I have a friend who has a story to tell, so I am going to tell it for her.

Louise has been a widow for three years. It’s an adjustment, and I am sure there is not a day that she doesn’t miss her guy, and there’s not a day when she wonders if life will ever be the same without him.

She doesn’t like the title “widow”, but that’s what she is. It’s an adjustment. She adds “I am not a wife without a husband ... I am a ‘widow.’” Louise recently had an opportunity to attend a get together for a “cousin reunion” on the East Coast. She wanted to go, although it would be a new thing to travel alone. But, she was also apprehensive. She decided that she could do it; flying alone, learning the new “rules” of travel, (masks, for one), but also a bit afraid.

Louise bought her plane tickets, while at the same time, she wrestled with her doubts about taking this adventure on alone. And, she had not yet suspected what was coming.

Then, several days before the day of the flight, Louise didn’t feel well. She felt that “something wasn’t right.” She felt something like a tight metal band around her waist area. She couldn’t decide what it could be. It was mysterious and spooky. And it didn’t get better.

The day before the trip, a burning, tingling, itching numbness erupted on her back to one side of her spine. She scratched, thinking the itch was from bug bites? Being alone, she managed to get a good look with a mirror. There appeared a large, roundish area about the size of a fried egg, appearing as an inflamed rash of pimples on her back and it was beginning to blister. The pain became quite intense.

She knew immediately what it was. Shingles!

Here she was, getting ready to leave for the East Coast in less than 24 hours. Louise called her nurse practitioner, and she verified her eruption as shingles, and prescribed treatment. The “doc” explained that the virus commonly occurs on one side of the trunk of the body. It often appears as a band of blisters that wraps from the middle of one’s back around one side of the chest to the breastbone. The virus follows the path of the nerves where the virus has been dormant. 

Louise decided to call her cousins. Should she go? Should she stay home in her discomfort? They encouraged her, “Please come. We will take care of you. We have had our shots.” To not go would be a great disappointment, and to go would not be very easy. She planted her feet firmly in her decision and decided, “I’m going and I will tough it out!”

By the time to go, Louise was experiencing horrendous nerve pain on her back and around her middle. She itched and couldn’t scratch. Touching the area was not possible. She had been treated effectively but regardless; this inflammation of blisters was not proving to leave very soon. 

Fortunately, on the plane, there was no one in the middle seat so she could sit sideways and avoid touching her back to the seat. But the misery was there all the same. 

She made it. She did it. Going out to eat in nice restaurants, not sleeping at all where she couldn’t lay on her back or one side, taking care of and enjoying grandchildren, being in constant misery but happy to see her family.

But she is not sure to this day whether she really should have gone.

Now, she’s sorry that she didn’t take the shingles shots. After all, the shots are expensive. 

Who among us thinks we will fall victim to this painful fate? We procrastinate. We rationalize. And when we hear details of the virus from people who we know, we become believers. Right? 

I have received my shingles shots, so at least that’s not something I have put off, but I have other efforts that I have ignored. Don’t we all.

Louise had this advice to give.”Never put off ‘til tomorrow what you should do today.”

Let’s remember that. Make a note on the refrigerator or something. 

Judi Tabler lives in Pawnee County and is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune. She can be reached at juditabler@gmail.com.