Medical Check-In

I have healthcare through WVU Hospitals. I see a general practitioner annually, a cardiologist, dermatologist and allergist usually twice a year, and I have an annual check-in with a Medicare doctor. They GP, cardiologist and Medicare doctor  were scheduled for this month, but the general practitioner was postponed and they asked me to do an online with the Medicare doctor. I've seen the same Medicare doctor for four years, a soft-spoken Italian woman. This year they told me she was on leave and gave me a physician's assistant. There were complicated instructions involving an app on my phone, but they relented somewhat and said I could do it on a laptop. The app on the laptop wanted permission to go into all the other apps on my desktop and change them, so no. The phone app was better, but then there was a WVU app on top of that that wanted to access everything on my phone. When I clicked "No" it said I couldn't use it, so I said "Yes."' Later, I sent a note to WVU complaining.

The PA was an older woman  (I checked. Her degree was from 1979, so maybe sixty). She had issues with the technology. They always ask the same questions "Do you have rugs or rickety stairs?" "Do you have a bar in your bathtub to hold on to?" "Are you afraid in your house?" No, I'm afraid out of my house these days. They test your memory, and ask if you are depressed. "I'm a 70-year old gay man living in West Virgina," I said. "Of course I'm depressed." I said that.

I told her about being sick all of January after spending a glorious week running around Manhattan at the end of December. Is it possible I had a mild case of COVID-19? Mild, like not going out of the house for ten days, then no more than an hour a day for the next ten, not being well until the end of February. She told me there is a test, but we don't have it, and if you had it before, we don't know if you can get it again. The regular test for the virus would show if you had it, but you don't qualify for the test.

Meanwhile, our Governor wants to partly reopen the state this week. Maybe outdoor dining if separated from others (and if it ever stops raining) and haircuts. Our county is not included, because we are considered a "hotspot" in the state with 107 confirmed cases. My constituents are already asking City Council here in Morgantown to block off a lane on certain streets to add space for cafés on the expanded sidewalk. And Delegate Evan Hansen, from our district, and a scientist by training, points out that, although the state has recorded fifty deaths from COVID-19, statistics show that deaths in the state since the first of the year are running 1,600 above what one might expect, with most of the "excess deaths" in March and April. So maybe the pandemic is worse here than people think. Certainly everyone should be tested, and everyone should be covered by healthcare, not just rich people or people who are here "legally." People who lose their jobs, and thus their health insurance must be covered. You can't stop a pandemic if there is anyone excluded from treatment. Anyone.

Joe and I have still been going to the grocery store twice a week. All but one worker at our local Kroger is masked, but the vendors who come in to stock the shelves are typically not, and many of the customers are not masked, especially the younger ones. With pressure from the state and federal government to reopen quickly, I fear going out in the future will be terrifying. Even our city manager's office has proposed reopening. There's a meeting tonight (Tuesday) and I know some of us will object to opening city offices too soon.

In addition to my OLLI class and City Council, I've been reading a lot, five books at a time. I'm reading about the music from the Brill Building in the 1960s (my next class), a haunting collection of short stories from Carol Shields, purchased at a library sale in New Vienna, Ohio on my trip to Clinton County in December of 2018, a Pulitzer-winning book about people who are evicted, and how and why that happens. I'm reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' book We Had Eight Years, a collection of his writings during the Obama presidency with new commentaries, and Vikram Seth's more than 1500 page novel about India in 1951 and 1952, which I'm reading for the third time, A Suitable Boy. Coates attended my high school, briefly, I think, and twenty-five years after I graduated.

I read Morgantown's Dominion-Post and Charleston's Gazette-Mail every day, and Sunday's Washington Post and New York Times. We get Consumer Reports and Rolling Stone for me, and The New Yorker and The Economist for Joe. Joe has stopped reading news for the most part. It makes him too anxious. I have to read about the virus in New York City and the politics in Washington in short doses to keep from losing my mind completely.

