This year I'm starting my Christmas card project early instead of procrastinating till December like I've done the two previous years. And before that, I've got a couple or three other cards I want to work on for selected folks in the RV park where I live. One is a condolence card for a very dear gentleman here whose wife died in his arms recently. They'd obviously been devoted to each other for all their lives and he was dedicated to caring for her himself as she was on hospice in her last months.
The second person is a dear lady friend who has had MS and other serious medical problems. She was still able to walk but had lost lots of weight in recent months. She fell a couple of days ago and really injured her face and head. My daughter borrowed my wheelchair to take her back to her house. I've had to use that wheelchair myself because of my foot, but in the past week, the foot has finally returned to normal so I can walk on it again after months of having to stay off of it and I was glad she could use it.
I've had to be pretty much a shut-in for over a year now because of my own autoimmune issues as I tried not to expose myself to covid. But I got covid anyway last June and it's been a year of misery where I lost circulation in my feet and developed terrible skin breakdown and death of tissue. I had to go into the hospital in October----for that foot issue I thought----only to be admitted to the hospital for a blood transfusion that was more urgent than the foot, although they dealt with the foot too. I had become very anemic. I was referred to a vascular surgeon about my foot and ended up having to have a stent and two balloons in my femoral artery----covid the culprit. Covid has also caused a heart murmur that I have to have an ultrasound to learn more about and I have to be put under general anesthesia to have my upper GI tract and my colon scoped to try to see if there's some bleeding internally causing my anemia. I guess I'm one of those covid "long-haulers" we hear about.
But the reason I'm telling my covid woes is just to give background as to why I'm hand-painting cards. I don't go out and about except to the doctor and I have almost no visitors so the cards are my way of reaching out so my neighbors know I'm thinking of them and wishing them well.
Actually, there's a new resident here that I want to also make a card for, too, to welcome him. He's a "covid cadet" too, but with him the illness produced quadriplegia. He's worked very hard at trying to get better and is now a paraplegic. He has regained some use of his upper body. He wants to walk again but it's not looking as though that will happen any time soon.
Covid is a very complex and mysterious, sneaky illness. It's inflammatory and if there's anywhere in the body that's got any inflammation it will strike there, making it even worse. I had several areas in my body----vascular and other---and that's where the disease struck me. In many, many cases there's just no telling where a person will have that weakness where covid will strike. I've been immunized and my doctor adamantly insisted that I get boosters because if I get covid again, it will be even worse and will attack other areas of my body. Now I'm due for the second booster.
Sorry to chatter on and on. If anyone here remembers me as Ellen E at the Wet Canvas forum, you'll know I have a tendency to run on and on about stuff.
