A true friend in the Time of Covid-19 is the friend who keeps track of your Day 14’s. The friend who texts at 9:01 am to ask, “Is this the anniversary? Is everything OK?” 

Today was a Day 14 for me…y’all know what I’m mean about a Day 14? It’s the 14th day after an event that didn’t used to have the potential to kill you, but does now. Highlights from my Day 14 Calendar include March 5 (14 days after a party conversation with someone returning from Covid-struck Italy), March 17 (14 days after an unwanted kiss from a nursing home denizen), and March 20 (14 days after exposure to a medical receptionist bronzed from her recent cruise.) 

Gentle Reader, you may have noticed all my aforementioned Day 14’s took place in March; I was very much an early adopter to the whole stay-at-home physical distancing thing. Up until now, my blog could be read as a great big Covid-19 Told ‘Ya So!

That would be a false impression. 

Two weeks ago, I had a painful comeuppance. I’d been congratulating myself on making what can only be considered a drastic lifestyle change; I’d gone from visiting some form of medical facility on an average of 3.5 times per week to preparing to stay the heck away from physicians and hospitals for the foreseeable future. 

I had downloaded my telemedicine app, accumulated the maximum refills on all my prescriptions, ditched the MS medication that was compromising my immunity, ditched the daily catheterizations that were leading to relentless UTIs. I was so done with being a part-time patient. So what if I had three auto-immune diseases? I’d been learning to cope with disease through a magical combination of an autoimmune diet, yoga, qi gong, and tai chi. I was ready to go physician-free! 

It did not occur to me that I was continuing to engage in a reckless practice that had, in the last six months, landed me once in the optician’s office and once in the ER.

You know the saying: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me? There is no saying for fool me three times, because the thrice-fooled are dead fools. Except, apparently, fools like me.

On the morning of April 16, I was feeling Covid-19 savvy for actually opening a new set of daily contact lenses instead of reusing the ones I’d worn the day before. The last time I’d seen my optician, she’d insisted that daily lenses weren’t made of the same material as the little slips of plastic that used to last me over a year. She’d commiserated with me about all the darn packaging waste, but promised that if I returned the spent packaging to her office, her office would forward it to the manufacturer, which claimed to have an environmentally sensitive plan for re-use. I dropped what would be my last two empty contact lens cases into the cloth storage bag within my bedside dresser, and proceeded to go about my day. I didn’t get very far before the inciting incident occurred. I was back in the bathroom, about to brush my teeth, when my husband called out something funny from his study; I laughed, then rubbed my eye. Like you are not supposed to do during Covid-19, and this is yet another reason why—out popped one very jagged half of the daily contact lens I had recently inserted. 

I poked around for the other half. Washed my hands. Poked around some more. Washed some more. Squirted contact lens solution. Rolled my eyes in front of the mirror. Rolled my eyes in front of my “eye-phone”—taking the most grotesque selfies imaginable. I called a nurse for any tips. The nurse’s tip: stay away from the optician. Stay away from the ER. Covid-19 likes to travel on the eyes. I called my primary care physician. She advised me to recruit my husband’s help. 

My husband is an upright guy. The man would chew glass for me. And I tell you…he’d probably prefer to chew glass than to mess around with searching for a contact lens shard in my eye. It was just too—nasty. Nonetheless, he stoically entered a ghastly new discovery phase in our marriage as he positioned himself above my head and squirted a continuous stream of contact lens fluid into my eye. To no avail. Our romantic New Year’s Eve agreement had been that we stay away from the ER in 2020. And now this man was suggesting we go to the ER. I decided to give it another round on my own. 

By 3pm, I’d had enough. My eyeball felt ragged. I hated letting down my primary care doctor, and my nurse. I hated endangering my husband. I hated endangering myself. But if this contact lens shard wasn’t showing up, an eye infection would be on the way. I countered my husband’s offer to drive me to the ER with a proposal that he drive me to our local optician. He liked that idea much better. It would be safer and cheaper. There. I’d managed to make one good decision to partially redeem my irredeemable self.  When I called the optician’s office, I recognized the voice on the other end as a technician I rather liked. Suddenly I no longer felt as though I were entering a realm of certain death, because I didn’t want to imagine that likeable guy as being in danger. 

My husband got me to the building five minutes after I got off the call. The technician was standing at the door, wearing a mask and gloves. It was strange to walk into an empty waiting room. I was the only patient in the building. In less than five minutes, the doctor was able to extract the shard that had eluded me for hours. The darn thing had been tucked underneath my eye at approximately the 7pm position. The doctor recommended I stop using contact lenses for the duration of Covid-19. The experience was sufficiently traumatic, so I’m taking his advice. 

My new Covid-19 look is a mask…and fogged up glasses. 

Stay well, Gentle Reader. May you and your loved ones keep your Covid-19 Calendars clear!