I'm traveling in my dreams. Last night, I told the bus driver parked on 6th Street by the Los Angeles County Art Museum that I wouldn't be going on the trip to New York because I had been there with Joe in December, and last year with my mother and sister. I had a memory in the dream of visiting some elderly relative in The Bronx in an apartment house on a hill. I was, in reality, in New York with Joe in December, and in New York with my mother and sister (and nephew) not last summer, but in 2002. I haven't had relatives in the Bronx since the 1950s. That scene was filched from another dream. My friend and classmate (second to eighth grade) Rodger Kamenetz writes about dreams. Maybe I should ask him what this means.

The PA at WVU was only worried that I get up to pee five or six times during the night. She doesn't think it's heart failure because I run several days a week, and that seems to be getting better. Maybe it's kidney failure or prostate problems. She wants tests for all of those. The cardiologist told me that  my heart works at 40% of what it should do. My father died of kidney failure (refusing dialysis) when he was a year and a half younger than I am now. And Medicare won't cover a prostate test.

So, the future doesn't look bright. My generation had too many people to start out with. They sent some of us to Vietnam to reduce our numbers, ignored AIDS for many years to kill off those of us who are gay men, and now that we are old, we are expendable so that the economy can reopen. Without the possibility of contracting or contracting again COVID-19, I still have plenty of medical issues that could end my life. I was able to answer most of the questions in a good way. I generally remember to take my meds, I can still keep track of money, carry grocery bags, remember most things, cook, clean (although I pointed out that we generally don't). I don't fall or feel dizzy. My goal now is to keep it all going as long as possible. I said the other day "If I can have ten more years of decent health, I'll be happy." Then I remembered that one of my grandmother's friends said that sitting around the lake in her Florida condo development more than fifty years ago. I guess that's where I am now.

Great Outdoors

We've been at home for five weeks now, at least. Joe has classes and services and runs a  a bit of Sunday school. I'm working on a list of about 212 counties I thought might be better places to live than Morgantown. What I've learned from my list is that this is where we live now, and starting over, unless it is specifically in a gay retirement community, is not a good idea. Just today, I looked at Island County, Washington, county seat Coupeville, largest city, Oak Harbor. The weather is mild there, the current President received fewer votes than his opponent, but not by much, and Washington is a gay-friendly state. Still, there is no synagogue there, which is a deal-breaker, and really, we are not going to pack up all our stuff and move back to the West Coast. We are just not going to do that.

I attended a funeral on Zoom from Los Angeles last Sunday, led by the interim rabbi at Beth Chayim Chadashim, where I have been a member since 1987, and the cantor, a friend, who has been there at least eleven years. There were sixty cameras on, and I knew probably 57 of the people from my time in Los Angeles. I think the man who died, Bruce Weil, had a heart attack, because he had not been ill. I met him more than thirty years ago, and although I always thought he was older than I am, I think he was a year or two younger, so late sixties. He was an argumentative sort of stereotypical New Yorker, but also kind and generous. I found out that he had cared for a woman I knew in L.A, who was not well when we left town ten years ago, and died after being committed to a nursing home. I also know that he donated money to the temple for our anniversary a few times. I never would have gone to Los Angeles for this funeral, so I'm glad it was on Zoom. I loved seeing so many people I know online, my real long-time friends. We have congregants here we are close to, and there is a gay social group where we have made some friends we dearly love, but it can't be the same as people we've known for thirty years, and it makes me sad to be away from these people.

A lot is going on in the City of Morgantown, where I am on the Council. Tension between some of us on Council and the City Manager have arisen over a lack of information, and Council is being blamed for decisions we did not make. The Manager has taken a job in his native Michigan, and given  notice, and just this week, the Police Chief tendered his resignation. The City  is being sued for what seems like an exorbitant amount of money. Lots of work and not a lot of fun.

I'm teaching a class at Osher Life-Long Learning that just started, also on Zoom, about pop music in 1968. It's not the same as being live, but it's not bad. The people at OLLI have helped me with the technical stuff. If you want to know what I played this week, go to You Tube and type in "The Great Hits And Albums of 1968 Week One," and videos of all the songs should pop up.

