Wow.
I evidently cannot immerse myself into the CDC website anymore.
After about three hours there earlier, looking at various graphs of COVID data for the ten states I once monitored, I thought I was okay... but I was not.
It greatly disturbed me to see those curves rise again for daily and weekly cases of people who had been infected by SARS-CoV-2, people who then developed the Coronavirus Infectious Disease, people in Georgia, Florida, Michigan.
This one is for Georgia, with number of cases in August - as classrooms reconvened in person - on a par with the great madness of earlier this year.
It's certainly clear when spring break occurred this year, isn't it?
The graph for California is here, making it obvious what a difference it makes when the majority of the population gets vaccinated against this virus.
Sure, their numbers of daily new cases are still more than 5,000 per day, but, considering their huge population, that's not bad.
The people across the country need to study what that the population of that West Coast state is doing differently and try to emulate its good example.
After giving a good hard look at those graphs, comparing the current effects of the continuing pandemic for those states, I then started checking out their death rates, and then studying their vaccination rates, and I thought I was okay... but I was not.
How do I know I was not?
I stopped to have lunch and watch a little tv, as I tend to do about 5 PM.
Then, when I rose from the couch to take my plate into the kitchen, I nearly fell down because I was so dizzy.
It was as if I was suddenly very drunk, with the room seeming to whirl around me.
So I sat back down... and that's when I noticed I was having trouble focusing and I could hardly take deep breaths.
Was I having a heart attack?
No, there was no pain in my jaw or shoulder.
Then, feeling the need to pee, I went to rise again... and had to hold onto the wall to make it to the bathroom without falling from the dizziness, and then hold the wall again to make it back to the couch.
So... very... dizzy.
It was as if I had taken something with codeine in it.
Then I recognized I was having a panic attack.
After all, this is not the first time this has happened over the last few years.
What to do?
I laid back on the couch, head on a pillow, feet up, and stayed still for the next hour, letting Steve Harvey's voice calm me during the two episodes of "Family Feud".
I could feel the tension leaving me.
So, what had brought the panic attack on?
Well, it was not solely due to the graphs.
I've been getting increasingly twitchy about the reception scheduled for tomorrow night, where I will be one of eighty people gathered in the ballroom of the American Legion on Bull Street to eat and drink and dance in celebration of Jim and Lauren's wedding.
I have no idea who all will be there, but I can guarantee that I will not know most of them.
Since March of 2020, the most people I have been around was at Chelsea's wedding last month... but that was all open-air, with good spacing, and with me being around mostly people I already know.
That will not be the case tomorrow.
If not for my pledge to provide a ride for Carolyn, I'd probably back out.
However, I don't feel that I have that option, as it would leave her with no means of getting there, and I know she has been looking forward to it for two months.
Actually, giving her that ride is also a stressor, as she is always sick with her chronic bronchitis and I don't want to catch that, either.
Sigh.
At least I recognize what my problem is.
Now, to continue having a restful evening...
and look forward to seeing old friends again tomorrow.
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