SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE Ray J. Haight
What a Long, Strange Trip (Part two) When I left things off with you readers last month, I was all alone, in quarantine in Florida with Covid. The gloom setting over me was becoming all too common. I was in the routine of booking a covid test every day at a local Walgreens Pharmacy. You know you are sliding into an abyss when the highlight of your day is heading to a pharmacy for a Covid test. In Florida, all Walgreens have drive-through lanes. A small metal container, containing a cotton swab is pushed toward your vehicle. As many of you are aware, you insert the swab into your nostril, swipe five circular motions in each direction and place the swab back in the metal container. Then off you go. Sound familiar? There are a couple of good things about the process. One is that you usually have the results back within an hour. Secondly, there is no charge for the test. This was my daily task for two weeks while isolated in Florida. I also spoke daily to many of the Past Chairmen who I had sat with when in Vegas for the Truckload Carriers Association Annual Convention. Every day, I heard of their experiences with also being infected. These ranged from vertigo to severe chest congestion, and each of us lost our sense of taste and smell for various lengths of time. We became our own support team as we texted in group format daily outlining the latest status and progression of our infections. After a week 14 • OVER THE ROAD
or so, I was feeling very down as, one by one, they all began to test negative, until I was the last one still testing positive. To be clear, isolation is isolation. I don’t care if you are in Florida or Alaska. My only contact with people was when I went to get my daily test and, using a two-way speaker, talked to the pharmacy worker through the plexiglass. Other than that, I might run into a neighbour while walking and we would have a distant conversation. Florida is a quiet place in October because the snowbirds don’t flock in for another month or so. It was also over 100 degrees Fahrenheit or 38 Celsius; not exactly comfortable in good health let alone having Covid in your system. After each positive test, I would either go for a walk or take a bike ride just to get my head out of the darkness. Most of my time was spent communicating with my family and friends who knew of my situation. Having limited contact with the outside world, these were bright spots, and I can’t thank them enough. It means more than they will ever know. Somehow, it snapped me out of my funk and relieved some of the darkness surrounding me after testing positive for so many days. I was also distracted in a positive sense by having regular contact with a few of the truckload carriers I was coaching at the time. Time spent talking to C-level folks and managers took on a heightened value to me; a respite; a distraction from the monotony of my routine. Skip the Dishes, Door Dash etc., were
DECEMBER 2021
