Several people have reached out to me to ask if I am still alive, since I have gone a month without a blog post. The answer is yes, but I am the first to admit that 2022 has not been one of my best years.

The major culprit, of course, is Covid. Hammered on a cruise ship in Iceland, I recovered just in time in early July to test negative and upon leaving the ship, did not have to be transferred to a “Covid Hotel” in Copenhagen. What I did not know then was that Covid was not finished with me. I have self-diagnosed as having Long Covid because the original Covid symptoms have now returned three times, all seemingly triggered by my overdoing it—after I had attempted to resume my regular activities of getting out and about, routine walking 2-3 miles a day, and doing volunteer activities associated with work on various nonprofit boards. Being hospitalized in Portland ME for another bout of BVS did not help much either (see previous blog posts about the incidents when I ended up in the emergency room at Washington Hospital Center and recently in Portland, ME, “ER Adventures 2022”). These recurrences have tended to last two to three weeks before I feel like I am able to get back to normal and declare myself free from this horrid disease. Then for a few days I am fine only to be hammered again with total fatigue and exhaustion, coughing, body aches and malaise. As I write this post, I feel fine, and have felt almost normal for three or four days. Tomorrow I could be hammered again by my unwelcomed nemesis.

So that is the story. But some have suggested that I do not have Long Covid, only a pesky respiratory virus with no name. It really does not make a difference what you call it, it is what it is, and as the saying goes, “sucks.”

Now one reason that there has not been a formal diagnosis is that the healthcare plan that I have has recently been changed so that there is a long wait period before you are able to see your primary care physician. You now must go online to get a “phone appointment” lasting 15-30 minutes. I signed up for the first open phone appointment about six weeks ago and will at last talk to my primary care doctor (whom I like) this Friday for the first time since coming down with Covid in late June.

I understand that Covid has changed the way we live and work on the Planet Earth and especially in the U.S. where hospitals have been overwhelmed. Health care workers are burned out and scarce, and hospital and medical systems are trying to cope. I have been tempted to switch Medicare insurance providers during this “open season,” but have resisted because I have about a half dozen doctors that I depend on in this system and am pleased with all of them. To try to start over is just too hard, and few of the people whom I have talked to who are in different systems are enthusiastic about the doctors or Medicare plans they have.  The nurses and doctors are not the problem for me.  

So, what is wrong with the health system I belong to? The post Covid protocol is first to refer anyone who has a health issue to the nearest emergency room. But how do you know if your health issue warrants an emergency room visit? And who wants to go to an emergency room unless you absolutely have to? During my two days in the Washington Hospital Center emergency room, I was confined to a dark corner separated by a thin curtain from the hustle and bustle of stretchers moving in and out carrying victims of gunshot and knife wounds, drug overdoses, car wrecks and heart attacks. This would be my last choice.

The second option is to go to an urgent care center. I have been to the urgent care center in my system three times, each involving a wait of several hours and then not getting a definitive diagnosis. If I was not very sick before the visit, I was after I departed. Not a very appealing option for me.

The third and final option is to call an “advice nurse,” who will hear your story and determine if you should talk to a doctor. This was the option that I selected; and after hearing my sad story, the nurse said I would receive a call from a physician who was at a hospital about 20 miles away. The doctor did call within a few minutes, listened to my story, was caring and supportive, and prescribed antibiotics for a sinus infection. She did ask me if I had had Covid and had all my vaccinations and boosters, but there was no mention of Long Covid.

So there you have it. This is the way health care now works in the United States—at least in some large health care systems. There are probably good reasons for some of this, but the idea of keeping patients away from their primary care physicians is idiocy. They are the ones who know you and have your medical history and are supposed to be your advocate. That used to be the case in the system I am in, but no longer. Your options are now emergency rooms, urgent care centers, and doctors who have never met you and never will, and interface with you briefly via phone or video. Does this make any sense? Not for patients like me, who may never know if I suffer from Long Covid but frankly do not care if someone, anyone, can keep these meltdowns with Covid-like symptoms from happening.

 

 

 

 

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This is my last missive from my trip to the Stans. This evening we flew from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where we had a short but wonderful time in that land of nomads. We saw a sporting event yesterday whereby very skilled horsemen, divided into two teams, rode around the field trying to pick up a dead sheep, galloped down the field, and threw it into a big receptacle while the other team of horsemen tried to prevent them. It’s like a cross between American football and polo, but much rougher. 

The city of Bishkek is surrounded by spectacular, high snowcapped mountains, the Tian Sian range, some 20,000 feet tall. However, the mountains are shrouded most of the time by clouds and smog. When they come into view periodically, it is breathtaking. 

One of the things we learned about in Kyrgyzstan in more detail was  the devastating consequences of the breakup of the former Soviet Union on that small country. Apparently three countries–Russia, Belorussia, and Ukraine–got together and decided to break up the Soviet Union. The Central Asian countries (“the Stans”) were not consulted, but just handed the decision as a fait accompli.  The factories closed almost immediately (due to diminished demand), and the economy plummeted almost overnight. A large proportion of the Russians who had held prominent positions in the government and society left and returned to Russia. Both Russia and Belorussia invited them back, and some who remained feared discrimination and even retribution. Many skilled Kyrgyz people also left to find jobs elsewhere, mostly to Russia. There was hyperinflation combined with high unemployment. The poor suffered the most as is almost always the case. 

Privatization of real estate happened quickly. If you had inhabited an apartment or house for a certain amount of time, it became yours if you filed the paperwork properly. Around Bishkek, which is in general a lovely city, you see many dilapidated apartment houses, which seem out of place in the rapidly developing city with some attractive  new buildings. These older buildings are apparently the buildings where people got free apartments. Now there is little money or good cooperative governance in place to fix up the buildings, which have been slowly deteriorating over the past 30 years. I haven’t got a handle on how the collective farms were privatized, but the government ownership of land also was ended in rural areas.

While there were negative consequences, and apparently many older people are nostalgic about former Soviet times, the youthful population is happier about the changes; and there is overall an optimistic spirit. Still, many youth have to go abroad, usually to Russia, to earn a living so it’s a mixed bag.

I think the Russians have the right idea about immigration. While the circumstances and economies are different, Russia and the US both have a shortage of unskilled labor. Yet they encourage Central Asians to migrate to Russia for work and give them work permits easily along with a path to citizenship. They are allowed to go back and forth to their home countries as they like.  We, on the other hand, force hardworking immigrants to come illegally to do the jobs that Americans don’t want for low pay and keep them in the shadows so that they have no legal status and cannot return home to see their families. It is an unnecessary and cruel system (or non-system).

