What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
Covid changed the world and my outlook on the world. Since the first rumors in 2019, I cut my own hair and stopped eating out. I avoided crowds, left home as little as possible, wore a mask everywhere, and maintained as much distance as possible between myself and other people. I stopped inviting people around to the house, and, as a result, we have hardly had a visit or a visitor in the last four years. We got regular shots and boosters. So far, with those precautions and a little bit of luck, we have avoided Covid.
My health care deteriorated during the Covid period. I had very few visits to my GP’s office, and most business, like prescription renewal, was done over the phone. Consultations were by telephone as well. I missed out on the regular blood tests that my urologist / oncologist had been scheduling for me, after a bout with prostate cancer. These picked up again in late 2021, and were resumed in 2022 and 2023. Things seem to be moving well currently. Thank heavens.
I interpret well-being as my state of mind, rather than my state of body. I would say that my well-being suffered from my lack of human contact, although I have slowly developed a series of online support groups. In this way, I was able to continue my writing, for example, in Zoom sessions. I also missed my family visits. I no longer travel well, and due to Covid restrictions, I did not see my daughter or my granddaughter from 2019 to 2022. Clearly, we all missed the family closeness and we were all affected. However, we are used to isolation from family. Boarding schools, travel abroad in the summer, emigration to Canada, saw our family connections broken. That said, the advent of social media, Skype, Zoom, Messenger, texting, free phone calls, have all lessened the miles between us and maintained a contact that we never had, post migration, with our parents and grandparents, and extended family. The isolation and loneliness have been hard. They are hard upon all ageing, isolated people. We have suffered less than most.
As for strategies, I really have only three: 1. to adapt 2. to survive 3. to create beauty via my writing and my painting. Painting, prose, and poetry – these I can share with my friends. Vita brevis, ars longa – life is short, but art endures. Pax amorque – peace and love.
rogermoorepoet 
I was in the hospital the day COVID 19 caused everything to shut down. Had a broken leg and when I got to my room after recovery room all three of my kids were there. Then they told us the doors were closing to visitors and only one person would be allowed in. Mike was the only one living in the area so he was my designated visitor and had to undergo checkups every time he visited. Sent to a local nursing home for therapy and he could deliver me to the door but was not allowed inside. That was a long and lonely 8 days before Medicare declared me able to take care of myself with visits by home therapy once a week. Doctors visits were by phone, everything else by computer. I almost forgot what my kids looked like. There are still very few visits from them because there are still some outbreaks of the virus. Fortunately I was always a loner as a child due to health issues so while it would be nice to see the kids — especially at Christmas, we have mainly gone our separate ways. So glad I love reading, writing (mostly my frustrations lately) and sewing and they all keep me from having to think much.
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phuong@trantran.com
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