’t you transfer her to another part of the hospital?”
“No, because she came in as a COVID patient.”
For the past three weeks, Fay has been in a nursing home. She cannot walk. Her memory is impaired. She can’t even sit up in bed. Her daughter hasn’t been allowed to see her mother because she hasn’t been vaccinated. Because of her own COVID-19 experience, Corinne is disallowed from being vaccinated until late May. The last time she saw her mother was February 24, nearly two months ago.
“I don’t know how long she can last,” Corinne says.
Although Corinne is now in recovery, she has lingering symptoms, including chronic pain throughout her body and “squealing tinnitus.” She has been diagnosed with an inflamed heart and it constantly races. She’s losing hair at an alarming rate when she showers. She has neuropathy on her left side.
“But above all,” Corinne says, “I have a broken heart because I have lost my mother. The woman who went into that hospital came out a completely different person she will never be again the same.”
After too short of a time, the hospital decided that Fay could be transferred to a nursing home.
Mikhail still defends his actions.
“You could have gotten the virus from anyplace,” he says.
“But we didn’t go out anywhere,” Corinne says. “Only you did.”
Still, Mikhail gives her no empathy, understanding or support. That sort doesn’t, of course. They just use words like freedom and liberty incorrectly and act like it’s a dog-eat-dog world.
On January 2, I had endured 11 days of a COVID-19 fever that sometimes reached nearly 103 degrees. I had lost 30 pounds. I was in the ER, trying to sit up straight while a doctor talked about how people “take a turn for the worse,” and wondering what the telltale signs would be that that it was happening to me. I didn’t want to take a turn for the worse. I still haven’t visited Paris, Texas.
When I drove home from the hospital at midnight with Claire, my hands were shaking.
On Facebook, I chimed in about how serious COVID-19 was, and some slimy Camp Auschwitz true believer chimed in dismissively.
“Chill out, man,” he said. “it’s just a virus.”
That very morning, pal, it was reported that over 350,000 Americans had already died of the virus. So no, pal, it is not just a virus, I told him, it’s more like mass death. My friend Luis Solorzano had just died the week before, leaving his wife and child behind him sick and without means of support, and my friend Joe Porper, too. It’s astonishing that there’s a political party that celebrates immorality, because hey, encouraging people to do things that will kill themselves and others is, in a word, immoral.
(If you’re interested in my current condition, scroll to the bottom. But the next few paragraphs are compulsively riveting, so I encourage you to give them a read.)
Get the vaccine.
It occurs to me that some just look at the numbers and find a way on Fox News or some other gutter network to tell themselves that the numbers aren’t real. They find a way to misunderstand the human suffering. Whether it is their own stunted emotional development or just right-wing talking points, it amounts to the same. They’re disgusting. Over the next few days, however, I wondered if there was a way to make it real to them. Then I started reading the stories posted on my Facebook COVID-19 group and an idea formed. If you are brave enough to handle the truth, read on.
“I just want to thank all the prayers and support from this group during this horrible nitemare we are living. Days are excruciating and very long. Trying to recover all while making funeral arrangements for our loved ones has taken a toll on me. How do i move on? This is too muchthank you all from bottom of my heart may God bless u all. My Angels are now together rejoicing in paradise, pain n illness free. Love n miss my daddy n brother. Fuck Covid!!!! Sorry for my language. My family still recovering from this horrible illness.”
“Another update if you have been following my story,” one member wrote. “I need some reassurance. My heart still races up towards the 180s when I stand up, my oxygen is now dropping to 75. When I lay down I’m semi ok, I bounce around from 99-90. My resting heart rate was around 55 when I first got here and now it’s at 41. Now just recently my heart flies up when I’m sitting for no apparent Reason. It’s terrifying, but my oxygen stays level as long as I stay sitting. Talking about sending me home with oxygen when I’m up and moving. I’m scared.”
“This group has always been here for me as I suffered from Covid, suffered terribly. Now I’m suffering even worse. My brother Walt tested Positive last Wednesday and passed away last night, a healthy physically fit 70 yr old with no health issues. It only took one week to take my brothers life. This virus is so damn awful. My brother is the one with the hat on.”
