I've been battling for my life these past few weeks. It started when my child called crying that she had tested positive. She worried she had exposed me to Covid, that dreaded scourge killing our people by the hundreds of thousands.

Everyone had been so careful with me. I have so many cormorbidities, asthma, allergies, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and more too numerous to count. I've known those who have died. My entire family has panicked at the thought of losing me to this horrible virus and protected me.

I did everything right. I worked from home. I sewed masks when there were none to be had for everyone I knew, then bought them when available. I bought supplies of every kind, food, cleaners, medicines. I started a vegetable garden in case food ran low, learned to can, to bake bread, to rotate rations.

Those I knew who died early in the pandemic took risks like going to NFL games and choir practice. They exposed themselves to crowds. Not me! I stayed home. I didn't go to schools where kids spread germs, or church where people sang out in unison. I washed my hand constantly and carried wipes and sanitizer with me. I wore masks if around anybody and ordered food in. But this thing dragged and dragged on and on. I missed my family and friends. The phone wasn't enough.

I got an innoculation, a mitigator, because it was too dangerous to be without one for me, they said. It made me tired but then I began to have new issues with my heart and other organs. Everything swelled up inside me. It felt like nothing fit inside my chest anymore, not my lungs or heart or liver or anything. Inflammation they called it. I didn't have Covid, but I did have side effects to the treatment, to the shot.

I spent a year suffering from one damaged organ to another. It was like playing wack a mole. Take this medicine for that, take that medicine for this. Take another test and another, let them draw blood, now a CT scan, now one with contrast. I had to see so many specialists that they had to conference one another to come up with a game play. I was exhausted. Then pain in my side knocked me for a loop. I couldn't sleep. I had no choice but to go to the dreaded hospital where so many people have died to get help. I was terrified.

It didn't help that all the hospitals around me were filled to capacity with Covid patients. The Army converted old newspaper printing rooms into make shift hospitals to treat Covid patients. But I didn't have Covid! I had a liver crying out in pain. And so I was dropped off at the ER with a mask, my purse, a phone and a phone charger so I could call and give updates.

There were over 50 people in that waiting room, maybe even 75 or more. Everyone had Covid except me, an old man with cancer and a middle aged lady in a wheelchair with gout. People lined multiple halls in chairs. Some lay on the floor, but the security guard rousted them up because they blocked the way to the heavily used bathrooms.

One very pitiful nurse had the unenviable job of deciding who would be taken back to be seen by the doctors. Everyone begged, pleaded, bribed, threatened and whined at this woman, including me, I'm not proud to admit. Everything was full. Some people gave up and went home without being treated. I stuck around for all the tests in between sitting in the hall and texting updates. I waited seven hours before the nurse finally whispered that she got me in the line up to be seen, and I was grateful.

However, there were no more beds anywhere. The nurse handed out warming blankets, but with my fever, I didn't want one. I needed water, but she said I might need surgery, so no water for me. The vending machines were empty, but a security guard took pity on me and snuck me a bottle of water from upstairs since I was so dehydrated. Bless him. Thankfully, the young guy who had been sleeping in one of two recliners was taken for a test and I grabbed it asap. The nurse warned he was Covid and it hadn't been cleaned, but my feet were so swollen, I no longer cared.

Finally, the doctor decided to treat people in the waiting room, and approached me. "You have a problem with your liver. Here's a script for pain meds. Normally we would admit you, but we have no beds left for you or anyone. Go see a gastroenterologist. I'm sorry." After 11 hours, I gladly went home, took pain meds and passed out.

It was two weeks before I could get an appointment, during which time I survived delirious and on pain meds, terrified I would get Covid, but I didn't. Not then. My liver pain subsided, more meds, a new diet, a threat of surgery, but I KNEW that wouldn't happen. Not for me. Not unless I was dying, and maybe not even then because the hospitals were full.

