Self-Care Through RSV

Testing positive for RSV and navigating self-care when feeling miserable.

You have RSV, the doctor’s message read. I had just been tested for COVID, Flu A and B, and RSV. Negative for COVID and Flu. Positive for RSV.

RSV is a common respiratory virus that can become more serious in infants and older adults. 

I have no idea where I may have gotten it. It’s common and prevalent, from what I have read. I had written to my doctor’s office a few weeks ago asking about the RSV vaccine, which was not widely available at that time. I did not fit enough criteria of the higher risk groups that they were recommending it for at that time. 

Then, one morning, I developed a severe cough. Deep down in my chest with significant pain with each cough. Listening to the sound of my loud wheezing, I knew that this was something different, although I wasn’t sure what. 

To be honest, it’s been a bit rough. I am in no way comparing what I am experiencing with those with more serious illnesses, but I also don’t want to discount how different illnesses can now feel as we are further along this aging path. 

I have isolated myself (we have all become well practiced with that, yes?). I don’t want to spread this to anyone else. And luckily, I don’t mind solitude. 

But being sick is a different kind of solitude. I wrote a bit about this in a previous post referring to the humbling vulnerability of times like this. I didn’t know what I had at that time. Now I have a name for it. That helps, somehow, to name things. To know exactly what you are dealing with. 

I had a fever, wheezing, severe cough, and fatigue. The kind of fatigue where you don’t feel like doing anything. Not one thing. Except sit and maybe watch some mindless tv and nap during the day since sleeping at night is not possible due to coughing. 

I am grateful for the relative health that I have been able to enjoy thus far in my life, except for a blip or two. I am grateful to be working my way through this RSV toward recovery, even though the cough feels relentless at times. And I am once again reminded of the fragility of life and the need to appreciate each moment, as things can change in the blink of an eye. 

I have cancelled all appointments, of course. I have stopped all activities that I enjoy. Volunteering at the zoo. Walking in the park. Even getting my hair cut. Meeting with friends. 

I have ordered what I need online. Thank goodness we can do that so easily these days. 

 I feel like my life has been on pause. I have been on pause. I haven’t even had the energy to write much or to paint at all. I haven’t been able to exercise, given that just talking makes my cough act up.

Everything has been on pause. Stopped. It’s as if I stepped off the carousel of life for a bit and am watching it go by, spinning round and round with its passengers, minus me for a moment.

I watch life go by without me. I watch my neighbors go about their lives. Decorating for Christmas, going on vacation, spending time with their families. And I am not part of it. I don’t feel part of anything right now. It’s an odd sensation. 

It makes me think about how people must feel this who may be hospitalized, unable to participate in day-to-day activities of life. How your life can change in the blink of an eye. How much we take for granted as we go about our lives and worry about things that, when we look at the big picture, are not worth worrying about. 

I am feeling better than I did when this first began, but can also feel that this is not over yet and that more healing needs to happen. And that I need to stay off the carousel a bit longer. To respect the time needed to heal. Something else that I cannot control. 

Aging brings more awareness of that for me as well. How little I really can control so much of what I have spent time worrying about. 

Maybe it’s good to stop spinning for a while. To stop and look around while sitting still. To see with different eyes. To see the world around me when I am not in motion.

Perhaps, as I continue to feel better, I can use this time to deepen my appreciation for the precious moments that I may still have left in my life. Appreciation for the health that I may be granted. For the time to enjoy this beautiful earth, walks in the redwoods, time with the elephants at the zoo, time with friends. 

Appreciation for the time and energy to even be able to go to the store and get things that I need, as well as spend some time with the clerks who greet me as we know each other, in a way that people who see each other in a neighborhood regularly, know each other. Recognize each other. Validate each other’s presence. Say hello to each other, which on some days, may be the only hello that I hear. 

Appreciation for the time to express some things that are inside me with writing, with painting. To hear what is within me and be able to encourage some of it to come out. To express who I am, who I feel like I was meant to be all along. Finally. 

Appreciation for this final phase of life and the gifts that it brings. Poignant at times and bittersweet. Yet the bitter somehow intensifies the sweetness. The brevity makes each moment more alive, more precious, more joyful. 

So I will sit, rest, look around, watch the carousel a bit longer. Grateful for the time to simply rest and be and tune into myself once again on an even deeper level. Sometimes being completely still is part of being alive. And there may be much to appreciate in that quiet space. In still being alive.