But as challenging as life is here in the Stans, many people remain hopeful and most have greeted us with warmth and hospitality. Here is how I have communicated with the wonderful people I have met along the way. To greet anyone, I just say “A-salamu Aleicum” which is “Peace be with you” in Arabic, but works in any Muslim country as a polite greeting.  For “thank you” I learned “Rachman” (I have no idea if I am spelling it correctly), but “Spaciba” which is Russian (perhaps also misspelled) also always works. To emphasize respect or thanks, they have a lovely gesture, which is to hold your right hand over your heart. With these, and a good translator at close hand, I have had no problems.

I will close my missives with this story: Yesterday we took a trip to the countryside and stopped by a farm for lunch and to see how they make their beautiful felt rugs. Each rug involves many hours of tedious work. The rugs originally were used to decorate their yurts (no longer used much).  I had been working on a piece of needlepoint as we rode along, and our guide encouraged me to show my needlework to the ladies of the farm. This caused a big excitement. I showed them how I did the stitching, and one of them immediately began to work on it! (I am sorry I didn’t take along some needlepoint to give them.)

That’s it for my missives from the Stans. Now back to the U.S. This is a fascinating part of the world with a rich history dating back thousands of years, yet rarely visited by Americans. It seems to get lost, nestled as it is between two giants, Russia and China, and still suffering from many years of Czarist and Soviet domination, lack of natural resources, population loss, regional instability (Afghanistan and Iran), and environmental degradation. However, a strong spirit of determination and regional pride remain, and the gems of stunning landscapes, charming ancient buildings, beautiful crafts and artwork are worth a visit by any adventuresome tourist. However, it is not for the faint of heart. I told  Joe he made the right call to miss this one.

 

 

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I am taking a welcomed day off here in Tashkent, while the other hardy travelers (including two 80+ year olds!) trek around Tashkent in the heat.  I couldn’t be happier. Perhaps the schedule for our day yesterday will help you understand why I am sitting by the pool reading and writing.

 

• Woke up call at 6:30 (actually a door knock due to lack of a working phone in the room).
• Packed up and took a quick shower.
• Ate breakfast. Yea, I can actually eat now! (The tourista has at last subsided.)
• Bus left at 8 for a long, bumpy ride to Nukus.
• Stopped along the way to see and take pictures of camels.
• Stopped along the way to tromp around ruins of ancient fortresses of the First Millennium BC. There is not lots of information on who these folks were, but the assumption is they were Persian speakers and followers of Zoroastrianism (Acmaeid Empire). If so, they believed in a single deity, good and evil, and had influence on a lot of other subsequent world religions including Judaism. They built their fortresses up high for protection from invaders, so I had to make a climb that should really have been outside my ability level, but I did it anyway, in some cases on hands and knees (along with three other of our group–not the guides, who knew what was involved!).
• Ate on the bus and enjoyed the desert scenery.
• Arrived in Nukus and visited the very interesting museum founded by a Russian artist and art collector, Igor Savitsky. This museum is important, because Savitsky collected art from avant  guarde artists from the Soviet era whose art was banned. He even showed some of it during Soviet times in this very out of the way place. When the Soviet inspectors would arrive, he would hide it in the basement and hang some Soviet realist art that he also collected .
• Drove a long way out of town on more bumpy roads to some mausoleums that were also way up on top of another hill. Perhaps they bury the dead up high from the Zoroastrian tradition of putting the dead out for crows to eat? At this point, I didn’t really want to see another mausoleum (although many are beautiful), having seen and admired many, many of them already on the trip. I sat down in the shade to wait for the group, and when they returned, I asked what it was like. My dead-tired compatriot mumbled (” AD, BC, AD, BC…”). In other words, he had no idea.
• Next, we rode back in to town to have a wonderful dinner in a private home that I could at last enjoy fully. I took a video of their charming daughter playing a local stringed instrument and singing. At dinner, we heard a presentation from a scientist who has started a local NGO concerning potential restoration of the Aral Sea.
• Then we drove to the airport for our 10:30 flight to Tashkent, arriving to our hotel at 1 am.!

A tiring and typical day.

Here are a few other observations:

Water and water rights are a huge issue here because the whole region is arid, and the rivers are drying up. We learned in the evening lecture that the methods of irrigation lead to a waste of about 80% of the water, which is a solvable problem, but the ineffective governments are doing nothing about it. The water comes from the Pamir mountains, which are in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, but it flows down to the other countries. Along the way it is siphoned off, leading to  poisoning  the water sources through chemicals and salinification (of which the Aral Sea is the greatest example). Likely over time a need for water may lead to more conflict than oil in this dry region. 

Women’s Rights: I have not been able to get a handle on this. Walking around town, you see no women fully veiled, although that was the tradition up through the 19th Century. Indeed, in those days women rarely left home, following a system that is more like that imposed by the Taliban today. Apparently, with equal education, women here are freer than before, perhaps one of a benefit from Soviet times, along with better public health and education. Still, most marriages are arranged, family sizes are large, and most women work at home and not in professions. In addition, even today, women do not got to the mosque or attend funerals, which seems quite severe. It is really a mixed bag.

Renovation vs reconstruction of national monuments: Most of the buildings of the World Heritage sites we have visited are beautiful and even pristine. But then you start to wonder how much is original. I always ask, and have gotten a hodgepodge of answers, from 40% original to 60%, etc. I imagine it’s not really known. This is one of the huge benefits of UNESCO designation, because they have guidelines for the process of renovation that must be followed to achieve designation, which brings prestige and tourism. Apparently, the renovation process started in the19th Century (in a limited way) on important sites that were falling into ruin. The Russians continued, although they concentrated on non-religious sites and sometimes destroyed some of the beautiful Kufic script Koran writing. The renovations have picked up since “independence” (1991), as a matter of national pride. The World Heritage sites are truly magnificent (Samarkand, Bokara, and Khiva), and I have become more of an admirer of the work of UNESCO after this visit. Of all things, the US has withdrawn our support of UNESCO, due to some dispute between Israel and Palestine.  What!?

 

 

 

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Kiva was our next stop on the Silk Road in Uzbekistan. As we rode into town–after a 7-hour bumpy ride across a mostly desert landscape– I could see that the old city has a very different look than the other places we have been so far (and equally beautiful).

Note that the Silk Road” is not really a road. The term was coined by a historian in the 19th century to represent the trade routes across the desert and mountains to get from Italy through Central Asia and into China. I’m sure these routes existed for centuries for shorter distances, but in Tang Dynasty China they took off as a way to get goods in and out of China to the West. This is the way Marco Polo went on his long journey, that he documented in his memoirs. So that’s why we see beautiful rugs and oriental China in renaissance paintings. Riding through the vast desert yesterday, I asked how they kept from getting lost on those long journeys. It was apparently the same techniques as the great sea voyagers used to cross the oceans, such as using stars and   instruments like the sextant.  There were trains of camels and horses, led by a specialist in finding the way. Along the way were “caravanserai,” which were places to sleep and rest/water the animals.  The water was brought from the rivers in tunnels (such as from the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers) and stored in specialized cisterns.