We have been running to the grocery twice a week, although not all of the employees and customers wear masks or socially distance. Grocery shopping feels reckless. We picked up Indian food for dinner. I noticed that our next-door neighbor had pizza delivered tonight. It's the macho in me, which I have tried to kill off several times, that won't let me have people bring food to my door. I don't want to feel like an invalid, although my life will be at risk if I get Covid-19.

Today was the first warm day in a few weeks, and I asked Joe to go to WVU's Core Arboretum, on a hillside overlooking the Monongahela River about a mile and a half from here. The spring wildflowers, early this year, are still blooming, and we ran into our friends Zack and Annie Fowler and their two kids, keeping a distance from them. Zack is the Director of the Arboretum, and he pointed out an owl he named Aldo living in a hole in a tree. We also saw, masked, West Virginia House of Delegates member  Barbara Evans Fleischauer, who had a question for Joe about a program that might happen at the synagogue in the fall. So although we complain that we don't know people here, we do. I put up pics from Core Arboretum at the end of this post.

I've been doing a run and walk through the neighborhood, and today I broke a record by doing it in seventeen minutes and thirty-eight seconds. I'm not sure of the distance, but it might be two miles. Thee is one hill I can't (and shouldn't) run, but I can now run the rest of the course. I do the same course every time, and thanks to the changing season, I can see different things blooming over the last few weeks, and leaves starting to sprout. I say "Hello" to a few dogs along the way, all fenced or chained, and many of the ones who used to bark angrily at me no longer do.

So this is our life now. We still have an income, we can still pay our mortgage and we have health insurance. We had $2400 deposited to our joint checking account. I plan to spend mine to help certain political candidates. At this point, I think that is the best thing I can do.

Here are the pics from Core Arboretum:

Hard to see, but there is an owl in that tree

Still Locked Up

Looking at my last few blog posts, I see that in mid-March the temperature in Morgantown was in the seventies and eighties. April is running thirty degrees cooler, rainy and overcast.  There are only eighty-three confirmed COVID-19 cases in Monongalia County, but that is eighty-three times the one case we had a month ago. Two counties in West Virginia, both somewhat larger than ours, have more cases, and their number of cases is rising more rapidly. I would suggest that people here are more immune, not to the virus, but to the talking heads of Fox News and the White House who think we should just go about our business and let people die.

We are both busy. Joe is teaching and leading services. I have city council business to deal with and a meeting coming up Tuesday. I will be at an online funeral tomorrow for a long-time acquaintance in Los Angeles who died this week, and my postponed class at Osher Life-Long Learning, "The Great Hits And Albums of 1968," starts online this coming Friday. I have learned to use Facebook Live, Zoom and Cisco Webex. For me, all this isolation is a taste of the world to come, not the afterlife, but the time when I'm really retired and can sit home and read books and not have to be anywhere.

I've been taking my temperature and monitoring my breathing. My temperature has not gone over 98 F.  My breathing has been impaired from the dust in the house, from running on windy, pollen-strewn days, and from Joe occasionally adding an unfamiliar spice to his cooking. I always think I have "it," but I recover quickly.

Our Governor, Jim Justice, a liar and long-time grifter like the President, has at least expressed an interest in keeping people healthy, and not rushing to "reopen" the economy, unlike protestors in Ohio who look like zombies, and in Michigan, who were apparently paid for by someone who works for Betsy DeVos. And don't get me started on the talking heads who say we would only lose one to two percent of the school kids if we opened schools now, or that killing off old people to save the economy is a fair bargain. I plan to stay in until everyone can be tested and there is a vaccine.

I miss my trips to counties within three hundred miles of here, and I miss the library and sitting in a restaurant or walking around the mall. I'd like my class to be live. I've said before that we are privileged because our income and health insurance are stable, and we have enough space to not be tripping over each other at home. I've come to appreciate Joe more, because I see more of his work, and he has gone out of his way to be considerate and helpful. I can't imagine being without him. And I have to give shout-out to Tappuz Katom, our cat, who seems to alway show up when one of us is looking for company.

