Email dated March 13, 2020.
Hi Project,
I am writing to tell you my and my boyfriend's story in these terrible days of the virus. I can tell you that this thing, which risks becoming a worldwide disaster and which you would do well to try to contain by any means, has also involved my life and especially that of my boyfriend. I use invented names to respect privacy: I will be called Peter and Paul.
I start from afar. We have known each other for several years, I work in the IT field and he is a doctor. We have been together for more than 10 years, we met in a completely random way because we had friends in common. He lives in northern Italy and I’m in central-south. In practice we have dreamed of living together for a long time but it has never been possible. He has family situations that don’t allow him to go too far, I could do it, I could go to him, but this would create other difficulties and therefore somehow we got organized, I don't work on Saturday, he had flexible shifts and had, on average, a free Saturday out of two, therefore, leaving my home on Friday after 20.00 and traveling all night, I usually was able to get where he lives early on Saturday morning, and he was there waiting for me at the station, we used to go together for breakfast in a beautiful bar and then drove to a small house that his parents had at the foot of the Alps, in a large meadow, which was often covered in snow in winter and in summer was of a unique and incredible green like an emerald, near the house there was a small fountain of cold and clean water, we unloaded our bags at home and walked around in beautiful places that he knew like his pockets, in the evening we could have our intimacy in an unimaginable silence. The following day we used to go on a few more excursions and then he used to take me back to town to the railway station where I had to take the train back home. It is true that we saw each other more or less twice a month and that in practice it was always me the one who had to take the train back and forth, but those Saturdays and Sundays were so wonderful that had the power to give sense to my whole life. Paul and I really love each other, I don't know how I happened to meet him but I consider myself totally lucky, he is a sweet, generous guy who works for others, when on Sunday mornings we go to have breakfast in the mountain village, they all embrace him very warmly and you can see that they love him. He tells me he is happy to be with me and when I hear him say these things I fill myself with pride.
But let's get to the facts. Now he is finished in the red zone. For practically a month I have only seen him on Skype, he works in the hospital and we only get in touch late at night when he comes home and contacts me. Since last year he lives alone, he is no longer with his family, even if he lives very close to them. He has his own house and when he arrives home very tired he starts chatting with me. He understands the seriousness of the situation, because he sees it every day and tells me that people don’t understand and minimize but that it is a disease which can decimate the world, but beyond these speeches he doesn’t go. I have a damned fear that Paul could become infected but I can't talk to him about it, he tells me that he doesn't want to hear those speeches and that he must do his duty because if even the doctors run away, sick people are left to themselves and they have no means to defend themselves. He always asks me about me, what I do, where I go, mutual friends but he doesn't want to talk about his work, he just avoids the topic, it is evident that he too is afraid but on one side he cannot be afraid and on the other he doesn’t want to give up. He only tells me that he is tired, that shifts are exhausting but that he must go on anyway because it is too important. Sometimes I feel him happy and he hints at something that has gone well. Paul is not a machine, he participates very emotionally in the fate of his patients. When there are new government decrees, we start reading them together to try to understand exactly all the rules they contain. If I mention that certain prevention measures can be excessive, he attacks me (albeit gently) and tells me that I don’t understand because I don't deal with those things and that certain measures are absolutely indispensable. He brings me China as an example, China risked disaster but with very rigid measures has managed to contain the infection. Here things are more difficult because among the people there is a lot of unconsciousness, a lot of foolishness, they think that the worst has already passed while it has yet to begin. He tells me that times will be longer than people imagine and he recommends me a thousand times to observe all the rules of prudence: “Wash your hands! Avoid crowd! etc. etc .”. When I told him that my company had started teleworking he calmed down. In fact, the work of a computer scientist can also be done at home or on platforms that allow multi-conferences, for us it is easy and we also have the means to do these things. Paul worries about me, but I worry about him and if in the evening he is late, I panic, but until now he has always come. He repeats that he is careful, of course, because he puts into practice all the security measures that in the hospital are very tight for doctors and nurses and this is the only way he has in order to reassure me.
In short, Project, so far for the two of us it has gone quite well, but nobody knows how long it will last and then we must put our soul in peace and hope that things will not become explosive and that he will not end up in the number of infected people or worse. There is a lot of anxiety on both sides but he cannot admit it.
Who knows how many couples have been divided by the virus! As I would like to hug Paul, now we only do the gesture on cam but sooner or later we will hug again and it will be beautiful. I conclude by wishing everyone involved to be able to get out of it as soon as possible and in the best possible way. Thanks also to you, Project, of course you can use this email as you like better.
Peter
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Email dated March 24, 2020.
Hi Project.
I wrote to you a few days ago, I think you will remember Peter and Paul. I am writing to you in the long moments of emptiness when I cannot get in contact with Paul and I find myself alone to reflect on what is happening.