Cotton was–and is– also a critical factor in the region.  Cotton in Central Asia played a similar role as in the deep South, both before and after the Civil War.  In the U.S., the cheap labor needed to grow and pick the cotton by hand was provided by slaves or poor blacks tied to the same fields they worked in during slavery.  In Central Asia, it was provided by poor farmers who–after Communism–were organized into collective farms. These farms had production quotas passed down from Moscow to the farm and then to the individual laborer. Because these were often unreasonable quotas, corruption occurred whereby from the bottom up to the top, through many bureaucratic layers, bribes encouraged people to lie about actual production.

Corruption is prevalent both in the public and private sectors. Perhaps this is because it was so prevalent in the Communist era just to get by, and then it became somewhat engraved in daily life. A story told by our guide was of the daughter of the former president. Nepotism, another form of corruption  is also prevalent. Apparently, she held a high office (perhaps a Minister of Commerce), where she had to approve all the contracts for things like roads and bridges. She imposed a 10% cut off the top for any construction project, which went into her personal bank account.  This was exposed by a brave internal auditor, who was ultimately fired by her dad. Of all things, this lady was also the Uzbekistani Ambassador to the UN! Apparently, the European Bank of Reconstruction has now put restrictions on the money they provide. However, a lot of the money they provide for roads is still wasted, and the work is shoddy. The Chinese (who perhaps have more tolerance for corruption) have a different approach, which to send in their own workers.

Another similarity with the American South is that the unemployment caused by the dissolution of the collective farms after the breakup of the former Soviet Union, caused young men to migrate to Russia for work to fill low paying jobs, a movement like our Great Migration. Just as Russia needs the cotton, they now–with their population decline—also need these workers. Yet my impression is that Uzbeks prefer to move to the U.S. Around the towns you see big signs that say “GREEN CARD,” advertising places where they help you fill out an application for the US green card lottery. The Central Asian nations are pushing back, however, saying local workers must be hired.  Our guide said, “Why should we send our boys to work in Russia  when we could have them working here?”

A terrible consequence of cotton production is that cotton is a “thirsty crop,” which requires intensive irrigation at key points in the growing cycle. Consequently, due to diversion of water from the rivers, there was a slow evaporation of the huge inland Aral Sea, which now seems beyond saving. (Windstorms carry dust that is salty and polluted with chemicals around the region.) This ecological disaster, along with corruption encouraged by the production quotas, are key factors in the breakup of the former Soviet Union.

However, lot of cotton is still grown here, and now is the time for picking. The fields are white, and we see many people (mostly women) bent over picking the cotton.

Central Asia is a fascinating part of the world, with a rich history, stunning landscape, ancient cities, and lingering challenges that will profoundly affect the future of the region.

 

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Day Four (Still in Uzbekistan)

For a map of Central Asia, click here:

Caucasus central asia political map 2000 – Central Asia – Wikipedia

Here’s what we did today, pretty much of a typical day, and one reason the Smithsonian discouraged those not up for an exhausting tour:

• Up at dawn, breakfast and then on the bus at 8
• Visit to Timur’s mausoleum (beautiful)
• Visit to Ulug Beg’s observatory 
• Archeological site from the Sogdiana period
• Lunch in elegant restaurant 
• Trip to factory for silk rugs (no, I did not buy one)
• Visit to a bakery
• Dinner in family home
• Whew, off to bed

Here is what we experienced:

 After coming back from Tajikistan to Uzbekistan, we drove in the bus and ended up in Samarkand, a city in southeastern Uzbekistan. Things have gotten a lot more interesting in terms of beautiful historical sights. We have seen one after another amazing buildings of classic Islamic architecture from the Timurid period (14th and 15th Centuries).  Timur (otherwise known as Tamerlane) was an Uzbek warrior who kicked out the Mongols (although he married into Genghis Khan’s family) and established a rather fragile empire, which broke up within a century after his death in the early 15th century. (They had not worked out their rules of succession as well as the British!)  He encouraged learning and brought in architects and artists from around the world. We have seen the madrassas (schools) and tombs (mausoleums) that the Timurids built.  His grandson, Ulug Beg, was also a warrior, but also a brilliant astronomer, who built on Greek and Indian astronomy to map many of the stars well before the Europeans. Luckily his students saved some of his writings, which were passed down and preserved.

A few other items:

Music and Arts:  The Uzbeks and Tajiks have an artistic and expressive society, with amazing crafts, music, and dance. We saw a person play several of the traditional instruments, which are a huge range of stringed instruments, each different is size, the number of strings, how they are made (with which wood), and how they are played (plucked or bowed). The other common traditional instruments are flutes and tambourines that serve as the drums.

Money: They must have had some hyperinflation along the way because all denominations of the money are in the thousands. For example, 1000 “som” is 20 cents, and I have never seen any lower denomination (few coins or lower bills).  So I asked an innocent and naive question about why they don’t just log off three zeros to make the arithmetic easier.  The answer was practical; it would take a lot of money to redo all the bills and machines to make the bills, etc. Of course, they are all used to this crazy system and see no problem with it, just like us and our pennies.

Clothing: While people don’t wear the most elaborate traditional dress day-to-day, most people (except for youth in the cities, who wear jeans and T-shirts) do not dress in “Western” dress.  Most women wear very colorful flowered long dresses, and older women over middle age usually have something on their heads, usually a scarf. I have never seen a face covering (including a covid mask, which is another story). Older men often wear a typical Uzbek cap, which can be colorful or black.

Food: We have been constantly overfed, with buffets for breakfast, three or four courses for lunch, and the same for dinner. Each meal (lunch and dinner) starts with an elaborate display of salads. I have gotten lots of pictures of these colorful displays. Then we have a soup (today at lunch a delicious borscht). Then there is the main course, usually meat (sometimes kabobs) with rice and potatoes. Finally, there is fruit and usually also a sweet dessert.  I don’t know how they expect you to eat all this, but you can see why I am struggling to overcome an upset stomach. Still it is good, and especially to look at.

Personalities: I noticed a distinct difference century between Uzbek and Tajik people. This was confirmed by our guide as a “type,” with obviously many exceptions, Uzbeks are more reserved, and Tajiks are more outgoing–perhaps like the contrast between Japanese and  Chinese people.  As an example, at the hotel where we stayed in Tajikistan, the proprietress gave us hugs, turned on the boom box, and had us dancing around with her after breakfast. In Tajikistan, everyone was happy for me to take their picture, which wasn’t always the case in Uzbekistan. 

