Thursday, November 12, 2020

Answering tech calls from my kitchen

 Today I saw a call from an unknown number flash up. I don't usually pick these up, but I am quarantining at home and have been talking to parents on and off about technology problems. I grabbed it. The woman on the other line seemed a bit confused, which convinced me that it was a parent who might have been patched through to me -- a salesperson would have been smoother and ready to go. The woman asked, "Did I call you already?" and I wanted to snort in exasperation, "how would I know?" but tried my best to put on my professional voice as I asked her who she was, and told her that I didn't think she had called me already.

A month ago I had another weird phone call, but that weird October call was me phoning my therapist of ten years to ask if she was ok. I had sent her a few emails about billing questions, scheduling questions, and she hadn't responded. Sometimes she doesn't respond right away because she has "fights with her computer" but she's in her 70s, and she's Black, and she lives alone, and I got worried with Covid. I called her and she answered. We always laugh a little when we reach each other and I said, "Hey are you ok?" and she said, "No." And she started talking to me about not knowing what to do, and I could hear that she was short of breath, and she seemed so uncertain, like she was taking a poll about what people thought she should do, totally unlike her normal attitude, but I didn't put that together until I got off the phone and and tried processing the call with a friend, and my friend reminded me, "if she is struggling to breathe, she may not be thinking clearly."

On the call I told her she had symptoms and needed a test. I told her I was worried. I told her about how to get a test. But it was after hours and she probably wouldn't be able to get one until the morning, maybe not until Monday. I told her it was serious and I was worried about her. I texted her links and info and she texted me back a thank you. And then I got more worried and responded that she needed to call her doctor, maybe go to the hospital. She didn't respond, and I tried to figure out how much I could push. I'm an anxious person, and she's my therapist, so of course I have lots of extra anxiety about her. Her last message to me sounded like she was good, she had it under control, thank you and goodnight, and what do I know? I'm not a doctor, just a doomscroller. I've been calling and emailing and texting for the last month, trying to find out what happened, dreading, hoping that she was just "fighting with her computer" or her phone.

And in slow motion today I realized what this call today was, it was her colleague calling to tell me she was dead.

I am thinking about what she told me in our last conversation, about how she didn't believe she could have caught the virus because she was always at home, she only left to see two patients in person in her office that didn't want to (or couldn't?) meet virtually. I am thinking about how many people I know who are far less careful. I am thinking about people who think they won't get sick and people who think they won't get others sick. I am making stories up in my head about what happened after our call. I am thinking about how fucking angry I am, and what she would say about that.

"There are no funeral arrangements, at this point," her colleague said.

On the day of our last session, I was so stressed out from work that I forgot to FaceTime her. I was driving home in my own world and she called me, to see if I was ok, 15 minutes after our start time. I pulled over in an empty parking lot and unloaded an avalanche of worry about work -- when we were still teaching without kids in the building, but when it had been decided they were coming back. At the end of the call, she said, "I think you're in a good place now, I was worried about you when we started, but I think we've got you to a good place now."

Our relationship of course was one-sided. I know very little about her apart from the stories she told me to use as analogies. But she has been in my corner for years, listening and cheering and calming me, helping me to believe that I could do hard things and that I was worthwhile. She said "Good show," to me a lot.

I wanted to scream when she told me she was still going into the office to meet with people in person. I was furious at whoever these people were who weren't looking out for her. But it goes beyond those 2 patients. I read that the CDC is now having to tell people to wear a mask to protect yourself, because the messaging to protect others isn't enough to get us to wear them.

I hate everything right now. I hate that things are just rolling along like it's normal. It's not normal that asking people not to kill other people is an imposition.

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