When this is over, I hope to do less, drive less, buy less, be more environmentally aware. Shutting things down has created cleaner air, given a break to wildlife in the oceans and on land. Maybe our whole economy needs to take a breath and wind down. I'll take my twelve hundred dollars and give it to local people running for office to make West Virginia a place I would be proud to call home.

Passover 5780

Passover this year will go down as one of the strangest since... Moses and the Israelites left Egypt. The comparisons I've seen are to people in hiding from the Nazis trying to create some semblance of a holiday, or concentration camp inmates eating forbidden bread or fasting on Passover. We are locked in. Not completely here in West Virginia, where we can go out to get some exercise and fresh air, and can run to the grocery store as long as we stay apart. But we can't gather in large groups for a seder, can't get together with friends and family, can't have a caterer do all the cooking and serving.

We're privileged that we can still have a seder at all. At Tree of Life here in Morgantown, Rabbi Joe will do a short seder on social media. He and I will have a simple Passover meal after the formal seder. Our cleaning woman offered to come this coming week, and the house could use a pre-Passover cleanse. I plan to tell her not to come, and we will do what we can to get the bread crumbs out before the holiday.

Joe and I are not suffering materially. Our income and health insurance are not threatened, we don't owe money except the mortgage, which is less than most people here pay for rent. Joe did say something about having to put up with me all the time. I could say that about him, too.

There is the strangeness of it all. We both went to the grocery store Sunday, early "before the crowds." Yet the store was crowded. Half of the people there were wearing masks and gloves. People looked away or frowned if they thought I was getting too close. The cashiers had a glass wall up between them and us, and after years of bringing reusable bags, we are being told not to.

In our state, it seems like overreaction. Almost all of the thirty-five cases here in Monongalia County were in one nursing home. Only one person has died. Berkeley and Kanawha counties, both with larger population than our county, now have more cases. Testing in West Virginia is limited, and results can take eleven days, so who knows? The news from larger cities is so grim that it strikes fear into my heart. Most of the cases are mild unless one is over seventy or has underlying heart, lung or immune system problems. Check, check, check and check.

I've been running and walking about twenty minutes every day lately. I take the same route, running until it hurts, then walking the uphill parts. Given a choice, I would rather drop instantly from a heart attack while running then die with a tube down my throat, in a hospital, unable to breathe.

The point of Passover is staying alive and being careful. Moses' sister puts him in a basket, the Israelites are saved from death over and over. We celebrate being alive. We have to be grateful at this season for what we have, create new memories of a very different Passover, and take the precautions we can.

I wish my Jewish readers a memorable Passover, and my Christian readers, a meaningful holiday season this week.

Spring in Morgantown

We've had exceptionally warm weather here in Morgantown, setting a record high of 83 this past Saturday. I saw an article claiming that this was because of the "aerosol layer" being destroyed. I admit to ignorance of this, but I know everything here bloomed a month early, and while, as a former resident of Los Angeles, I appreciate warm dry weather, I know it's not right for North Central West Virginia in March. It's pretty, but ominous.

That's the macro. The micro is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We have had twenty-some cases in our county, most of them in one nursing home, a mile and a half from my house, and one wing of that home, among residents and staff. We can still go out for a walk or a run, buy groceries and gas. This week we picked up carry-out at two different restaurants, a treat given the bland stuff I usually cook, and the limited cooking skills of both of us. People at the grocery store tend to keep their distance, and with WVU closed, many people are gone altogether, but a few came up close to me to pick out fruit in the produce section Sunday. I should have said "back off," but I guess I'm too polite. The check-out person Sunday told me that the older workers were told to stay home, that if we brought our own bags, no store employee could touch them. I got home and wiped down the car door handles, shift knob and steering wheel with disinfectant, then washed my hands carefully. It's hard to say what is enough.

We. told our cleaning woman not to come last week, but paid her on PayPal, which she says everyone does. I usually leave a check for her, being a last-century kind of guy. I totally understand how privileged Joe and I are. Just today, I scrubbed the bathroom sink and cleaned the toilet. I know millions of people do this every day, but neither Joe nor I have done that in years.