 

 

 

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Note to reader: While I am continuing to recover from my Covid ordeal, I am posting several email posts from Embry, who spent almost three weeks this September touring “the Stans,” the Central Asian countries along the “Silk Road.” Sponsored by the Smithsonian, the tour had been postponed for the past two years due to Covid. When Embry had originally signed up two years ago, I had not elected to participate since the trip was described along the lines of “not for the weak hearted.”  Though most of the original participants had cancelled out by the fall of 2022, some six adventurous souls showed up along with a Smithsonian guide and a local guide. Two of the tourists were classmates at Smith College, graduating in 1957. 

Central Asia (2019) has a population of about 72 million people, in five countries: Kazakhstan (pop. 19 million), Kyrgyzstan (7 million), Tajikistan (10 million), Turkmenistan (6 million), and Uzbekistan (35 million). The trip started and ended in Uzbekistan covering almost three weeks. They visited all but one of the “Stans” spending a day or two in each country. Her first post which follows was on Day two from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.

This is Day 2 on my trip to the “Stans,” and I am in Tashkent. I’m also pretty worn out, both from jet lag, a touch of “tourista”, and what Joe calls the “forced march” aspect of these kind of tours. Every local guide wants to show you everything about their city. Afterall, it’s their job. We have been to two cities so far, and both are still in their Post-Soviet phase, with old Soviet statues and buildings around.  Since there is not that much else to see, we ride the bus to this monument and that one.  Here are the highlights:

Tashkent: We spent an afternoon here yesterday, but  there really isn’t lots to see. (We will be back at the end of the tour and will go to the market.)They are proud that they have taken down all the Lenin paraphernalia, and also are slowly changing the signs from Cyrillic to Latin script (which they call “Uzbeki script”). Many children no longer take Russian in school, another part of slow de-Russification.

The most interesting part of the afternoon was a visit to the craft museum.  The crafts are truly beautiful.  However, we did not need to see the Soviet era statue honoring the earthquake of 1966 victims, which was devastating (The government refused to publish the number of deaths.) They are anxious to have more private enterprise, which their new leader encourages. I was told they have three parties, but one dominates. Still, they are drifting towards the West, which I imagine does not please Mr. Putin. They were essentially a colony of Russia dating back to Czarist times. The crop was cotton (same in Tajikistan), and the irrigation drained the Aral Sea, which is now an empty, polluted wasteland. 

Now there is evidence of prosperity, including lots of cars bearing a Chevrolet insignia due to a collaboration between Chevy and a local business. There are also small shops and nice restaurants. We had dinner at a very charming one last evening and stayed a second night at our excellent Korean-owned hotel. 

Our guide told us about his time in the Communist Youth where he was very good at picking cotton in the summers, which enabled him to get into a good university. 

24-hour day trip to Tajikistan:  We drove to the border (only 70 km away) on one bus, walked across and picked up the local bus and guide. Just getting across the border (on foot) was quite tedious. I had to wonder who on earth they are looking for: terrorists or smugglers?  (About 10 people checked my passport.) But is this a way to encourage tourism? Maybe it’s a jobs program. 

Along the way, from the bus I enjoyed seeing food crops, animals, and cotton in the fields with very high, dry mountains as a beautiful backdrop. You still see a lot of manual labor in the fields (few tractors and even a donkey cart or two), so the level of development seems like Sub-Saharan Africa. We arrived mid-morning to Tajikistan’s second largest city, Khosand, which is located on the Syr Darya River, a (formerly) big river which seems to be slowly drying up and changing to marsh. (I’m sure this is partially due to climate change, although the local guide never mentioned this.) 

This local guide speaks English very well and has entertaining stories. He told about the arranged marriage system, which is still prevalent and apparently similar to what exists in Uzbekistan. The parents of a boy (who has finished his education and mandatory military service, usually) begin to shop for a bride while the young man often goes to Russia to work and make money for the wedding, which is very expensive.  They must buy all the costumes (I got pictures) and pay a dowry.  Pity the family that has more than two boys (the younger boy is responsible for the parents in their old age). They have very large families, an average of 5 kids with more in rural areas. Apparently, the young people have very little to say about their mate. 90% of marriages are arranged, although the guide said this is going down and may now be 80%. Another example of traditional values is that women never go to the mosque. However, they like to have female teachers and doctors (for girls and women), so if a girl finishes secondary school, she can go to university. She is allowed to get married and have children while she does this (since girls are generally much younger than the boys), and they get some government support.

We had a heavy lunch (3 courses), but I only had soup and RC Cola (made in Columbus, Georgia according to the label), which they apparently love here.  Then we started our “forced march” which consisted of visiting various Soviet-era parks. They had the largest Lenin statue in Central Asia, which I guess some people wanted to I keep. The compromise was to take him down and put him in a very neglected park out of town, where he keeps company with some pictures of other Soviet heroes. Maybe this will happen to Robert E Lee in the U.S. South. 

He was replaced by a statue of another ancient hero. They have many to choose from, because of the many invasions. While not comprehensive these include: the Sassnids, who were Persian and practiced Zoroastrianism; Alexander the Great, who built a huge castle/fort which they are trying to restore with help from UNESCO; Arabs (who brought the arts and sciences along with Islam,  which seems to be practiced rather casually here by most people); Genghis Khan, who apparently passed through the area during the Mongol invasion; Timur (his descendant, known in the West as Tamerlane) , who brought more literature and arts/architecture; and the Russians at the time of the Czars and continued under Communism. (This is the history of all Central Asia, which is bloody and sad.)

A final sad phase was at the time of the breakup of the former Soviet Union. There were three factions: one wanted to continue Communism, one wanted to establish an Islamic state, and one (with many youth) wanted democracy. To figure this out, they fought a bloody Civil War in which 150,000 were killed. I do not remember reading much about this at the time.  I still do not understand why these gentle, and apparently peaceful, people put up with all this, but I’m guessing it must be leadership.

At end of this really exhausting day, we went to the market which is a true market, used by all the farmers of the surrounding area, and where everyone shops for food. A long exhausting day and the start of a great adventure.

 

 

 

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Note to reader: This essay was composed almost a month ago when I was visiting my  daughter’s family in Maine and Embry was touring the “Stans” on a Smithsonian tour. The week I returned to DC, I collapsed with what I have self diagnosed as Long Covid. Embry has her doubts about the accuracy of my self diagnosis, but in any event I am happy to report that I am finally beginning to feel better and hopefully am on the mend.

