2020 in Review

[nyyki]

So, about 2020. I keep thinking of the old joke in bad taste, “So, other than that one thing, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?”

I’d have to say it was also sucktastic. Let’s start early on. On January 8 my half-brother was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. My family didn’t tell me about this. (He and I didn’t talk due to some long-standing issues like him being a narcissistic prick) January 15 had some bummer overtones as it was the first time in my life where I didn’t get to wish Dad a happy birthday. On February 3rdI had to go in to have my permacath replaced because it was starting to get flaky, (I’d had it for almost a year, and that was a very long time with a single one) and the following Friday I wound up in the hospital with a raging staph infection. That was an 8 day stay. March 11 brought the passing of my half-brother, and again I wasn’t told about it. We all know what happened next. On March 19 a high school friend sent me condolences about my half-brother’s passing, so I found out about it through her and our high school’s RIP group on Facebook. Hmmm. Soon after that the facilities administrator for the clinic I go to to get my blood cleaned, shined, and polished let us know that she and her husband were quitting their jobs to become travelling nurses. Ugh, she was great at putting together a team and piloting the convoluted paths created by the intersection of company policy and state regulations. That brings us to June 23, where I had another 8 day stay in the hospital thanks to a less virulent infection. I also got a good clear picture of what it looks like to be in the hospital (yes, THE hospital, because I’m an American and write like one) with a pandemic going on. The rest of the year was less eventful, but the first six months were enough. And I’ve had six months of having two 15 gauge needles shoved into my arm, so it hasn’t been all Christmas candy for me. Also note: no Samhain/Day of the Dead celebration or Yule gathering, and I don’t have any family who celebrates the holidays so Thanksgiving and Christmas were bleh for the second year in a row.

Which brings me to the big suck in the second half of the year. August 8 is the official date for the passing of my high school friend Sara Elizabeth Mitchell. We were casual friends in school and had gotten to be much closer friends in the last six years or so. The “Family” (her sister Ellen is all the family she has left) hasn’t revealed what took her out, so I don’t know which of several possibilities got her. I’m not a fan of losing people close to me.

What was good about 2020? Let me think for a bit. Um, no, nothing comes to mind. Give me some time, I may manage to think of something.

Comments

[flamingsword]

We didn't all die (even if it kinda felt like it). So there is a tiny ray of hope and I'm fucking taking it. I expect nothing more from the HellYear.

[theantichick]

Well, I have been counting my blessings. Hubby and I have remained employed. I have been able to isolate and work entirely from home. In fact, work hasn't even allowed anyone in my department to come into the office. Hubby has had to work at least a couple days a week at the office, but he has his own office space and has been able to mask and distance enough to stay healthy. Or his self-claimed mutant immune system really is all that. So our income hasn't been affected, and I've stayed relatively healthy other than flares of my chronic conditions. I haven't lost anyone close to me, though a couple of friends now have long haul COVID syndrome.

I just survived an incredibly stressful couple of days at work, and my position is not getting outsourced like most of my department is, so that's a relief.

So nothing super bad happened to me in 2020 other than the social isolation and the associated clinical depression and chronic illness flares. And gaining some quarantine weight, which is not terribly worrisome to me given we're in a freaking pandemic. So I'll take it. But damn, I'll be glad when we can get back to a semblance of normal.