I started to feel well enough to visit family, driving, of course. I held newborn babies born into my family and marveled at the blessings they brought to my life. I had to cancel a trip because all of them came down with Covid, even the baby. Eventually they got over it and I went to visit.

My business was booming. I began to feel safer in public. Matinees were mostly empty. Some restaurants reopened, with tables all spaced apart. Or we ate outdoors. It seemed like we figured out how to live with this thing somehow. Schools had remote or in person learning. Sports regrouped. I even went to a small play.

I began to plan for a family trip together, all of us at once. I hired a photographer. With all my health scares, everyone just wanted to see me. We rented Air BNB's and made our way to them for Christmas. It was such a lovely trip. I stayed at the rental most of the time and we ordered in. I really thought we'd gotten through it. But then my daughter called crying with the news. She didn't need to tell me, though, because I already knew. I had coughed on the drive all the way home.

My doctors didn't want to see me. Go get a test I was told. We'll order meds and start treating you as if you have it anyway. It would take at least 3 days to get an appointment for a drive thru test, or I could stand in line with everyone else. There were no at home tests anywhere! It would take three days to have them delivered too. My husband reached out to friends and one in another state found some tests at the store and grabbed them for us, thank God!

The stick up my nose and the 15 minute wait confirmed it. Positive test for Covid. The long delayed shoe had finally dropped. And I began to fight.

Antibiotics and steroids and vitamins and sinus meds were prescribed. Then there were the treatments I had already procured, just in case, that I began taking immediately. Say what you will about ivermectin, but to me, it saved my life. The anti-inflammatories, inhalers and nebulizer I already used for my pitiful lungs sustained me. If not for my CPAP, I don't think I'd have survived the apnea.

The netti pot with the saline solution mixed with 10% iodine was gross but so very helpful! So much infection was in my sinuses. I did it multiple times a day.

A pulse/ox monitor and a thermometer became my constant companions. My fever approached 102 degrees and stayed there for a week! As tempted as I was to take a fever reducer, I allowed the fever to kill my infection as nature intended. The monitor showed my oxygen dropping. My doctor's office said to go to the hospital if it dropped below 90% oxygen, but I resisted. The fact is, most people with my situation would have been given a saline drip (salt increases inflammation) and put on a breathing machine that they'd never come off of, then given remesvedir, which doesn't help!

I wanted monoclonal antibodies but wouldn't you know it, the government PULLED THEM from hospitals all across the country right when I needed them! Why?

I cannot tell you how terrifying it is to wake in the night gasping for air and seeing your oxygen level drop to the 70's. I developed a panting style (like when giving birth) to raise my oxygen. I quit eating, for several reasons. One, my daughter lost the ability to smell or taste and I didn't want that happening to me. It is your body's way of warning you. Don't eat! I didn't have energy to digest AND BREATHE! So I chose one! Any time I tried to eat anything, even an egg, my oxygen levels dropped. EVERY SINGLE TIME. So I listened to my body, and my Sticky Beak who advised me to FAST. I drank plenty of fluids, but I had fluff to spare. What was necessary was breathing.

It was touch and go there for awhile. But my oxygen level has improved. My coughing is subsiding. I still have some residual digestive issues, but I'm eating again without losing oxygen.

I deal with guilt for surviving when others didn't, or for getting good help and advice when others were misled, even by doctors they trusted. I resent those evil bastards who unleashed this scourge upon humanity and pray for justice for all who have suffered and died from their callousness. This is not the first, nor will it be the last time we will be culled by them. It will continue until we say ENOUGH!!

I dreamed I had a bunch of uninvited strangers crowding into my beautiful hotel suite without permission. I had to throw the bums out, just like the virus that invaded me. I pray it never returns, but if it does, hopefully my hard won immunities will help to see me through. Praise be and many thanks to my loving God who healed me, and to my family and friends who sustained me through these difficult days. I'm blessed to have survived. This is my testimony. This was my suffering. This was Covid for me.