As is now common knowledge, mainline Protestant churches have been shrinking for the last several decades. I am what is called a “cradle Episcopalian,” which means, “born and bred in the Episcopal Church.” In the 1950s Episcopalians numbered about 3.5 million. Now we are about 1.8 million. Presbyterians—the other denomination which like Episcopalians have been referred to as “God’s Frozen Chosen” — have declined even more. And Methodists, Congregationalists, American Baptists, Lutherans, and even Southern Baptists are experiencing similar trends. The only growth that is reported is in The Church of the Latter Day Saints (or Mormons) and what are labeled “evangelical churches” and “community churches with no denominational affiliation.” Some also call themselves “praise churches.”

I have been curious as to what is going on for some time; and for this reason, when recently visiting my daughter’s family in Portland, Maine, I asked if I could accompany their young “extended family member,” who is a college student from Africa, to attend church with her. From my daughter’s description the church she attends, which I will call “The Point Non-Denominational Christian Church,”(not its real name) sounded like one of the non-affiliated community churches—probably evangelical– with a growing membership. Maybe this experience would provide some clues.

The two of us arrived for the early service starting at nine about 20 minutes early and found ourselves in a long line of cars trying to enter the parking lot of a regional shopping center. The line moved very quickly, however, because there were a dozen or so people with bright yellow shirts directing traffic into the huge parking area in front of the shopping center. As we got out of the car, we joined a throng of people of all ages, almost all white, eagerly headed toward the center of the shopping center where there was a huge structure with a sign, “The Point Christian Church.” Except for the sign the massive, three-story building blended in with the rest of the shopping center and could easily have been mistaken for an office building. The energy and excitement all around us reminded me of going to a high school football or basketball game. I looked around and noted the vast parking lot was already almost full, and no stores in the shopping center were even open yet.

As we approached the front door of the church, we were immediately greeted by several smiling people—mostly men wearing name tags that said “greeter” — who shook our hands vigorously, told us how glad they were to see us, and thanked us for coming. Everyone else got the same welcome. Many were embracing. (And no one was wearing a covid mask.)

Good heavens, I thought, when was the last time I got a welcome like this?

Upon entering the large lobby there was no hint that we were entering a Christian church—no crosses or pictures of Jesus or banners or anything else suggesting that this might be a church. On our right in the large lobby was a section with  tables and chairs and large sign that said “Café,” and on our left was a Starbucks lookalike with a sign that read “Coffee Shop.” Behind that was a lounge area with chairs and sofas arranged around a large fireplace. Signs directed the crowd to five options—”Christian Education and Meeting Rooms,” “Soccer field,” “Basketball Courts,” “Church Offices,” and “Auditorium.” As we joined the line headed toward the Auditorium, we snuggled between adults returning from dropping off their kids in the Christian Education area. While there were only a few people of color besides my young, African partner—after all, this was in Maine, which is 95% white—there was a wide variety of ages. I was particularly impressed by how many young people and Gen Zs there were. I was also impressed with what people were wearing. I was over dressed, wearing khaki pants and a golf shirt. The dress code for the day was mainly shorts, cut offs, jeans with fashionable holes at knee level, running or walking shoes and tee shirts. Had I not known better, I would have thought we were headed to a rock concert.

To get to the Auditorium you must pass by the regulation-size, indoor soccer field and the regulation-size basketball courts with small galleries for spectators. The One Point website also boasts of pickle ball courts and an indoor golf center. For a moment I thought I was in one of the new, over-the-top, elite college athletic facilities. However, at that time no one was using the basketball courts or artificial grass soccer field as we inched along with others headed for the Auditorium, which was a couple of floors up reachable by stairs or a bank of elevators. I wondered why they had not put in escalators.

At about five minutes before nine, we reached the top of the stairs and were finally at the Auditorium. At the entrance area we were met by more smiling greeters thanking us for coming and saying how glad they were to see us. Some were hugging and embracing. I heard voices all around me saying, “Brother, it is great to see you!” “Sister, we love you!”

Before we passed into the Auditorium, my young friend pointed to a large bowl containing tiny, plastic capsules, which she pointed out contained the grape juice and a wafer for communion. We each took one and entered. No bulletins or information about the service were available although on the wall was a list of numerous ministries and activities which were happening during the week. One that caught my eye was a “women’s prison ministry.”

The Auditorium was a vast, windowless, dim space the size of a Broadway theater, with seating on the main level and in a large balcony area. (Later I looked up the size of the space on their website and found it to have 1,600 seats.) I guessed that about 1,400 seats were already occupied as we found a couple of empty seats near front and close to the stage. There was no hint that we were in a church—no symbols, crosses, pulpit, hymnals, or anything like that.  I sat down between my young friend and next to another African, a young man in his 20s with a strong accent. I looked toward the large stage area, which was empty at that time but accommodated a large drum set on one side, a huge keyboard on the other, and five or six microphones at the front of the stage. Three large video screens were on the wall behind the stage, and two enormous screens were on each side, the size of a movie screen in a typical movie theater. Between the drum set and the keyboard was a string of Broadway-style, festive lights at the back of the stage that spelled out something like “Serving Greater Portland.”

As the clock approached nine, the chatter began to diminish, and anticipation began to build. I could feel the excitement, the kind of feeling I remember from attending a Judy Collins or Nina Simone concert in the 1960s and 70s. The dim lights went out completely as a hush came over the congregation in the pitch-black dark. For five or six seconds all conversation ceased.

I thought “Oh my goodness, what’s next?”

Then the theater lights above the stage burst on, the music started, and the congregation jumped to their feet and roared approval. Think what it is like when Notre Dame or University of Alabama football players enter a packed home stadium for a crucial game.  Ten folk rock musicians appeared on stage—five guitar players, three acoustic and two electric, all young men in their twenties or early thirties with the Maine scruffy look—long hair, beards, jeans, tee shirts and running shoes; a woman a little older playing keyboard, and a very large young man playing the drums. Three fabulous vocalists were off to the side, two women, one African American, and one guy who was dressed just like the guitar players. The musicians were not rank amateurs but polished professionals. “Oh, I said to myself. Now I understand: It’s the music.”

Their first piece was part folk and part country song with an up-tempo beat that could have come out of a Paul Simon, Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift, or a Brandi Carlisle songbook except for the Christian lyrics, which appeared on the three high-definition screens behind the band. Everyone around me was standing and singing at the top of their lungs, some jumping up and down, and most raising their arms in the air as they swayed back and forth to the beat of the music. The high-definition, massive screens on each side of the stage showed closeups of the performers and occasionally the entire performing group. I found myself standing up and swaying to the beat of the music and even raising my arms in praise. Feeling a tad awkward, I was relieved that no one could see me in the dark theater. Afterall, I am one of “God’s Frozen Chosen.” I could not help thinking that somehow, I had gotten confused and made a wrong turn, thinking I was going to a church but ending up at a country/folk rock concert. I smiled and had to admit that I was captivated by the musical performance, which over the course of just about 90 minutes included over a half dozen, very polished, extended pieces all of which had variations the same basic lyrics: Praise God, God is great, God is good, God is love, Jesus is great, you are forgiven for your sins, your life has meaning, you will live forever if you accept God’s love and believe in Jesus!”

