Words by George: An unexpected benefit, column by George Fiala

Believe it or not, I think COVID has given me a precious gift. It’s kind of a long story but I’ve got the room this month so here goes.

It all started in December 2019, when a friend of mine who just happened to start the Brooklyn Paper back in the 1970’s, Ed Weintrob, told me that if I hadn’t been to the Newseum in Washington DC, I better go now, because they were closing for good at the end of the year.

Turns out that the Newseum, which I had never heard of, was a museum dedicated to the idea that the media and the public need to better understand each other. It was started by the founder of Gannett newspapers, and occupied a large building in downtown DC. It opened in 2008, but ended up losing too much money so the building was sold and they had to find a new home, which they are still actually looking for.

However, I did make it to DC right around Christmas and spent a fun couple of days going to different museums, and a restaurant or three.

A couple of weeks after returning, which would make it the middle of January 2020, I came down with a horrendous cough that accompanied other horrible ailments, including a bad case of diarrhea.

The actual point of this story is that I’m pretty old, and in all my years I never had a bad cough or a humongous case of diarrhea. And my teeth didn’t ache and my eyes never turned red and I didn’t have trouble getting out of bed. I slept with a bottle of Nyquil next to me and worked with Dayquil on my desk. Both of those I have never taken before, or since. My eyes were so red that I actually went to the eye doctor, who couldn’t find anything wrong and told me that older people can get dry eye and gave me some drops for it.

Sooner or later I got better and didn’t think too much more of it. PS–I didn’t miss a day of work.

A couple of months go by, and the whole country is shocked into a lockdown because of an epidemic that was throwing thousands into hospitals, and killing many of them. Of course, that’s COVID, which is still feared among many throughout this land.

I’m one of those that still have the immortality syndrome of youth, and I was very happy to be belong to not one, but two essential services—my newspaper and my mailing business.

I missed no work, no mailings or issues of the paper, although work got really slow and I actually did spend a fair amount of time at home, something I hadn’t really done since before kindergarten.

Friends of mine thought I was nuts to go outside at all.

I broke down and got an internet connection and started staying up all hours watching old Johnny Carson reruns via streaming. I admit it was an interesting new way to live, not having to get up for work at any particular time most days.

As far as my physical being, which is the real point of this column, I noticed that my jaw felt funny, and I started having pains in my joints. Both these things had never happened to me before. My mom used to complain about arthritis, and I just figured my time had come.

A friend recommended glucosamine, which actually helped, and which I swore by for about a year.

But I still didn’t feel myself, all of which I attributed to old age.

After a while something new started happening, which is that in order to get up out of a chair, or do other things that required changing positions, I found that I could no longer just do it, I actually had to think about it first. I told a lot of friends about how I missed my youth, when my brain didn’t have to know that I was going to do before I did it. Things like standing up and walking down stairs.

But as far as I knew, those days were gone. I never had any training in aging, I just figured I’d learn as I go along. So I didn’t question anything.

At this point I wasn’t really sure that I had experienced COVID, but I kind of suspected it and I saw articles about it being around the world even before 2020. DC was full of tourists from all over the world when I went that holiday season.

In 2021 I took the COVID shots and the booster. Because I was visiting a friend’s grandmother, I would take the Covid test weekly. One day, after covering a Christmas party at the senior center on Court Street, I tested positive. I was very slightly sick for about two days. I did notice that my symptoms were exactly like those I experienced that January, just a million times milder. And just like that first time, after a big trip to the bathroom, I got better.

Anyway, fast forward to about a month or two ago, and I slowly realized that I no longer had to think about what I was going to do before doing it. I could sit up on a dime. And I could go into a catcher’s crouch just like the old days. That had been my check on my physical condition, and for a while I couldn’t do it at all.

That’s when I realized that what I actually had lost was my balance. I couldn’t walk up stairs without holding on, and in general, without actually giving up any activities, I had to fight frailty. The words of my mother, who when she said it was at 20 years older than I am now, came back to me. “I don’t wish old age on anyone.”

But all of a sudden I had it all back. Just like that. A gift more precious than anything money can buy.

And what do attribute it to… I’m guessing I must have had long Covid!

Hopefully I’m off the hook for at least a decade, as there’s nothing like youth!!!