Hot Flash Fiction: Perimenopausal Musings

Cheetah Print (#milestone)

A stylish cheetah print bandaid adorned her shoulder.

She thought back eleven months ago to the water slide amusement park she had brought her son and his friend to in February. The enormous chlorinated jungle teamed with children and their parents eating french fries and ice cream in wet bathing suits between joy rides down the five story plastic tunnels and floats in the massive wave pool. She'd thought about the second and third cases reported in Everett. If the cat got out of the bag, this hot crowded childhood paradise would be the last place you would ever want to be.

And then the plague unleashed itself upon the world.

A week later her boss called her on Sunday night for an emergency meeting of long term care facilities. Her chest constricted as it would continue to do intermittently the remainder of the year. She rented herself a house separate from her family, just in case. She avoided people both at work and in public. She practiced yoga and all other techniques she had learned to avoid panic attacks. While brave colleagues stepped up and volunteered to work in the ICU, she took charge as Telehealth lead to avoid seeing patients. But eventually, as the months wore on, she had to perform tests, had to see positive patients in clinic, had to go into the hospital hot zone. Oddly, she felt safer wrapped in plastic than she did at the grocery store. If she thought about it too hard her throat was always sore, her sinuses always stuffy.

She prayed.

Twenty-four hours ago she sat through a Zoom meeting about redeployment and tried not to vomit while signing an electronic death certificate.  Frustrated by the program's spell check she typed in covid, then COVID and finally corona virus.

She began entertaining irrational thoughts. The car would break down, her ID would be stolen, there would be an emergency, she'd get sick. She cried multiple times. They sent her three reminder texts about the appointment, as if she could possibly forget. She set two alarms the night before and woke up two hours before they went off, drove through the cold dark rain, and arrived 30 minutes early just as the sky began to grow light. She entered a nondescript building with security guards outside one of whom she couldn't help but notice had a mask that had slipped below his nose. She thanked her own large nose for the thousandths time for never betraying her. Not once. Ever.

She showed her ID, spelled her name out loud, and confirmed her date of birth. They directed her to a waiting area with numerous tables spaced six feet apart that soon contained six people. Each person sat alone and filled out the forms. A lady wearing a tweed jacket dropped off packets.

"Here are the answers to the questions."

Questions?, she thought. It seemed weird that this felt like a test. She was the third person to be called back. It took almost no time for the nurse to draw up a small amount of liquid from the vial.

She watched the needle enter her skin completely void of emotion.

They directed her to a different waiting room with chairs spaced six feet apart for 30 minutes. Everyone played on their phones. She sat for a few minutes thinking and then thought it best to play on her phone as well so as to avoid having a panic attack.

When they were sure she wouldn't anaphylax, they let her leave through the backdoor. She stepped out into the drizzly cold morning, reached in under her shirt, and peeled off the cheetah bandaid.