Still here.

 I've been meaning to blog since the 1st, so I'm only sixteen days late. Firstly, I am obviously still alive. I have managed so far to avoid catching covid-19, hopefully that luck will continue. Like many other people in the UK there's a feeling of Groundhog Day about our lives. Currently in yet another lockdown that prevents us meeting up with people socially, including family from outside the home, yet allows millions to still go to work. I'm not talking about the truly essential workers, but all those people who have other reasons to carry on working, the ones the government should be helping to stay at home in order to help society. During the first lockdown only ten percent of children were in school, this time it is over fifty percent. 

The pandemic has left me pretty much where I was in January last year, only this time I don't have a trip to Australia to look forward to. With time I have become used to the loneliness, I have no other choice. I get angry some days that I haven't been able to move forward with life, luckily I have the virus to blame rather than myself. I do worry that I am going to spend the rest of my life alone, and that no one will even notice that I am longer around. 

I have been dreaming about Tall a lot since Christmas, almost every night. The dreams are of Tall before 2017. We are on holiday, going out for a meal or meeting up with friends. We are having a wonderful time until Tall says he needs dialysis. We drive home, me apologetic that I haven't set the machine up, that he'll have to wait the twelve hours until it is ready. We get home and I rush upstairs, the machine isn't there. I turn to Tall and say "You died, we'll have to call the unit at the hospital and ask if they can help you." Tall smiles at me. At this point I awake and cry quietly to myself. I miss his company so much. I miss the man he was before he became so ill in 2017. 

Covid-19 has brought to the public eye what intensive care is like. Tall wasn't ventilated, but he was heavily sedated. He had tubes everywhere. The stories of what it is like have brought back all the memories, a reminder of just how much intensive care stole from Tall. I know that it gave him more time, time that Tall wouldn't have wanted to miss. That last visit from his best mate in Australia, the chance to put his affairs in order, the time to make sure he had done his best to ensure I would be okay.  He tried desperately to rehabilitate himself. He joined a gym and bought equipment for home.  He tried high protein diets and high fat shakes, anything to put weight on and rebuild muscle, but nothing worked. I think the staff at the hospital could see it, in hindsight I knew too, Tall was never going to recover from his treatment in 2017. Tall was stubborn though, he tried everything he could think of to regain strength and fitness, and I loved him.