COVID keeps coming

I am pretty sure I have Long COVID and my pulmonologist thinks so, too.

I have had four cases of COVID since 2020, even though I had my shots.

My breathing problems are probably due to inflammation of the airways caused by the virus. It surely makes a difference in who you choose for your doctor. The previous one said I didn't have Asthma and my lungs were clear. She offered no reason I had shortness of breath. 

The new doctor said I do have Asthma and is looking for the reason for my problems. I am scheduled for more tests and I am using a steroid med in my nebulizer. I will have in home physical therapy beginning next week. My entire body has suffered because of the virus. I cannot walk much at all. Fatigue overcomes me almost instantly. That is one of the symptoms of Long Covid. 

It is hard to believe that before I had the first COVID virus, I lived alone in my house in the mountains. Drove my car anywhere I wanted to go, and, except for a painful knee, I was doing OK.

I thought the isolation from the Pandemic was going to be my worst complaint, but no. While the isolation was harmful to my mental health, the virus which lives inside me has inflamed my entire body, I believe. It does damage to all of the body, not just the lungs or respiratory area.

I am hopeful now that the new program I will be on will help me with all of the symptoms of Long COVID. Soon after my first COVID illness and my shortness of breath became troublesome, I was sent to a cardiologist. I had several tests and they diagnosed me with a faulty valve in my heart. I have been monitored for that, too, but there has been no change since the first ECHO-cardiogram.

When people scoff at COVID as a serious illness, I would like to tell them it is very serious. It changed my entire life. I no longer live alone in my house. I almost always need someone to drive me if I must park a distance from the door of my doctor's office. At times, my sister takes a wheelchair in the car in case I must walk a long way to my destination. 

But my mind is still good and for that I am grateful. I will be teaching again soon on Zoom. My students seem to enjoy the classes and come back for more. 

I have worked for several days scheduling volunteers to work in our NCWN-West booth at Festival on the Square in Hayesville. We have a good number of authors with books on the market now so they are happy to meet the public. 

About 3,000 people attend the festival each year, and some of our writers sell lots of books.

            Rosemary Royston

I will miss being there, but plan to be in Hiawassee in July when Rosemary Royston, excellent writer and well-published poet, will teach a poetry workshop. 

She has published several books and teaches often at the John C. Campbell Folk School in their writing department.  I will enjoy being with my writing buddies again. 

Hope you are having a wonderful summer. Don't get COVID while you are out having fun.

FOR MORE INFO ON LONG COVID:

Festival is a bit of nostalgia for me

We have photos from Festival on the Square where our writers group had a booth recently. Visit here if you want to see the pictures. 

Barry and I started attending the Festival on the Square in 1995 when we first moved to Clay County, NC, the smallest county in the state. Tents are set up all over the courthouse square with as many different kinds of crafts and visual arts as you could imagine. Soon my family members came up on the Festival weekend and we carried folding chairs down to sit in front of the gazebo where local musicians of all ages entertained for two days free to the public.

We fell in love with a family group, the Shook Family. The mother and father sang and played mountain music along with their three boys. Over the decades we watched those boys grow up and eventually the singing family scattered and those boys were raising families of their own. I miss them. Young men singing together brought back memories of my four brothers, The Council Brothers Quartet, a popular group in south Georgia back in the forties and fifties. But that story is for another blog post. 

Most of the groups at the festival sold cassette tapes of their music. We always bought them because we wanted to continue to hear those songs,  those voices, so we played them in our cars. My brothers carried home many cassettes from these mountains. Barry had fallen in love with good blue grass music and I often came home to find him on the deck with fiddle and banjo music flowing through the open doors. 

We also came to love another more eclectic group of musicians and singers, Butternut Creek and Friends, a group from Blairsville, GA. Steve Harvey, English professor at Young Harris College plays guitar, banjo and sometimes, the ukulele. He also lends his soft husky voice to harmonies with Jennifer Cordier who plays autoharp. Her husband plays percussion and flute with the band and when we first met them, a young blond woman was part of the group. She sang the most haunting melodies. We were so disappointed when she left the group, but over the years, Butternut Creek and Friends have evolved and made some changes in personnel but never lost that special sound. You will find samples of their newest albums on their website. 

Now my brothers are gone and we don't gather in front of the gazebo anymore to hear the singers. Our Netwest booth was not too far from where we used to sit, but none of my old favorite groups sang this year. Seems there were fewer people sitting in the shade and listening.

But I was happy to see that my favorite blogger, Tipper Pressley was there with her lovely twins,  the Pressley Girls who have grown up before my eyes. They took center stage while their mom and uncle played guitar and bass behind them. I was touched when Katie spoke of her musical family and how growing up with all the adults coming over to practice their music together inspired the girls to want to play and sing. The girls say when they were put to bed while the grownups played music downstairs, the two of them would lie down on the floor near the door so they could hear the singing. Tipper often came up to find them sound asleep on the floor.

Katie recognized her granddad who was sitting out front on a bench. Pap has not been well for a good while, but he was present to hear his family singing on stage. In the past he would have been up there lending his tenor voice to his son Paul's for some great country music.

The Pressley Girls

The festival holds a good bit of nostalgia for me, so it is best to be working in the writers' booth talking to visitors instead of thinking of what once was.

Festival on the Square in Hayesville NC

We are very happy that the Clay County Historical and Arts Council has accepted Netwest as a vendor this year. That means Netwest will have a booth at the Festival on the Square in Hayesville, NC on Saturday, July 14 and Sunday, July 15.

President of CCHAC, Janice Padgett, contacted me recently and informed me that NCWN West could make application for a booth. The festival is on the historical square of our town, and each year every inch of space under the old trees around the Courthouse is filled with tents of craft makers. Painters, photographers, jewelry makers, colorful fabric work and iron sculpture catch the eye. Live music is played all day in the gazebo, and the cloggers perform on Saturday.This festival now includes all of the arts.


Writing is a literary art, of course, and for the first time in several  years, we will be there with our popular book, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge.


Our members who have published books are invited to bring a few copies for the table. We might hold periodic readings throughout the day. If so, we will post times.

We will also need volunteers, hopefully a few strong ones, to help erect the tent and set up tables Friday afternoon, and take down the booth on Sunday at 4:00 p.m.

This will be a wonderful opportunity to introduce the public to our anthology and to let them meet the writers in this area.
We hope to have a good turnout of Netwest people that weekend.
 I am already getting excited about the festival. If you have never been to the Festival on the Square in Hayesville, NC, you should come and enjoy it this July.
If you have come here in past years, please leave a comment on your experience.
If you don't want to post your email or URL, just post your comment and click on anonymous.