Okay, so approximately two and half months ago my part of the world shut down. Public transport became empty, restaurants  shut down, doctor offices closed, and life as we knew it came to a standstill.

My job also closed but I was lucky, the pay kept rolling in. Then a month and a half in the company furloughed all part-timers and 20% of the full timers. However, once again I was lucky and the pay keeps coming in. They decided last week to reopen. We are paid for 36 hours and any hours we actually work we get an addition $2 an hour for. I am not complaining.

After three years of health issues, I have been blessed not to catch this.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean everything has been great. Back in November my dad began to complain about his sense of smell. He was going to see his doctor and a lung specialist. He had been put on a nebulizer and figure that might be the issue. February rolls around and he heads to see the vein doctor and again is having issues and mentions it. The vein doctor suggests dad go see a nose, throat, and ear specialist. Enter Covid 19 and the close down.

The second to last week of May, dad wakes me at one am. He is in deep pain, in his eyes. I call his eye doctor, who calls back before two am and has us meet her at her office. She states dad has an infection in his eyes, prescribes meds, is grateful that we listened and didn't take a chance to expose dad to covid by going to the hospital. Woman is a saint of a doctor. We feel things are looking up.

The last week of May he finally gets to see the doctor for the nose. He finds my dad's nose has a lot of growths and has basically sealed the left nostril and part of the right. He doesn't do that surgery any more. He sends Dad for tests and an associate who works 30 minutes away, towards the city. The second Doctor sees the growths but also believes he spots a tumor and wants us to see a brain surgeon and go for better testing. The test was last Wednesday. There is a tumor growing behind the nasal passage, warping the bone between the nasal passage and the eye socket. However the brain surgeon is in Great Neck, minutes from NYC and has my dad panicked.

He wrote the first doctor back begging him to do the surgery. He stated he doesn't handle that. He agreed to find him another doctor to handle the growths, not the tumor, and he is going to have them removed this Thursday. He wants to cancel the consultation with the brain surgeon on Friday.

Meanwhile I am now stressed out, eating things I should not, and trying hard to just keep myself going. I was lucky to have two beautiful people help with a story I'd written for the Anthology but never managed to get fixed in time. I'll get it up when I can. Just didn't want things to crash and burn but they did. Wish me luck. At 81 my Dad is stubborn and a trip into NYC probably isn't going to happen.