My wife always loved tennis, and actually played competitively in high school. Perhaps ten years ago she decided to start hitting the courts again but ran into problems finding partners to play. Hectic schedules and varying ability levels wreaked havoc with her efforts to establish a reliable rotation of opponents. So she decided to christen our son Luke, who can always be relied on, to become her permanent tennis partner. Since then they play virtually every day the weather permits, seldom missing out on court time. Even as things have shut down due to Covid-19, Susan and Luke have been allowed to volley at our recreation club within strict social distancing guidelines.
Late last week their daily match didn’t amount to much because Luke complained his feet hurt. Understand that Luke’s autism renders him about as stoic as one can be; to actually voice discomfort means something is wrong. When they got home we looked at his feet and his toes looked somewhat red and discolored. Of course, there are a dozen possible reasons for such a condition, but Luke is not conversational and of little help describing the elements of his personal discomfort. In ordinary times we would have perhaps purchased a slightly larger pair of shoes to accommodate his still growing feet, maybe apply some hydrogen peroxide and nice clean socks, and check for progress in the morning. These aren’t normal days.
The angry redness on several digits immediately had me pulling up images of “Covid toes” on google. Luke’s didn’t look as bad as most of the photos, but were at least comparable to some. My stomach tightened. Although confident we had followed expert guidance as much as anyone could, Sue immediately scheduled an appointment with his doctor. Meanwhile, I obsessed back and forth between Luke’s toes and the Internet images. There was no denying it; they could certainly be Covid toes.
Luke’s appointment was 2:00 the next afternoon. My fervent hope was the doc would take a look at his feet and chuckle, dismissing our concern with a wave and smile. That didn’t happen. When they returned home Sue retold how they were seen in what was essentially a shed outside the main office, customized for Covid-19 testing. Prompting Sue along, I suggested that maybe the doctor tested simply out of an “abundance of caution.” No, that reassurance was not given. The best I could hold onto was she agreed that a number of other things could be the culprit, but “he should be tested.” Since it was just before the holiday, chances were we wouldn’t get the results until early next week. And so began one of the longer weekends of my 59 and 11/12 years.
If Coronavirus has been hard on most, it’s been nothing less than a trauma for Luke. Living without an innate sense of time makes organizing his life an endless series of events that have to be constantly sorted, meticulously remembered and reissued like highway signs to provide reassurance he is going in the right direction. Without them he freezes and falls into a loop of endless scripting of recollections that pop up now without context and simply occupy his mind while he struggles to move forward. With virtually every one of his activities canceled indefinitely, Luke both lost what he depends on in the present and any tangible hope to grasp onto for the future. Now he understood he may have the very menace responsible for destroying his entire piece of mind. Heart wrenching doesn’t get close.
Isolating Luke was never an option, and Sue declared simply she would either get it or not, but had no intention of distancing herself from him. I was a bit more conflicted. Ten years ago Covid-19 would not have rattled me, but more pounds, more blood pressure, more age, one particularly bad bout with pneumonia and “well controlled” Afib make me think thrice. Whatever delusions of fitness regular 1 1/4 mile swims may have provided as I rationalized some more brie on crostini, while buying new pants to accommodate more girth, pandemics have a way of making it real. Fact is, I need a case of Coronavirus like a bullet to the brain.
Yet and still, the options were few. Our split level is no Wayne Manor. The living is cozy even with three, and Luke is not one to worry much about boundaries. I could lock myself in the master bedroom and roam free once he went to bed, but really, what was the point? The house was now a Petri dish. So I de facto left things to God and began to psyche myself up to fight perhaps grave illness. But that doesn’t mean anxiety and dread didn’t have their way with me.
Susan is perhaps as insightful as any person on Earth about the emotional toll of autism on parents. One of her most prescient observations is that every family has its own tipping point, when added stress or additional grief throw the whole enterprise into a raging squall of despair. That’s where we were, or where I was, paralyzed by the waiting, distraction near an impossibility, with monsters under my bed.
The worst of them was the scenario of both Sue and I deathly ill and nobody willing to come and take care of Luke. To allay that demon, I called my daughter, sheltering up north, and let her know the situation and the possibility she may have to hurry down and take charge of her brother. Of course she lectured me I was blowing things out of proportion, worrying way too much, but her voice was tense, her apprehension apparent. She has a few monsters under her bed, too.
And so three days felt like three months. Like many, we really didn’t know what to make of Ozark Covidiots partying skin to skin, but sadly, a capacity crowd on the downtown boards of OC Maryland didn’t surprise me. Interviewees were of course focused only on themselves, with zero thought as to any civic obligation of keeping friends, neighbors – parents and grandparents – safe. It was more of the same but the slap in the face was now crisper, more intimate.
Sleep was hard, turning on one side determined to “get it all over with,” and the other petrified of how the Covid siege would begin. Throughout the weekend I obsessively took Luke and my temperatures – they were always lower than normal. Any throat clearing or stray cough brought a stomach turn, and if I ever look at Luke’s size 15s again it will be too soon. For anybody my age who doubts it, I am here to tell you sick man walking is no fun at all.
Finally, on Tuesday morning I was preparing to call in for an office zoom type sales meeting when Sue’s phone rang. Suddenly I heard the most glorious words ever exclaimed ….. “Oh, thank God! That is such a relief.” I lowered my head and thanked the lord. Upstairs, Luke entreated me that “hey dad, now I’m just negative!” I’ve never held him tighter. One family, one test, one improbable chance Covid-19 had breached their defenses…. and the end of one very long weekend. For now my family and I bask in the reprieve the pandemic has allowed us. But the fact is, Coronavirus isn’t going anywhere. At least for now it’s still outside my door….. but under my bed. BC