How I kept myself from obsessing about Covid 19

We wash our hands until they're raw. We ration toilet paper. We bemoan our filthy houses because we wouldn't let the cleaning lady come. We are obsessed with Covid 19. I tried all the usual advice to take my mind off of it. I binge watched Handmaid's Tale, but that was even more depressing that our current life. I took long walks in the park near the river, but was terrified whenever a distracted jogger came within 10 feet of me. In a Marie Kondo frenzy of tidying up, I bundled all my skinny clothes in a garbage bag for give away, having come to the epiphany that they will never fit me again after binge eating my last 2 pound bag of Stacy's pita chips from Costco. Need I say that little project obviated my misery not one wit. But, through happenstance, I found a foolproof way of keeping myself from obsessing about Covid 19. I replaced my obsession about Covid 19 with an obsession about another malady. Friday, March 20, I had just delivered some medication to my cousins Amy and Lizzie. We sat in a park , 2 benches apart, of course, and schmoozed. We parted, Amy and Lizzie to Park Slope and I to the West Village. While walking uptown on Hudson Street, I received a text from my cousin Mitchell, who happens to be a doctor. Mitch and I are not frequent texters, our last text, according to my iPhone having occurred in 2015. Mitch was thoughtfully checking in to see if I was ok. I texted "yes" and he texted back,"we're here if you need us." Two minutes later, in broad daylight, I was body slammed by a large man on the sidewalk of Hudson Street. I fell backward, landed on my back on the pavement and hit my head pretty hard. I have no idea how the man-who I suppose was walking south on Hudson Street and I-who was walking north-didn't see each other. I can only guess that we were both looking at our phones and were each in our own virtual world. The man offered to help me up, but given my corona virus terror, I screamed: DON'T TOUCH ME.I got up myself, felt my head-no blood.Check. No loss of consciousness. Check. Nothing broken. Check. I was, at least, superficially, intact. Now, you remember Natasha Richardson, right? A young actress who died 4 days after hitting her head in a skiing accident. After falling, she, like me, felt fine and consequently didn't go for a CT scan of her head. Wrong decision. Unbeknownst to her, she had a blood clot on her brain. By the time she got the CT scan 4 days later, it was too late to save her. Had she gone immediately after her accident she would still be alive(if she hadn't caught the corona virus.) Anyway, Mitch had said, not two minutes before "we're here if you need us." I needed him BAD. I texted him, told him what happened and told him I would ordinarily have gone for a CT scan but I didn't want to be anywhere near a hospital. He texted back: You'll probably be fine. If you have an increased headache, vomiting or blurred vision, seek medical attention. That night, I waited for a splitting headache, vomiting and blurred vision to set in. If fact, I obsessed for 4 days and nights over whether I would end up like Natasha Richardson. And for 4 days and nights, I didn't worry about Covid 19.