We are going to be okay. A little dazed and humbled perhaps, but that often happens when our collective ass is getting collectively kicked. I have heard the corona virus called cruel and callous. Fair enough. But it is a virus. It is not a human being, neither is it a demon, though I am sure that that could also be arguable. .Viruses have no moral compass. They are not ethical beings. They are going to opportunistically fasten to the cells of whomever they can feed on. They do not care about the economy, they do not care about our wellbeing, they care about nothing. They're simply microscopic entities whose single motive is to replicate themselves in whomever or whatever they can pick as their host. I have known people like that, Gentle Reader! I'm sure you have, too.
Okay, so the corona virus is a heartless psychopathic jerk. And we have to negotiate this. And we are. We are treating this sociopathic jerk just the way we would treat any toxic asshole. By safe distancing. Not always easy, but oh so necessary! I have known my share of people whom could easily be thought of as human incarnations of the corona virus, or ebola, or SARS, or pick any one. This isn't to say that that was all there was to them, since they were also human beings, but human beings lacking anything resembling a moral compass. And if we don't have a moral compass, if indeed we have nothing at all resembling a conscience, if you become the only person in the universe that seems to matter, at all, and indeed if all other persons and beings of the universe exist for one reason, and one reason only, then I think it can be safely suggested that you have abdicated from your humanity. You have become little more than a human incarnation of a virus. You have become someone with whom no one can really dialogue or negotiate. Best to leave such asses to graze in their pasture, to leave them completely alone. Like the corona virus. Safe distancing.
But we also have to keep on remembering that even while we are safe distancing from one another, that we are also all human beings. Even the sociopathic jerks that live among us. We are not shunning each other, though sometimes it can seem this way, and for those who already fear others, or who think they are better, this kind of situation could well provide them with a convenient cover for being uppity stuck up little snobs. Or they're just super anxious and super afraid of... everything. Any crisis will bring out the very best and the very worst in human nature. And sometimes, as annoying and irritating as we can all get and be towards one another, we still have to face everything with patience, tact, kindness and good humour. There are times when we have to grit our teeth through it. And there will be times when we are tempted to just lose it and be anything but kind, and not even just basically civil.
For the second day in a row, for example, I was being screened in the lobby of the BC Cancer Agency building, where I pick up my pituitary medication at their pharmacy. There was a communications balls up between this pharmacy, the doctors in the health clinic where I am a patient, and the pharmacy where I get my other medication. Yesterday, I showed up to see if I could get a refill on my medication. The doctor who redid my prescription was not familiar with certain details, and tried to have it all done in the other pharmacy, which was also a big mistake. I would be out of pocket $500 dollars for a month's supply of this medication, which is why I was enrolled at the BC Cancer Agency. There they have a subsidy program where I can get this medication for free. The purpose of Cabergoline, the name of the med, by the way, is to help shrink the benign tumour that formed on my pituitary gland as a result of an excess of prolactin in my system. That's right, the nursing hormone. I am biologically a male, and I have flowing in my body the same hormone that secretes breast milk. It's never actually happened with me, by the way, but still this is rather unusual, dontcha think, Gentle Rader?
Anyway, I left a message on their voicemail last week, assuming that my good doctor had already taken care of everything. (I was told that my previous physician had done all the paperwork, but then went on a leave of absence, and somehow everything got lost, which apparently is not unusual). I went to get my thyroid medication at the usual pharmacy, and was surprised to learn that they had my other medication ready too, but I didn't have 500 bucks to pay for it, so I cancelled the order, At the BC Cancer Agency,they still hadn't heard anything. That was just after getting through an unpleasant interrogation downstairs where they screen all visitors to be sure that they are not going to infect anyone with the corona virus. Fair enough, but the little woman doing the screening was behaving like a Grand Inquisitor (this seems to be an annoying and chronic feature of some short people. Napoleon, anybody?)
When I returned today to actually pick up my medication, I was anticipating yet another interrogation, and rather sarcastically, when I arrived, I said to a different, and decidedly more pleasant woman, "Let the interrogation begin!" Of course I was joking, sort of, but I don't think she deserved it, so this is also my written apology.
If we can't even bring ourselves to be civil, if our patience has become so exhausted, at least let's find a way to get us all to laugh!
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