Murder by pandemic proxy. Maybe.

This is a Gordian knot of a problem. I believe I’ve had corvid 19, my partner dismissed it as nothing. One of my symptoms was muscle, bone and joint pain. Yesterday he comes in and says he fell and hurt his hip. There’s been plenty of times where he’s said he thinks he’s broken a bone and I suggest he go get it checked. He’s refused as ‘there’s nothing they can do’. So, okay. This time I pretty much ignored it. The next time I see him, he’s creeping along. Super slowly. It was so played up I thought it was fake. Still do, mostly. I hurt, he says.

Then he lays on my bed (we sleep in separate rooms. we both snore. He’s deaf. I’m not.), puts his head on my pillow, and coughs. A couple of days ago, he’s breathing hard. Right behind me. I can feel my hair moving. I can feel moisture building on my neck. I ask him not to breath on me. He says; that’s just how I’m breathing. I didn’t ask him to stop breathing. I asked him to stop breathing on me. He didn’t.

He’s never said he feels like he has a fever. He takes zero precautions, that I know of. He’s invited two people in the house after lock down/isolation.

A while ago, I’m at the fridge, digging out a snack. He comes up behind me, puts his arm around my waist, pulls me up against him, and talks into my face. I asked him to back up, mentioning social distancing. He did, but slowly, laughing into my face.*

Now, I don’t know if he’s sick – he’s displaying the symptoms I had. Cough, breathless, aches. I also had fever and runny nose, which he’s not mentioned.

I never got tested (I’m not famous, a politician, sports figure or actor. Even though I have COPD I don’t rate getting a test). So we don’t know for sure if I got it. And the jury is still out on if you can catch it again. But damn if its not like he’s trying to give it to me.

Oh, and btw, I’m still sick. I went 6 days being ill. Two days without fever, then it started all over again. From what I see, you have to go 3 days without fever before you’re considered recovered. I still get low grade fevers, fatigue, runny nose. Is it the same bout or… a second wave?

*I no longer feel safe or comforted by hugs. Especially hugs that pin me against something (like an open fridge) I feel… captured? Confined? Trapped. A few weeks ago, I got a hug by a woman. I didn’t feel trapped. But it was a one armed hug, on the side. I had an escape route. So, maybe there will be hope that someday, I will enjoy hugs again.

Salt poisoning

I know I’ve mentioned the tea before. How when he makes me tea, but it’s not made ‘right’. It’s not every time. This morning, it wasn’t just not made ‘right’, it didn’t taste right. There was something in that tea – way too much of something. I suspect it was salt. I don’t put salt in my tea, so I have no idea how it would change the taste. The weird thing was, I didn’t recognize the taste at all. And it lingered on my lips, I basically tasted it all day. I never did figure out what it was.

My partner likes salt. A lot of salt. On everything. I figure because he’s on TPN, and getting liters of fluids every day, it counterbalances the amount of salt he takes in. Now, when I say ‘a lot’ I realize that is relative. So to be more specific, I’d say in a normal coffee mug sized cup, he puts in about 1/4th teaspoon of salt. He drinks maybe 6 cups of tea a day, so that makes about 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt. And when I say a teaspoon, I mean the eating utensil, not a measuring cup. That’s just the tea. He puts the same amount in/on anything he eats. A sandwich, soup, jelly toast, bananas. If I see him adding it, I panic and say ‘stop, stop! too much!’. That doesn’t stop him.

About 2 months ago, he came up to me and asked; I’m watching a show, and this guy kills someone with belladonna. Where did he find it? … I explained what I knew of belladonna, which isn’t that much. I asked him why he didn’t just google it. He says because I probably know it, and it’s easier to ask me than google it.

And so help me, it only dawned on me now, it might be because google leaves traces.

So I looked up salt and belladonna poisoning just now (if you find a search record, oh ye police officers) that was me 😉 The belladonna symptoms didn’t line up at all, but I found this quick google definition on salt poisoning:

Too much sodium in the bloodstream can damage brain cells, and lead to seizures, coma or even death. Fluid can build up in the lungs, causing trouble breathing. Other symptoms of salt poisoning include kidney damage, nausea, vomiting and weakness.