The general situation of the epidemic would let anyone to begin a rethinking of their whole life, for those who have lost parents or grandparents or other relatives or friends the situation is terrible, they see the plan of a life vanish in a few days, death upsets families in the more violent and unexpected way, but for me and Paul the situation is fortunately not so dramatic, I’m I am worried about him, I know he’s prudent and very scrupulous but very little is enough to make a difference.
As for me, certainly the least directly exposed, I began to question many of my certainties, I feel much more fragile than before, I’m devaluing a lot of things that I previously considered fundamental, such as economic security and a broad possibility to make my choices but I feel weak because I’m exposed to the risk of losing Paul and it would be a tragedy for me that I don't even dare to think about.
The father of one of my friend's died of the virus and two other friends of mine have a relative in the hospital. Many are afraid and try to keep going day by day as they can, because they must also work to survive. I work from home, I don't take serious risks, at least for the moment, but I’m worried about Paul, I think of him at all times of the day because he is right on the front line and I feel him exhausted from fatigue and downcast for what he has to see every day and that when he talks to me he systematically tries to omit.
I have always loved him, but seeing how he strives for the good of others to the point of exhaustion I begin to consider him as half a saint, and I think I will never be at his level. In these days he saw many people die, he tried to give them comfort as it was possible and as long as it was possible, but then he saw those people whom he had tried to save in any way die terribly. He tells me that for him now death is not only a daily reality but something he must see several times a day. When someone comes out of the intensive care ward, he feels happy and in fact sometimes it is almost a miracle.
He was even before an excellent, generous, selfless guy, but now I see him in a different atmosphere and, if possible, I love him even more than before, because I saw him at work, I saw his moral dimension. Yesterday he asked me to say a prayer for him, and I got scared and I asked him if he was positive and he said no, he asked me for a prayer to help him go all the way and not give up, he needed a greater strength, or better a consolation, I think, to be able to transmit it to all the people it tries to cure every day.
Today I tried to pray for him and I did it, but it’s something I never do, that’s why probably in my prayer there was something selfish, I prayed not to lose him, because for me he’s as essential as the light of the sun, but he had asked me for something different, that is, he asked me to pray for him to have the strength to go on. I know that he is taking serious risks and I’m very scared and it also seems right to me to ask the Lord not to take him away from me, even if we are a gay couple, because we really love each other.
Tonight I feel very agitated, sometimes at night I can't sleep, I miss him, I miss him damn but I know that he has his duty to follow and that he will do it to the end. I have never seen anyone die, obviously I have seen sometimes dead people, but I have never seen anyone die, but he sees these things every day and I think it is precisely seeing suffering and death that gives him a very strong push to do what he does.
Yesterday he told me that a lady who had gone out of the intensive care ward and that he had been assisting for days had given him a wooden rosary and told him that she would pray for him and his girlfriend, he was moved and told the lady that he didn’t have a girl but a guy because he was gay and the lady told him that it was fine all the same and that she would pray for his boyfriend, because Paul was a good guy and he could give so much to his boyfriend. Then the lady started to cry, because she had a son more or less the age of Paul. When he told me this story he had a voice broken by emotion! How can you not love a man like Paul? I would have hugged him strongly! I would have lifted him off the ground to make him feel that I love him! I’m very upset and anxious, Project, but for me living these days is a very profound experience that is changing my life.
Peter
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Email dated March 30, 2020.
Hi Project,
today the data of the Civil Protection are comforting, I should be more calm and instead I feel very agitated and I can't refrain, Paul works tonight, I heard him in the early afternoon, he tends to calm me down, to reassure me, but when I hear the news and they say that other doctors have died, I get terror, terrible anxiety and I think there may be him too. He tells me that even if he catches the virus, he shouldn't take huge risks because he is young and mortality for those of his age is low, but many of his colleagues have tested positive and many have also died. He has no doubts, he must go on, he must put aside all emotions to maintain the highest possible level of self-control. He always tells me that he hopes that all this frightening adventure can change many absurd ways of reasoning. He quoted me a phrase from Pope Francis that struck him a lot, because that's what he always thought: "We thought we would always stay healthy in a sick world". I clearly feel that Paul is tired, exhausted, I feel it because until about a month ago we used to talk a lot on skype, now we speak less because he needs to sleep and I leave him quiet, but when I close the call I begin to be assaulted by despair, I'm afraid, I'm bloody afraid. People begin to relax and think that they are now getting out of it, but Paul continually repeats to me that this is not the case, that the situation can get out of hand very easily and that we could start again as before and worse than before. He repeats that nothing has changed from them yet and that nothing will change for several days, he says at least three weeks. Now they have a little more means than in the first days, if there is something that makes the difference, if anything, it is just that, it