In addition to the fabulous music, there were announcements made by the youth minister who could not have been all that many years older than a teenager himself, who listed a couple of dozen important activities that would be happening during the next week including a community picnic with inflatable slides, activities for kids, and entertainment.  Later in the service came a 30-minute sermon by another young pastor, who was probably in his mid 30s.  Since he did not introduce himself, I do not know if he was the senior pastor, but suspect not. (Five pastors, all men, are listed in their website along with 20 other staff.) Both pastors had the same scruffy, Maine look of the band performers and were dressed like most of the males in the congregation– sports shirt, jeans and running shoes. While he had prepared a written sermon, which was on an electronic tablet resting on a small podium, he glanced at it only occasionally and casually walked around the stage talking into the mic in a conversational tone as if he were in a personal conversation with each of the enthusiastic members of the congregation. His subject was the “Fourth Core Value” of the church and why it was important. The first three core values were these: “Know God, Find Freedom, and Engage Community.” “His sermon was on was “Share Your Story” –spreading the word through personal testimony and sharing God’s love, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Other than his one long, extemporaneous prayer toward the end, there were no group prayers that I can recall, not even the Lord’s Prayer, no creeds, and no Bible readings except for a passage in the Gospel of John on which the sermon was based. At one point he showed a 10-minute clip from the movie, “The Chosen,” which was about Jesus saving a Samaritan woman at a well found in the Gospel of John, which illustrated a point he was making in his sermon. At the end of his sermon, everyone applauded, then opened their tiny container, ate the small wafer, and sipped down the grape juice.

Other highlights included two full-immersion, adult baptisms, numbers 103 and 104 for the year. The first one was accompanied by a 3 or 4-minute recorded testimony on the huge high-definition screen of the person being baptized, a serious looking woman in her 30s, wearing a black “Jesus is Lord” tee shirt. The second baptism, a woman in her late 30s or early 40s who had found Jesus while the minister was giving his sermon, happened at the tail of the sermon. The congregation exploded with applause following both baptisms.

When the band reappeared on the stage, the lights in the auditorium seating area darkened  again for the final song. Everyone jumped to their feet and joyfully sang the words on the high-def video screen about loving God, being saved and praising Jesus.

The enthusiastic greeters appeared again as people poured out of the auditorium, thanking us for being there and saying, “See you again next Sunday, brother.” The parking attendants got the cars moving out of the parking lot quickly following the service to make way for those coming to the eleven o’clock service, which my young friend told me was the more popular of the two services and often was standing room only. In all, that Sunday, there were over 3,000 people attending the two services with more than 1,000 others online. The five or six hundred children and teenagers who  were in Sunday school were not counted in these numbers.

So, the question is what to make of this. As a representative of God’s Frozen Chosen, I was and remain speechless.

Important in my thinking is that what did not happen that morning is just as important is what did happen. There was no fire and brimstone, no hollering or screaming by pastors, no hostile comments about anyone or group or about going to hell if you don’t own up to your sins. Not a hint about Trump or stolen elections—something I was carefully looking for. There was also no offering, no talk about money (except a message on the high-definition screen that you could give as you leave or online), and no hint of anything political or controversial. There was not a word about abortion. Who knows, maybe I was just lucky   that morning. The experience for me seemed genuine, sincere, and essentially theologically consistent with the fundamental message of Christianity: God loves you. You are forgiven. Your life has meaning. There is a silver lining in the suffering you have experienced. Afterall, this message over the centuries has been what has drawn people from all cultures around the globe to become Christians, who now are found in every country and number over 2.5 billion, more than any other religious faith including Islam, which is not far behind. Estimates are that in the United States, evangelicals account for over a fourth of all people who call themselves Christians.

But naturally, I could not help comparing this experience to the neighborhood Episcopal Church, which Embry and I have been attending since the late 1980s. The neo-Gothic building is beautiful, and the sung mass is solemn and at times uplifting. However, seated in the 300-seat nave on a typical service nowadays are only four or five dozen people, mostly old folks. This is due in part to covid, in part to our last rector leaving in a huff, giving us three weeks’ notice, and in part to the secularization of our society, but still the comparison is stark. We now have a terrific interim priest and have always  had a welcoming congregation; but long term if we can’t get our numbers up to 150 or so where they were pre covid, we will not be a going concern. And we are not alone. Over a third of the Episcopal churches in the Diocese of Washington are listed as at risk of surviving, and many others are struggling. This is true of all the mainline Protestant churches, and it would be true for the Catholics as well were it not for immigration.

I could not help wondering: Is there anything to be learned by traditional, mainline churches from Evangelical churches like The Point where 3,000 plus members show up on most Sundays?

When I have told friends about my experience at One Point, my comments have often been received with puzzled, skeptical looks. One person exclaimed, “Oh my God, you are not even an orthodox Christian yourself, and you, of all people, see value in an evangelical church? What is happening? Have you gone nuts?”

My reply has been mostly the same, “Different folks, different strokes. One destination, many pathways.” I should add that the pathway must be legitimate and genuine. That seemed to me to be true at One Point.

Then the next question often follows, “But those people are probably Trump supporters and election deniers, right? And you imply that they are essentially good people?”

This question illustrates the predicament we find ourselves in today. We look at people who disagree with us politically—or have different values– as fundamentally bad people. Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of this, and there are few who dislike Trump and his hard core followers more than I do. I plead guilty as charged. The truth is that there probably were Trump supporters at One Point that morning, but what I saw and experienced was a feeling of love and acceptance and not a hint of hatefulness. We humans–all of us–have the capacity for good and evil and for loving and hating. The challenge is to try to see the good in everyone and to nurture the better angels that are in all of us while keeping the devils at bay and at the same time doing what we can to try to make this troubled planet a better place.

So much, I think, boils down to leadership. Without a Hitler there would not have been the Holocaust; without a Stalin, the gulags; without a Mao, the Cultural Revolution. We humans are basically herd animals. A few bad apples who manage to make it to the top can and often do untold damage.

 I know that a lot of evangelical churches have gone to the dark side mixing right wing, extremist politics with religion, and promoting social causes like the Anti-abortion Movement and anti-immigration. Few evangelicals would agree with my progressive politics. Yet there are also many traditional evangelicals who have stayed the course and have resisted becoming radical right-wing Republicans. “The Daily,” a podcast of the New York Times, which aired on Friday, September 23, featured a story on how there is now a huge exodus of traditional evangelical pastors, many of whom have been run out of their churches by congregations who have gone all-in for Trump, whom some call “the new Jesus.”

