Stupid me.

I guess I can tell this story now.

It's a bit embarrassing.

About a week and a half ago, I'd just had two restless nights, waking up with heavy congestion, especially in my upper chest. When I awoke the next mornings, my mouth was completely dry from breathing through my mouth.

You know, at 3:00 in the morning everything seems pretty dire.

But I didn't have a headache, or much of a cough, or a fever, or any of the other symptoms.

'One more symptom and I go in,' I tell myself.

I'm laying on the couch late afternoon and I feel a weakness in my arms and chest--very similar to the first symptoms of my heart attack.

"We have to go in," I tell Linda. We drive to Bend (not wanting another helicopter ride). I give Linda instructions of how to carry on, almost certain by then that something is wrong.

We show up at the hospital and they have people there to greet us outside. One of them is a woman shouting about how the chairs are all infected, "Watch out!" she screams. "There was a Covid guy sitting in that chair!"

She goes on, but I'm barely listening, exchanging embarrassed looks with all other people. The triage guy takes Linda and me aside.

"What's with Karen?" I ask.

He shrugs. "I've cleaned that chair twice. She's been going on like that."

Two emergency guys walk by. "What's with the Karen?" one of them whispers.

Anyway, I'm taken in a side door and given a room. They do a battery of tests and it becomes pretty obvious early that there is nothing wrong with me. I'm getting progressively more embarrassed, ready to tell them to skip the rest of the tests and such.

They come in with the long swab which they stick in my nose and halfway into my brain. "If anything is wrong, we'll call you within 5 days. I you don't hear from us, it's clear."

I apologize to the nurse and she says, "Hey, if you ever get pain like you did with your heart attack, don't hesitate to come in."

Ouch. Message received. Five hours later we're heading home and I'm completely deflated. I tell myself that I'm meeting people in the store and it's important I be healthy, but I still feel a little humiliated.

So five days go by, nothing.

So I go back to work the following Monday and I'm talking to my friend and fellow heart-guy, Paul Carrington, and he says, "Those were to two nights when there was heavy smoke."

Ah, ha. See, I have a very bad reaction to burning sage, just a little of it and my nose blows up. So...at least it wasn't all in my imagination.

"Hey," Paul says, "I went in three times in the first year after my heart attack."

It was all an interesting experience and...as of about 10 days ago I was free of virus.