is always a struggle but a little less desperate. People continue to die exactly as before even though doctors can at least say they have done everything they could. Paul tells me that to return to acceptable levels the number of ICU patients should decrease by at least 50%, but it will take time and people will continue to die. He thinks of many other countries where there is no public health service that can react like ours and tells me that mortality will necessarily be much higher there. By now we stay on a video call at least for one hour and a half a day, I see him tired, much thinner than usual but nevertheless he is also calm, I don't know how he manages to be calm, it is evident that he is aware of doing something fundamental, he tells me that the thing that is more difficult for him is not to let himself be overwhelmed by failures, that are many, many. I don't sleep, Project, I ask God to save him but when I do it I have a thousand doubts, why him and not the others too? What's the point of praying? Why do catastrophes like this epidemic happen? Or maybe we notice the disasters that upset the world only when they happen to us. I can't even pray, it seems to me an act of selfishness, because I ask for something for myself, while perhaps we should just say: "your will be done" even if we don't understand the meaning of it or refuse to understand it because it affects us personally. Sometimes I find myself making absurd thoughts, almost trying to make a contract with God: He saves my Paul and I give up sex, but then it seems to me a kind of stupid market, if I think that in order to have Paul unscathed I have to give up to sex, it means that after all I also think that sex between us is a negative thing, but I don't think it at all, because it's not like that, and then I don't have to ask anything for me, it will be what it will be, and it will be accepted anyway, although it may be something terrible, as tens of thousands of people accepted it. In certain moments I’m also less afraid of death, of my personal death, I say, because I see it less as a personal drama and more as a collective destiny and I would say almost natural. I can't take it anymore, Project, I think of Paul at all times, I try to imagine what he is doing at that moment and I dream that the nightmare will end as soon as possible and that we can go back to his house at the foot of Alps together, but all this still seems to me damned far and uncertain. Think about me too, if you can, Project, reading your emails helps me to move forward with less anguish.
Obviously you can make use of this email as you wish.
I hug you.
Peter
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Email dated May 9, 2020.
Hi Project,
I tell you right away, to prevent you from worry, that "now" it is all quiet, but Paul got through some bad moments, and you can imagine how I felt. Between me and Paul there is a binding agreement: if there is any serious problem we must both know it and we must face it together. In our pre-covid life it has always been like this, so I knew very well that he would let me know how things really were, on Thursday April 2, he calls me at a strange time, in the morning, he tells me that he has a little cough but "at the moment" he has no fever, but he confesses to me that he is worried, so the fear that it may be covid is already in his head, he tells me that he had asked for the pharyngeal swab that will be done within two hours, results should arrive within the next 24 hours. He doesn’t try to tell me it's not covid, instead he tries to prepare me for the idea that it is really covid, he is not afraid because, he explains, now the doctors are starting to have a bit more clear ideas on how to handle the matter. He tells me: "I would have preferred to avoid this experience, but we'll get out of it!" In practice, he takes the test result for granted. The cell phone call doesn't last long, because they call him almost immediately for the swab. A quarter of an hour later he tells me that they won't let him go to the ward waiting for the result of the swab and that he thus will go home immediately and will call me on Skype just got home.
He calls me on skype and asks me about me, he tells me that he has "no fever yet”, but that he has a cough that suggests that it could be covid. We talked a bit, then I had to do my online work shift and we said goodbye. At 20.30 I called him back, he said he had a little fever, but that he had with him all the medicines needed, in practice he had already foreseen the evolution of that angry cough. I ask him how much fever he has and he tells me 38.5, but he says that he has "good" saturation, I ask him how much and he tells me "95" that for one his age he is not good at all, but he is not distressed by this fact. He alerted the hospital and they asked if he needed anything and he replied "no for now". He tried to explain to me what therapy he would follow, but I was unable to understand his speech, was hearing him coughing and I didn't want him to tire too much.
In our conversation, just to not tire him, I spoke almost continuously while he limited himself only to listen and I told him "our story" from the beginning, he was happy to hear it, he felt pampered, object of affectionate attention, and he needed all this very much precisely because he was sick. He took his medicines, then he said to me: "always saturation 95, but the temperature is 38.9 and I feel tired, maybe it's better to take an antipyretic." He took the antipyretic and 40-50 minutes later the temperature dropped to 38, the saturation was always 95 and he was a little breathless. He told me he wanted to try to get some sleep and that he set the alarm on at 3:00 and would call me back. I let him sleep, but, Project, you can't imagine what I was feeling inside, I was stretched like a violin string, wakeful and with wide eyes, I was unable to close my eyes waiting for 3.00. At 3.01 he called me, told me that the saturation was always 95 with some ups and downs and that the fever was stabilized at 38. He had taken other medicines and thought he would try to get some rest again. He would call me back at 7.00. This time I was, if I can say so, a little more peaceful.