And yeah…. ticky box, ticky box. This past month, breathing has been worse than normal. I started a course of antibiotics and prednisolone, and it’s improving. Nausea and vomiting – I’ve been throwing up a lot. It takes a lot for me to throw up, I fight it as much as I can before I let it, ah, go. I had thought it was my new medications causing it, but … I stopped the meds, and it’s still happening. And it doesn’t seem to be after I eat, anyway, sometimes its 6-12 hours after I’ve eaten. But not that long after I’ve had a cup of tea. And lastly, the weakness, holy crap. This last week, I’ve been asking him to cook/get tea because, and I quote what I said: I feel really weak, and can’t do it. Can you cook something?

And it makes me sound so paranoid, damn it to hell.

Later today, he asked if I’d like another cup of tea. I said sure. And as I handed him the cup, I said; no salt this time, okay? He was like: oh, did I put salt in? My mistake! Then he rambled on for like 2 or 3 minutes, telling me how he’s gotten the cups mixed up before, and have to ‘trade out our cups’, so I didn’t get his. Except, I have never gotten his cup. His physical cup. I’d recognize it. He lied.

I didn’t talk to him about my realizing he was trying to scare me to death (which he quickly gave up on, thankfully) because I didn’t want him to try something else. I didn’t want him to get inventive. But I’m starting to suspect he has, anyway.

As with the scaring me to death thing, salt poisoning can be an ‘accident’, and I think one of his criteria for my death is plausible deniability. It was an accident, officer. I don’t know what happened. *puppy eyes, bubbling sobs of sorrow* I’ve seen this act, he’s pretty good at it.

Attempted murder

It sounds so dramatic. It’s what happens in novels and movies. Maybe something you read in a newspaper. It doesn’t happen to you. And when it’s done in such a way they can look the police in the eye and sound perfectly innocent? Yeah, hysterical woman vs loving, caring man. You know who’s going to be believed.

So how did it happen?

Over the months, I mentioned ‘unexpected noises cause my heart to stop’, but I don’t think he really understood what I meant. Until the day he comes busting into the bedroom* and screams my name. I jump, put my hand on my heart (which had stopped beating) and said: you startled me, my heart stopped, ow!

And the look that came over his face. And Ohhh, realllly, look. Understanding.

And the next day his behavior changed. He took to leaving the bedroom door open (my computer is in the bedroom, so I’m in there a lot), and rather than his usual kick in of the door, would quietly enter the room. Every day, he’d get a little closer before he blew his cover and made a noise. With my back to the door, I wouldn’t see him coming in.

One day he managed to get right behind me without my knowing. It was his 4th attempt. He slapped his hand on my shoulder (never did that before, either) and shouted ‘I just came in to see how you’re feeling’.

But he’d misunderstood what I’d said. It was ‘unexpected noises’ that startled me. Not getting touched. When he slapped his hand on my shoulder, it was nothing. I calmly replied: I’m fine. It’s a good day.

A few days later, he tried again. Only this time, he slapped both hands on each of my shoulders. “Just came to see how you’re doing!” he shouted. “I’m fine, a bit of asthma but nothing unusual.” … totally calm, but I knew what the hell he was doing. That look on his face stayed with me. The change in his behavior.

But you know, if he’d only stuck to his normal way of entering the room, I think it would have worked.

*When entering the room, his right hand pushed down on the handle, but his fingertips stayed on the handle. His left hand, fisted, would slam into the door, sounding like it was getting kicked in. But the right hand slowed the door, so it didn’t hit the wall. He’d then scream my name, in the tone of voice men would use when finding their wives in bed with the postman. Accusing, angry, horrified. Then he’d ask something totally benign. ‘What’s for dinner’ was the usual inquiry. The sudden, unexpected sound of the door getting kicked in always caused my heart to stop. So, yeah, if he’d just kept up his usual routine, it could have worked. And he would have been innocent.

Trying to kill me by scaring me to death. Its childish plan was amusing. Seriously, I found it funny. And he did it in such a way, he could look the police in the eye and say ‘I was just asking her how she was and she just keeled over, officer.’

But this was a straight-up murder attempt.