As for me, I say, “Praise for the praise churches!”  While they aren’t for everyone and there are those who have wandered off course, there is surely much to learn—and frankly, to admire– from what I experienced at One Point Christian Church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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To all who have been faithful blog followers: the blogger has Long Covid!

I am now two weeks into this hideous punishment with no improvement so far, but stay tuned, I will get a post out shortly (which I had written but not posted before Covid returned)  and hopefully will be able to get going again albeit at a slower pace.

And thank each and everyone of you for following the posts. I am truly grateful!

Joe

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 I could understand the distressed look of the nurse at Mercy Hospital and why she abruptly departed. Mercy now had definitive information showing they had a patient in the surgical unit with Covid– a fox in the hen house, an assassin in their midst, a poison pill, a nuclear time bomb. If I were in the nurse’s shoes, I would have felt the same way. Over the past two years Covid has devastated hospitals, depleting staff, causing burn out, depression, despair, and even suicide in some instances. The loss of life of so many innocent people has been traumatic. Suffering has been endless. We all know this. It has been horrible. But at last, hospitals have gotten the pandemic more or less under control thanks to vaccines, therapeutics, rigorous masking, and an ironclad protocol: no Covid patients except in Covid wards. Good for the hospitals! They have figured it out and have come through it.

But not so good for an alledged Covid patient, sitting alone in an emergency room, who had just witnessed a nurse tip toe out his small room in anxiety.

About an hour later the surgical team arrived. Two or three doctors or surgical assistants followed the surgeon. The first thing I said  the minute they entered the room was, “I don’t care what the test shows, I do not have Covid!”

The entire team paused and scrutinized me, pathetically lying on my stretcher tethered to a post holding tubes to my wrist and my nose. They looked all business and focused.  I was bracing to hear the verdict, “I am sorry, Mr. Howell, but we have no choice, we have to discharge you.”

I could see myself tossed out into the parking lot, shivering, trying to figure out what to do next. However, to my surprise, the surgeon quietly replied, “We know you don’t have Covid, Mr. Howell. Don’t worry. We will get you through this.”

“Halleluiah!” I moaned quietly.

They briefly talked quietly among themselves and departed. As they left, the surgeon said. “I will see you in the OR at 3:30.”

“Whew.” I sighed, “Dodged a bullet!”

I had been admitted late the previous evening, and though it had gotten off to a rocky start, I had put to rest the Covid issue figuring it was done and over with. So, Day 2 turned out to be a pretty good day. Embry arrived just after the surgical team had departed, and we had a quiet day together in the tiny, windowless, ER patient room, waiting for a real hospital room to open up. At 3:30 she accompanied me to the staging area next to the OR where they performed an exploratory colonoscopy, the first of two procedures, to try to figure out the cause of the BVS. When I came out of the anesthesia, the surgeon cheerfully said that the procedure had gone well and had not identified anything to be concerned about. She admitted she had fears about colon cancer. That was the good news. The bad news: no culprit yet for the BVS. She said she hoped the next procedure scheduled to happen in two days would shed light on that—a laparoscopy, where she would make several small incisions in my stomach and go in with a scope to see what she could find in the small intestine.

Following the colonoscopy procedure, I was pushed up to the fourth floor of the main hospital where I would have my own room, 4019, a decent-sized room with a small window overlooking the Fore River, one of the main estuaries emptying into Casco Bay. So far so good.

Unfortunately, this would not last for long.

Thursday, Day 3, got off to a bad start when at the main entrance around 10 in the morning Embry was denied entry to see me. She was told that no one under any circumstances would be allowed to visit the patient in Room 4019 except authorized personnel. She protested to no avail. I do not know what nursing staff had to say about the situation but gather there was some uneasiness about violating rigid hospital Covid protocol. I could have hollered every time I saw one of the brave nurses that entered my room, “No! No! No! The test was wrong! I do not have Covid,” but everyone who entered my room could not have missed the huge sign on the door that said something like: “Strict Quarantine, No Admittance Without Authorization. Covid dress protocol required.” Whom to believe, me or the hospital?

Anyone entering had to be fully clothed in protective gear—cap, gown, gloves, shoe covering, double N95 masks, and a face shield. One of the nurses complained that it took over five minutes for her to put all the gear on and almost as long to take it off. This explains in part why no one dropped by just to check on me from time to time as nurses typically do. They did not have the time to suit up. It also explains why when I was forced to hit the call button every so often, it was a minimum of 15 minutes before a figure in a hazmat suit timidly would open the door.

Now to put this pitiful picture into perspective, it could have been a whole lot worse. I had a splendid view from my window, and there was a small tv set with something like 300 cable channels, one of which was broadcasting the U.S. Tennis Open. The only problem was that the sets were so small it was very difficult to see the names of the tennis players or the score of the game. All this would have been manageable, however, except I had no idea when I was going to be liberated from this solitary confinement. I am a pathological extrovert and a claustrophobic. I could endure isolation and boredom but only for a while; and not knowing what was going to happen next or when the isolation would end sent me into a tail spin, inching toward a panic attack. I noticed a white board with instructions where there was a space for the nurse’s “care plan for the day.” I lurched toward the white board with a black magic marker to scribble “get me outa here!” The tethers held me back, only inches out of reach.

The highlight, if you could call it that, was a brief visit by a shy, young nurse I had not seen before and whose presence brightened the day until she looked at me and commented in a kind but firm tone,” You know that you are putting us all at risk.”

“But I do not have Covid!”

But it says so on the door, and everyone knows it. This is a surgical ward.”

“Well, I am having surgery. I have had one procedure and I have another tomorrow.”

“But you have Covid.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. It says so! Look at the door.”

The conversation was getting nowhere. This was when I demanded that they give me another test.

She turned her back and exited, not giving an inch, but a few minutes later another nurse showed up and swabbed my nose for a second PCR test, telling me that if it was negative, they would let me know within the hour. One hour passed, then another. I assumed the worst.Then the night nurse showed up around 8:00 PM and casually mentioned when she was taking vital signs, “Oh, by the way, the second PCR test came out negative.”

I refrained from shouting, “I told you so!”

Then she added, “But you are still subject to quarantine protocol. No visitors. No exceptions.”

That was when I demanded to see the CEO of the hospital.

The first thing the next morning, the CEO did not show up but the director of all the nurses did; and if I had had my say, I would have promoted her to CEO. She was kind, empathetic, supportive and understood why I was reaching my limit. Unfortunately, the conversation got off to a bad start when she said that while the second Covid test, which was negative, proved what she knew all along, that I never had Covid during my stay, hospital protocol required a second negative test after another 24 hours before the quarantine could be lifted and that until I was cleared, the no-visitor policy had to be strictly enforced.

