A word about Covid
My coworkers had food and wine waiting for us.
One of the things I disagreed with Randy about was Covid protection. Because Randy’s immune system was thoroughly compromised we had always been as careful as possible. Before the pandemic when people came over for dinner or something during flu season we asked if people had their flu shots before they came. Everyone knew that if they had a cold they should postpone a visit.
When the pandemic came along, though, things became much more difficult. I asked Randy to set the limits since his life was the one at risk. We stopped going places altogether - we had groceries delivered, stopped going to restaurants, and when people came over everyone was masked. If we took our daughter with us in the car we all had to be masked AND have the windows down. We live next to a walking trail along the bay and Randy thought we should be masked when we walked there also because it’s not a big path and people would be passing each other with not much distance in between.
We were vaccinated and boosted and careful, but after a year or so when it became clear that this was never going to go away I started asking Randy what would make him feel like it would be worth the risk to go to a restaurant - one of our all time favorite things to do. If you’re in your 60s and a transplant means you could have only 5 years remaining, are you willing to just never go anywhere for the rest of your life?
Then came the cancer diagnosis and the prognosis was 2 years left at best, and I really began to lobby not to waste the end of his life. After the diagnosis and before the chemotherapy I suggested that we take some tiny vacations. Randy’s favorite thing in the world was road trips - he didn’t care where we were going as long as we were together.
So we took a 3-day trip to Yosemite - one of Randy’s favorite places. We had a great room but there was no room service so we had to eat in the dining room. Many of the servers were not masked so we put our masks on when they approached, took them off when they were gone. We hiked up to one of the waterfalls but the paths were crowded so we wore masks in the heat.
And I started wondering: Would it really be so terrible to die of Covid when you know you’re going to die of cancer? Wouldn’t it be better to really enjoy your days and risk not having as many? My greatest regret is that I didn’t press harder to get him out of the house - I wish I had retired earlier and nagged him into going places with me.