Minke & Zelda- July 4, 2021-right before Minke’s diagnosis.
Minke got COVID really early into the Pandemic. We locked down on March 13, 2020, and on April 5, 2020, Minke had the virus. He caught it at work from an idiot co-worker who didn’t understand boundaries.
Minke was quarantined in our basement, which he had set up like a bunker. Once an Eagle Scout, always an Eagle Scout. He had telehealth meetings with his doctor and did manage to get himself up to the Portland Expo Center to get tested.
It was still so very new and the person who did the test was young and scared and her lack of confidence showed. The test came back negative. Meanwhile, the symptoms of COVID continued, including a skyrocketing fever and hallucinations at night.
Minke refused to let me come down to the basement, and the fact that I couldn’t help him through the nights, the worst part of COVID, was agonizing to me. I would put food on a tray, put on my mask, open the door, and place the tray on the top step. We’d wave at each other. It was heartbreaking.
Three weeks later, Minke emerged from the basement. Gaunt and fatigued, he didn’t think he would have to return to work. But Intel considered their workers “essential,” and so back to the salt mines he went.
In my opinion, he was never the same after that bout with COVID. He never regained his energy. And eventually, he told me about the muscle twitches that had started while he was in the basement, and never stopped. Muscle twitches. We all get them. Annoying as hell. In your eye. In your calf. Twitch, twitch, twitch, and then it’s done.
Not so with Minke’s twitches. They were all over his body. Arms, legs, calves, thighs, eyes, stomach! Constant. Never stopping. I would hug him and I would feel them. Like some creature had entered his body and was using it for a playground. In fact, a creature had entered his body. A beast. A beast known as ALS.
It would be nearly 10 months later when he would receive an actual diagnosis. No doctor wants to give their patient the news they have a terminal illness. They had to rule everything else out first. But on August 27, 2021, the diagnosis was made.
ALS. Good luck, Minke Ceilidh. You have two to five years to live.
