For a guy that writes a mediocre personal blog primarily as a journal of his thoughts and life experiences and with only a handful of “followers” (two of which are me), I seemed to have caused a stir within the Bold Cycle community a few weeks ago when I wrote about my personal opinion regarding their practices during this unfortunate time we are currently experiencing.
After I was informed of this, I password protected my previous post describing my recent revelation of being tested positive for COVID to prevent any further unrest or dissent within that community since it was never my intention that my words would ever reach the eyes of their management. While I post some of my blog entries on Facebook for greater exposure (I only have around 400 Facebook friends), I intentionally didn’t share that post because I didn’t want to stir the proverbial pot.
Regardless of my intentions, I have several upset people and for that I am truly sorry. Despite this, my words in that post stand as what I feel is an objective analysis of what happened to help propagate an unnecessary local outbreak that personally affected my life. I simply stated what I believed at the time (and still do) were some adverse practices by myself and others that ultimately resulted in my exposure to the deadly virus that has now killed nearly 200,000 Americans. Still, my risk of exposure was only amplified by others’ unsafe practices, for which I had no personal control.
In all reality, this is the conundrum we are all faced with during our new “normal” daily routines. We all want to establish a sense of normalcy reminiscent of what we all knew only eight months ago, but that is an impossibility given the plenitude of coronavirus-infected individuals within our community. In truth, any encounter with others is a calculated risk.
Natalie and I are also aware that we unknowingly infected two other adults, who then infected one of their two children and an adult sibling because we took the risk of being near them when we were asymptomatic at the time. Unfortunately, this is a scenario that is playing out every second of every day throughout our world.
As a radiologist, I am biased by the adverse ramifications of the more severe cases of this disease because I encounter countless chest x-rays of unfortunate individuals near death on ventilators at various locations throughout our state. Luckily, I was one of the many that survive the disease without serious consequences, but prior to my recovery, I was terrified that I too would end up like one of the intubated patients in intensive care desperately clinging to life. Because of this, I sought to understand how I got the disease which then led to the previous post. The blame ultimately fell on my shoulders for not being careful about my contact with others. Still, my exposure risk could have been mitigated if others did a better job following the rules and being safe.
Regardless of all my thoughts on this, we are all slowly recovering. I am still dealing with mild shortness of breath, a cough and a loss of the sense of smell. It seems like everyone within our “inner circle” will survive with none the worse for the wear. It’s time to move on and start planning for better days ahead! Did we mention we are planning a trip soon?