“I turned in my heart monitor today,” another member wrote. “Over 48 hours I had about 15 events that required logging and pushing a button. I’m waiting for echo results too. But…what if there isn’t anything they can do? What of they don’t see a problem? What if what they suggest is extreme? What if nothing makes my heart better? What if it gets worse? What if I never get to travel and hike in another country? I had all these dreams when I had my kids of – when they are out of the house and on their own I would do all the things I couldn’t afford to do when they were home. What if this is it?”
Another: “COVID-19 still haunts me two months later. Yesterday, I had to have a cardioversion procedure that was successful. My heart finally beats in a normal sinus rhythm. For the last month and a half, I felt like I had just ran up a couple flights of stairs. With meds and prayers, I hope to stay in NSR and never go back to AFib. #covid19sucks”
“I’m thinking I may not have ashtma but instead vocal cord dysfunction. I have dysphagiq, chest pain with tightness, I run out of breath when I talk super easily ever since a few months ago. The ashtma inhalers dont work any more either. I have wheezing fits brought on by walking up the stairs. Would a respiratory therapist be a good option? I’m seeing one already this month. I also wish I knew why ny throat feels tighter snd throbs with pain. Any of you have that throbbing pain?”
“Does/did anyone feel like somone is holding your throat and squizing it but without you necesarly having difficulty breathing? I have one of the new variants of covid-19 and I feel a lot of pressure on the sides of my throat and keep being worried that I can’t breathe well but I think I can. It just confuses me when I feel like I’m being held around the throat (besides other coughing etc)”
I got COVID on March 17th, 2020. I received a negative test on May 1, 2020. Last night, I had a disturbing situation. I woke in the middle of the night with diarrhea. As I was on the toilet, my heart completely stopped beating. I started feeling weird. When it restarted, it was beating very weakly. Then irregular heartbeat started. I realized that I was about to pass out. I tried calling my husband for help, but my voice was weak. The next thing I knew, I was face first in the bathtub. I must have passed out. By then, my husband was helping. I asked how he knew that I needed help and he said that he heard me fall. I didn’t know that I had fallen. I went back to bed, and realized that I had diarrhea again. This time I started sweating and I was so hot. Then I was freezing cold. Then I fell asleep. I didn’t realize that it was a serious situation. The internet says that I should call a cardiologist. My med school son-in-law says that it sounds like low blood pressure. Covid was such a long time ago. I function normally during the day, then bizarre situations happen at night.”
“I remember calling 911 when my Oxygen dropped to 74% and them making me sit outside in the cold as they checked my vitals. They put a non-rebreather on me and that is the last thing I remember until I awoke several days later. When I woke up I was still on the non rebreather and my 02 levels went down every time they tried to wean me off oxygen. I remember the doctor coming in and saying they had one last drug to try to help my lungs. It was a steroid and it ended up helping me. I was hospitalized for nine days.”
On Day 45, I was back to taking my regular exercise walk along the railroad tracks.
“Please keep our long time family friends(they’ve been family to us since I was 10 years old) in your prayers! Poppy, Lauren, [last name redacted] & Jill’s daughter, was only 9 years old and passed 3 days after being diagnosed with Covid. My heart is so broken.”
️🏼 #covidsucks”
“This seems a bit odd.. I still do not have my taste or smell. HOWEVER I don’t know if you can say that exactly things that I can “smell” all smell the same… They smell of raw meat, my laundry soap… All meats (all my food with meat tastes raw) but I cant taste any other flavors. However I can’t smell like a dirty diaper or scents or anything of the such. Or my brand new baby and her baby smell This whole thing is sooo odd…..”
“Yes I had my retinal hemorrhage while in the covid unit..”
“Need some advice please. I had COVID last year in March, was in the hospital for several days. Took quite a while to recover at home. Now i have a bunch of new things all at once. Thyroid nodules, Diverticulitis with very high inflammatory markers (CRP was 72 and took 3 different antibiotics to get rid of inflammation. Before this was diagnosed I was super fatigued for several months with pain all over). Now I was just diagnosed with Carotidynia (pain in my carotid artery). My neck hurts and my jaw. This can’t be a coincidence, all this happening at once. Is there a clinic in San Francisco that specializes on long haulers?”