I get lots of invites to dance routines, yoga practice, or stretching exercises online, as well as religious services and political talks. I've done one City Council meeting on Zoom, and we have another tomorrow. Some of us want to find a way to help people in Morgantown who have lost work or are threatened with eviction. Joe has done services, Torah study and a class online, and tonight he is speaking on a virtual panel to students at WVU. Other than those, neither of us has much interest in participating in online groups. Joe works nearly as much as he always has, and I spend more time on Facebook and Twitter, or looking up random things (music, cities) as my ADD directs me.

. For now, at least, things are stable here We went out and walked the trail along the Monongahela River north of town. lots of people were out as well Saturday, but the restroom was locked and the water fountain wrapped. Playgrounds in town are taped off, warning children and adults to stay away.

I read about New York (my spiritual home) and Miami, New Orleans and Los Angeles, all places I have lived, and my heart goes out to the people in those cities. I pray for the victims of the disease, the healthcare workers, the clerks in the grocery and drugstores and the post office, and the politicians, who I hope will show some wisdom. I hope the business people and the ultraconservatives I see online will have some compassion, and note that we are all in this together.

Pandemic!

Today (Monday, March 23) Jim Justice, the Governor of West Virginia, announced that we were basically locked down. One can get groceries or medication, or go to church (although that would seem to be a bad idea) but that's it. When I last wrote, nine days ago, things didn't seem so bad. Now they are. Our state has fewer COVID-19 cases than any other state, but testing on any scale just started Friday. A friend put on Twitter that they were sick and qualified for testing. There is a new case at a nursing home up the hill from us. One must be symptomatic and in a risk group to be tested. The testing is in a drive-up tent at a local hospital. Results take a few days. I don't think they will take people without insurance.

Bradley, a young doctor who went to med school at WVU writes from New York City that the hospital where he works is overwhelmed and it gets exponentially worse every day. My cousin Olivia, a nurse in South Florida says the same thing. Italy, Spain and France are disaster areas.

I love big cities, New York in particular, but for once I'm glad we're not there. although the next few weeks in West Virginia could be just awful. We still go the grocery store. I walk or run around the neighborhood. Our income is not at risk, and we have health insurance. We are better off than people who are losing their jobs in our nearly-deserted city, people who can't pay their rent and have no health insurance. Although our television is not hooked to anything, we have internet, and a supply of records, CDs, books and movies to keep us entertained. Joe and I have been polite around each other, and give each other space around the house. We don't argue.

We still work. We've learned to use Zoom the last few days, and Joe is teaching a class while I'm writing this. Our synagogue had a phone-in service last Friday. I have a City Council meeting tomorrow night, which I will attend on Zoom. The agenda we were sent last week said nothing about the pandemic. We have to submit a budget, but our plan is in tatters as the local economy collapses. Some of us are looking for things the City of Morgantown can do to ease the way for our constituents.

The news has been saying that Democrats have held up a proposal to provide relief to the economy. That proposal bails out Wall Street, banks and large corporations. Democrats are quite right to hold out for a proposal that provides unemployment insurance, free testing for the virus, and rent relief. The U.S. Attorney General is threatening to block civil liberties. Our whole country, with its long history of democracy is teetering on the edge of a precipice, about to be pushed off by our President and his cronies.

I'm seventy now. I've survived serious asthma, reckless drivers, and a heart attack. I was born in the United States with great-grandparents who had the sense to leave Europe in the early part of the last century. I didn't go to Vietnam, and avoided contracting AIDS. I would like another ten years of reasonably good health, but if I don't get that, I don't have much to complain about. The worst thing I have to do this week is tell the cleaning woman not to come Wednesday, since we are not supposed to have visitors.

The best we can do now is be cautious, generous, call people in power and ask them to do the right thing, and live with faith that this too will pass, and hope that we will live to see it.

