It was in February and March that my wife and I received our covid vaccination. Then on August 19, we learned that a great grandchild, who visits quite often, was ill with covid. We decided we should be tested because my wife wasn’t feeling well, and I had a bad cough. We were tested on August 21 and had the results before the end of the day. We both tested positive, and we were to isolate for 10 days.

My wife felt ill for about three days and then took care of me. She was worried about me and called our regular physician, who prescribed some pills and cough syrup. After a week she called again, and I was prescribed two antibiotics which I was to take for the next five days. There was no improvement, in fact the night fevers, which soaked my pillow and sheets, and the cough continued for the next five nights. After a really fitful night, she decided I needed to go to the emergency room.

After a short talk with the E.R. doctor and his listening to my lungs, I was given a chest X-ray, C-T scan, blood test and a heart test, among other things, and it was decided I had covid induced pneumonia. There was a discussion between my regular doctor and the E.R. doctor, and since my oxygen level was up, I could go home rather than spend time in the hospital. I left the hospital with two prescriptions. One for a cough syrup pill because he hated the taste of cough syrup as much I do, and five pages of instructions.

So, from the end of August to the second week of October I suffered covid induced pneumonia. For the last week of September and the first week or so of October I stayed in bed with fever and such. Then I began spending time in my recliner when not in bed. I did some walking. During the first or second walk I managed to kick something which landed between the second and third toe of my right foot. I do think I might have broken something. It still bothers me.

At one point I stood up from my recliner and started a short walk. I have no idea how, but I managed to trip. I fell forward. Landing on my hands and knees, while knocking over a potted plant in a two-or-three-gallon pot. The dirt spread across the rug and the vent to the furnace duct. My wife could not lift me and had to call her son for help to get me back on my feet and back into my recliner.

Using either a walker or a cane, I did manage to walk a short distance which extended in length over the next few weeks.

I kept improving, along with losing about 20 pounds of weight, and in the last weeks of my “confinement,” I wanted to either draw a picture or write something. In the past I have often gotten a good idea for a story from what I have drawn and a good idea for a picture from something I have written.

Most of the last two weeks I sat in my recliner looking out the sliding glass door leading to the deck and back yard, watching the rain falling, and the wind moving the leaves, which turned from green to yellow before falling to the long, long unmowed lawn. However, every day of those weeks both a sketch pad and a writing pad were at the ready. Both were just a big waste of time.

I’ve heard covid often affects a person’s taste. It did mine for a time. I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’m hearing as well as I did in August, and I think the sight in my right eye has made a small change. I’m now wondering if the covid has affected my imagination.

I returned to the doctor on October 11. After some general discussion, he took a blood sample. A day or so later he called with the results. He was amazed. I have a count of 50,000 covid antibodies in my system. He said, “I’ve never seen that high a count.” A pharmacist I mentioned that to said, with a smile on his face, “You’re impervious to anything.”

So, I may have suffered for a month, and perhaps lost my imagination, but I am well protected from covid. If I hadn’t gotten those shots in February and March, covid might have taken me in September.

I will always think of those shots like I think of that heavy, awkward piece of clothing I was required to wear when I was in the army. My helmet.

The situation reminds me of the two combat capable solders. One wore his helmet, the other wouldn’t if an officer wasn’t present. The two were in a fox hole, shooting at an unseen enemy. The one, as usual, wore his helmet. The other, since no officer was present, didn’t. Two rounds came flying toward them. One hit the helmet, leaving the wearer with a life-long ringing in his ears. The other just left his brains splattered on the side of the fox hole.

The moral to this story – if you are a capable soldier, wear your helmet of those first vaccinations in this battle with our unseen enemy – covid.

Wallace Pride is a retired educator living in Logan, Utah.