“My 43 year old brother has been in the hospital since Jan 8th, ICU since Jan 12th, and on an ECMO since Jan 20th. He’s not married, so my sister and I are doing the best we can to manage his household. Anyone else have loved ones essentially in a coma? My sister is the main point of contact, she calls every morning and most evenings for an update. He’s allowed 1 single visitor so our other brother goes mid-afternoon, and collects an update from the nurses and occasionally he’ll get to talk the doctors or specialists. It feels so… Helpless. And there is so much I don’t understand about what is happening, especially since he’s been on the ECMO. Though my brother doesn’t have a significant other, he has very close-knit relationships with friends and coworkers. We set up a Caring Bridge website to keep everyone informed, but if we don’t give a status update every 48 hours, people get really demanding and kind of pushy towards us and it adds to the stress. “I’m just sitting here at my job, someone asked me how my brother is doing and he had a particularly not-great weekend… Talking about it started the water works and I’ve been trying to stop crying for the past hour. Life just feels like varying degrees of awful and scary right now.”
“So…2021 has kicked my a$$. I got Covid at first of year for 2 weeks of yuck and then Jan 26 I had a double bypass. I am so short of breath, no stamina, and now the darn constant headache is back. Ugh! So many prayers for everyone affected. I just want to feel good for one damn day!”
“Did anyone develop psychosis after their diagnosis? I am three weeks plus post-test and I feel like I am losing my mind. Every sign and symptom is pushing me over the edge. I have been to the ER twice in 48 hours. The first time was for chest pain and pressure. They did all these blood tests and found my ddimer was high so they did a chest CT scan to rule out clots. That all came back perfect. My next visit was a total panic attack over my chest and the doctor basically said I was crazy and having psychosis and gave me anti psychotic medicine. Is anyone experiencing this severe anxiety? I’m scared.”
(If you’re interested in my current condition, I’m nearly 100% now. My main symptoms is a lung limitation that is so small that I really can’t gauge it now (it shows up on my chest X-ray, but my doctor hasn’t quantified it for me). I also have night sweats and have to change my wet shirt during the night, sometimes twice. However, I’ve been walking for exercise for over an hour for nine straight days, and really, how sick can you be if you can exercise at that level? As you’ll recall, I lost 30 pounds during my feverish phase of COVID-19, and I think I’ve gained back about five or ten pounds, but not all of it. Hey, I don’t want to gain back all of it! Before COVID, I was carrying a few extra pounds, so staying at a lower weight is no big deal. What is a big deal is saying no to sour cream on burritos! That’s what I ate in mid-January when my fever broke and my appetite came back. Now, I’m back to avoiding too many juices, using too much olive oil, buying too many different types of wonderful cheese, and topping off every meal with chocolate or gelato. Did I mention that I’m avoiding those things?
I’m back to working on my computer and will be having a comeback Zoom magic show soon. I try not to overdo it, and when I feel tired, I stop. I don’t have to charge hard into every workday. And because of Claire, I don’t have to. Life is good for us introverts.)
Today, I was browsing on Facebook on my COVID-19 recovery group when I happened upon a debate about masks. It’s amazing the stupid propaganda that people try to pass off–just a fancy word for lies–and all just to make a political point.
The woman who wrote the post, Jane, wrote: “My friend wore her mask into hospital for a check up. Her oxygen was only 50%. They told her to take her mask off and measured again = 100% oxygen. Advised not to wear one as a result.”
Just a quick check of the Mayo Clinic’s website will tell you that a reading of 50% is impossibly low. You’d be dead. In fact, “values under 90% are low,” and Healthline says that people with severe COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), which people die from every day, often maintain “pulse ox levels” around 88% to 92%.
“If oxygen levels are below 88 percent, that is a cause for concern,” saysChristian Bime, MD, a critical-care medicine specialist with a focus in pulmonology at Banner – University Medical Center Tucson. If you see readings at or below this level, you should contact your health-care provider immediately or go to the nearest urgent care center or emergency room.”
I told Jane about this, as did about ten other members of the recovery group, and eventually, she considered that her friend might be lying to her. Hey, it happens.
Anti-maskers make up this shit. I’ve had anti-maskers lie to me about lots of similar things. They want to be able to do whatever they want whenever they want. They don’t care if they breathe on me and spread COVID-19 to me and my mother dies. Or I die. Did I mention that I caught COVID-19 on December 22 from a 20-year-old who was wearing his mask under his nose?
What Happens to Us 
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