Delaware County, Ohio

Delaware County is north of Columbus, twenty-seven miles downtown to downtown Delaware, the town that serves as the county seat. Parts of Columbus, Westerville and Dublin are in Delaware County, it being easier for cities to annex in Ohio than it is in West Virginia. I was set to go Wednesday to Friday, but woke up late after a grueling and annoying City Council meeting Tuesday. Then I checked the internet and read the paper.

Tuesday there were no reported cases of  covid19 in West Virginia or Ohio, so I figured I could go. I would be alone in the car and in a motel, and not in crowds. By Wednesday morning, there were three cases in Cleveland (not close) but Ohio University in Columbus was closing for the duration. There were no cases in West Virginia, but very few people had been tested, less than ten at that point. Maybe this was more serious. So I didn't go.

Friday, the President seemed to take someone's advice and declare a national emergency. He has been exposed to the virus, but continues to shake hands with people. Democrats in Congress finally bullied the Centers For Disease Control to offer testing for free. In Morgantown, West Virginia University went on spring break Friday, extended it to two weeks instead of one, and students were told not to return to campus. An undergraduate friend spending the semester in Australia was ordered to come back, although no one can see what the point is of that. Public schools closed early Friday and are not coming back. The students have "snow-day" assignments they can do at home.

West Virginia University's basketball team won its first round of "March Madness," but now the rest of the games are canceled. Professional sports are off, the high school basketball tournaments won't happen. Major League Baseball canceled spring training and the season will be "delayed."

We've seen the potential failure of the whole American enterprise. I don't mean just the ups-and-downs of the stock market. Many, many students receive free breakfast and lunch, feminine hygiene supplies and even take-home food at school. People have no health insurance coverage or high deductibles. Coronavirus is not a big deal for young healthy people, but for older people it is life-threatening. Those with mild forms of the disease need to be isolated, with pay. We have no mechanism for that, no way to make sure people have medical care, infected people have a place to go, poor children have food to eat and someone to care for them when schools are closed. No one has said what will happen to college students with part-time jobs, paid-for meal plans or scholarships.

If anything, all of this proves that Bernie Sanders was right all along, and Elizabeth Warren, too. The United States has been coasting along with some thinking everything was great because the stock market was up and unemployment was down. On the ground, though, we knew that people didn't have health insurance or sick leave, couldn't afford to feed their families. We have been absolutely unprepared for a catastrophe, and yet things happen all the time all over the world.

Rabbi Joe (full disclosure: my husband) went ahead with services Friday night. As usual, most of the congregants were older. He spoke about the plagues that were God's wrath, like when Moses found the people worshipping the golden calf, and many people died. We don't believe that now, that God controls those things. Still, there are consequences for our actions. Electing someone incompetent and uncaring to be President, and for Republicans in Congress and the Senate, going along with whatever he wants, has left us all vulnerable.

The Friday when President Kennedy was killed was warm and sunny in Baltimore, where I was fourteen and a ninth grader. The next day, it rained heavily all day and by Monday it was bitter cold. We've had seventy-degree highs this week, about twenty degrees above average, but this afternoon, it turned cold and it's snowing. Sometimes I think the weather does somehow follow world events.

The City of Morgantown sent out an overloaded agenda for Tuesday's meeting: interviewing people for city boards, dinging a landlord for nuisance properties, passing a budget and a five-year capital improvement plan, then meeting after the regular meeting about potential lawsuits. I suggested yesterday by email that we table as much as we could and talk about the emergency in our city, which even if no one gets sick, will be devastating economically. I also sent a message to my doctor asking if I should even go this meeting, being high risk for this illness. I've been offline last night and today for the Jewish sabbath (I still wrote this on Saturday, but will post it after dark), so I only saw a post from one Councilor, who agreed with me.

I hope we can all get through this. I saw Readers Vent comments in The Charleston Gazette-Mail, where people said they think it's all a hoax because they don't know anyone with corona virus. I am reminded of 1982, when friends said that about AIDS. Many of those people died of the disease. We need to be vigilant and demand that our governments at all levels do what is needed.