I lost it. “You know I don’t have Covid. The doctors know it. The second test proved it, and you are telling me I still must remain in isolation because of some idiot policy of the hospital?” Trembling, I told her that this was unacceptable and would surely result in my transfer to the Psyche Ward.

She nodded, managed a sympathetic  smile, apologized for the policy, and agreed with me. In departing she said she was immediately issuing an order to allow Embry to join me.

Embry arrived in my room mid-morning, and we waited around for the second procedure, a laparoscopy, which was supposed to happen at 3:30 but was delayed until 6:30. The good news was that the procedure did not reveal anything serious and did provide a clue as to what was going on, which  could be corrected by surgery, which will happen once confirmed by a second opinion, when I return to DC.

 I was discharged from the hospital the next morning—Saturday, September 5^th, my fifth day in Mercy Hospital.

Happy ending: I made it to the last two days of the family reunion and am now doing fine, a week following the procedure. Embry is off to the “Stans,” and I will return home in a week.

Kudos to the fabulous surgical health care staff in Mercy Hospital! In the Covid Era, the hospital doctors and nurses are the heroes of our time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Some readers may recall my first emergency room saga in February of this year,  caused by  BVS, short for  “Black Vomit Syndrome.”(my term) If you Google “Black Vomit,” you get a message, which goes something like this, “If you are vomiting black liquid, go to nearest emergency room NOW, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.”

On a cold February evening Embry rushed me to the Washington Hospital Center, the biggest hospital in Washington, located near some of Washington’s distressed neighborhoods, where I spent 24 hours in the emergency room alongside people with gunshot and knife wounds, drug overdoses, car wrecks, heart attacks, and Covid, before being moved into a hospital room where I spent another two days. The way you treat BVS is to drain the fowl liquid out of your stomach with a long suction tube, which is inserted up your nostrils until it  finally reaches your stomach. It took several hours before the tube quit pumping, producing a couple of pitchers of black gunk. The nurse who inserted the tube said I might experience “mild discomfort,” which is de facto proof that she had never had a suction tube up her nose.

There was a happy ending to that story. Only a little over three days in the hospital and with the medical diagnosis of “bowel obstruction,” I seemed to be doing fine after the draining, and the ordeal was described by the several doctors who had worked on me as “probably a fluke and unlikely to happen again.” One doctor commented that I “had dodged a bullet.”

My last day in the hospital, another doctor, a middle aged, African American, with a serious look, entered my hospital room and said, “Mr. Howell, we are not going to release you from this hospital until we figure out what caused this.”

I groaned, thinking what it would be like to spend one more horrible day in a tiny, double occupancy room, where there was no place to sit, no window view, and where people were dying all around you. Staying more days or even weeks was unthinkable. A half hour later, however, the head nurse appeared, smiling, informing me that I was being discharged.

“Cautious doctor overruled,” I surmised, but grateful that I was finally liberated.

It was a questionable decision.

Fast forward to Tuesday, August 30, 2022. Embry and I had flown up to Portland, Maine, where our daughter and her family live and which was to be the location for the first Howell-Cole reunion where one of my first cousins from Nashville and his intergenerational family would join Embry and me and Jessica’s and Andrew’s families, about 20 people in all. I started feeling woozy on the flight up and within an hour of arriving was throwing up. You got it—another bout of BVS!

Emergency! When Jessica got home from work, Jessica, Embry, and I jumped in her car and within minutes were entering the emergency waiting room of Mercy Hospital. Jessica had checked with a friend who was a nurse, who recommended it as the best hospital, and it happened to be nearby.

Unlike the madhouse at The Washington Hospital Center, which was buzzing with activity with bodies on stretchers being accompanied by armed police officers, this emergency waiting room was clean, quiet, orderly and as far as emergency rooms go, pleasant. When we were checking in, I counted the number of people waiting –only eight, a homeless-looking guy asleep on two chairs, a woman with a white sheet over her head, an elderly couple, a large middle-aged lady beside us, and two older men.

“Well,” I commented when we sat down, “looks like a pretty short wait.”

The large woman sitting next to me whispered, “Well, I have already been here two and a half hours, and most of the people in the waiting room now were here before me.”

Embry and Jessica left after an hour for a dinner out that had been planned and returned a couple of hours later. I was still waiting. I had positioned myself between the men’s room and the door to the ER so I would not miss my name when it was called and when needed could dart into the men’s room to throw up. Just after they arrived, the door opened and a guy in a green outfit called my name. We had arrived at the waiting room shortly after 6:00 PM. Embry and I entered the ER at 9:30.

Totally exhausted, nauseated, and aching from toe to chin, I was on my last leg, but at least we were inside, were assigned a hospital room, and over the next two hours met the GI surgeon, the surgeon’s assistant, and several nurses.

We were impressed—all were youngish, friendly, knowledgeable and sharp. The surgeon, a blond, petite woman probably in her early 40s–though with masks it is hard to tell—was particularly impressive. It was already close to midnight, and she was still working. Good heavens! She explained the first procedure, which would be scheduled the next day for around 3:30, an old-fashioned colonoscopy performed by her colleague, and advised that an additional procedure would probably be required. After the doctor left, the nurse, a 30-something man and a former cop, got a hospital gown on me, and  inserted a suction tube up my nose, but not without difficulty or excruciating pain. I already knew what this involved and got through the pain with a little help from morphine, which he kindly provided following my desperate plea. By midnight everyone had departed. Embry returned to Jessica’s house, and I collapsed and dozed off in the haze of the “morphine sweetener.” The tube in my stomach was already sucking out the bad stuff.

Before I fell asleep, I heard the nurse mutter, “Oh my God! the Covid test just came back. You’ve got Covid! Oops!”

Covid? Impossible. Hey, I had paid my dues. I had  been vaccinated and boosted twice. I had worn my  N95 mask 24/7, done everything I was  supposed to. And I still got Covid on a cruise from Copenhagen to Norway and Iceland –five weeks of this torture. And to come down with another case only three weeks after testing negative for the last episode? Oh my goodness! No way.

That is why the first thing I said to the nurse who woke me up early the next morning for testing vital signs was definitive:” I-do-not-have-Covid!”

The young woman’s eyes above her mask signaled a puzzled look. She started to read my chart; and when she got to the end, looked up again, this time with a look of concern, exclaiming “Oh my God!  You’ve got Covid!”

“No, no!” I protested. “I don’t, I mean, I can’t. I have already had it, just weeks ago and a bad case. I have had all the shots, the boosters. The test is wrong, I swear it! I tested negative weeks ago.”

She put the chart down, timidly backed out of the room, shutting  the door behind her.

Not a good way to start off the day.

So began the ordeal at Mercy Hospital, the second ER and the second Covid experience of 2022.

To be continued….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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