At 7.00 he did not call me and I have been anxious for more than an hour because he was not answering my cell phone calls, then he called me shortly before 8.15 am and he said that one of his colleagues had come to see him and had told him that the swab was positive and that since the saturation was always on 95 and this could tire him it would have been good to take a little oxygen, at 2 liters per minute, even a little to support the heart. They said they would bring the oxygen to him within a couple of hours, not a compressed gas cylinder but a liquid gas cylinder that would last much longer, more or less 5-6 days. The fever was 38.3 now, several hours after the antipyretic. He told me that he felt tired and that he would try to rest waiting for the oxygen, he added that he would call me as soon as he started taking oxygen.
What he had told me was serious but all in all not distressed, but other times he had told me that the worst moments come after a few days and I was very agitated. Shortly after 9.00 he calls me back and tells me that with oxygen at 2 liters per minute, which is all in all low, he feels much less evanescent, that he is continuing the therapy and that he is monitored by his colleagues doctors. He tells me that with oxygen he also feels like getting up and walking, whereas before he could only stay in bed and feeling nevertheless very dizzy and fatigued. In the afternoon he did himself the ECG and told me it was good. During the day he didn’t resume antipyretics and the temperature didn’t go above 38.4, the saturation “with oxygen” was at 98, therefore good, it oscillated a little but little and the values were on average high. Anyhow I continued to hear the cough exactly as before. When he was speaking through headphones I was able to hear the hiss of the oxygen coming out of the inhaler. I'm not going to tell you about everything that happened and everything we said to each other hour by hour.
April 4 was the most difficult day, the temperature, in the evening, went up to 38.9 and he had to take another antipyretic, but that things were at risk of taking a bad turn one could understand it from the saturation that even "with oxygen" had fallen to 95-96 (but perhaps a little more 96 that 95), I was very worried, he less than me and it reassured me a lot. We got in touch 4 times during the night, I was afraid that the situation could get worse at any moment, it has been the worst night. On Sunday morning, that is, the following day, the situation seemed stable, but Paul was not well at all. He often measured saturation, but until 5 o'clock in the afternoon no change was seen, fever always very high (he didn't want to take antipyretics before the fever reached 39 but the fever was always slightly lower).
In the late evening (of Sunday) things started to improve, the temperature, without antipyretic, did not exceed 38 and sometimes even fell below 38 and the saturation slowly rose and gradually abandoned that limit value of 95. Monday 7 temperature began to drop around 37.5 and Paul received another oxygen supply. In the next two days the improvement was constant, Paul preferred not to start talking of "healing phase", and when I spoke about it he said it was too early and that to have a relative certainty it was necessary to wait three or four more days.
On the morning of April 10 (Friday) Paul took off the oxygen while talking to me and half an hour later he measured the saturation and it was 97 "without oxygen", now finally an acceptable value, I asked him how he felt and he said " much better, I breathe in a satisfying and trouble-free way even without oxygen. " During the same day the fever disappeared completely and in the evening the saturation began to oscillate between 98 and 99, a sign that things, at the lung level, had come back to normal. By now Paul was calm.
On the evening of April 10 he asked that they do the swab and on Saturday 11 they went to his house to do it, he was now clinically healed, the swab was nevertheless still positive, but he wasn't worried about this fact. On April 13 morning they did him the swab again and this time it resulted negative, on April 15 they did him the second swab which was negative again. A few days later he came back to the hospital ward and resumed work with covid patients. It has been two weeks that I will never forget. He then explained to me that it went well and that it could have been much worse than that because he had seen even young people die.
Now he should be immunized, so the covid shouldn't scare him anymore. The two weeks of illness made him lose weight and he was never one of strong build. Looking at him on skype he seemed to have enormous eyes in a face very emaciated, and he has beautiful eyes! When I tell him that the epidemic is about to end, he always tells me that now he is no longer afraid for himself but that people continue to die and that even if there is a decline, the epidemic is not at all extinguished, that there are still too many new positives to say that we are out of it.
A few days ago he told me that they sent a 24-year-old boy to ICU and that he took care of him. Luckily that boy came out of the ICU after a few days and Paul also followed him to the ward and asked him if he wanted to contact someone in a video call, like his parents, but the boy asked Paul to call immediately his boyfriend ,who had been without news for more than 10 days, while the parents had been informed every day. The boy wanted Paul to stay in the room during the video call. The two boys started crying on the phone and then they also involved Paul: "If the doctor wasn't there, who knows where I was now!" At the end of the video call, Paul said to the boy: "but you two really love each other!" The boy's eyes shone. Then Paul went back to intensive care ward. When he told me this story Paul was happy and said to me: “They were really in love! There you really see if anyone loves you! "
As usual you can make use of this email as you wish. Thanks for your response the other time and sorry if I didn't answer you right away.
I hug you.
Peter
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If you want, you can participate in the discussion on this post open on the Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-a-gay-couple-divided-by-the-covid-red-area
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