Comorbidity! Now there is a word with which most of us were unfamiliar until about March of last year Now it is tossed around as much as, well, pandemic, which tells us that COVID-19 has altered our vocabulary.
It is a worrisome word, comorbidity as its root, morbidity, which for those of us who have been around the health care block many times, know only too well. As we turned the corners of this “block” we seemed to have picked up more than one morbidity. If you only have one morbidity, you are “less better off” than someone with no morbidity, but better off than people with more than one of these morbidity things. These are tortuous sentences, but the best I can do with all of my comorbidities.
When I was a much younger me, I remember filling out one of those patient forms that ask you to check the boxes next to diseases or conditions that have affected you. Then, all of the boxes would remain blank. There is also a space to list any surgeries that you have had. Besides, a tonsillectomy … I had none.
Things changed, and now it takes a half hour to check all the relevant boxes and extra paper to list the surgeries. If there was space for comments, who knows how long it would take to complete.
If I were to add up my comorbidities, I would have to estimate, given that I want to exclude things like my constant sinus problems and my extra pounds, I count about six, with two tentatively waiting in the diagnostic wings. Yes, six, which means that, in the world of vulnerability to errant viruses, I might as well paint a big red target on my back.
Since I know a lot of people who have been around the same comorbid block as the one I have traveled, I would estimate that a lot of my contemporaries and those approaching being a contemporary are the poster children for susceptibility. Huzzah! Just another unexpected benefit of being in the golden years.
I long for the days when I only had one morbidity, the result of falling off a trampoline as a teen. Ah, to only have an intermittent back ache.
The word itself – co-morbidity – holds the prefix co right up there in the front of morbidity, relating to other co words such as co-operate, co-llaborate, co-ordinate, colleague, collegial…etc.
Comorbidity’s role during this pandemic is another way of highlighting what a society is all about. In a society, because we live with others, it is necessary to remember that everything is not about you, but about all of us who depend on each other, whether economically, socially or psychologically. It’s the co part that we need to focus on. Because unless we are hermits, we are cohabitating our spaces in stores, churches, schools, etc. and that is where the comorbidity thing becomes critical.
While I am awaiting the announcement of new morbidities and contributing to the bottom line of several health care providers, I am depending on the rest of my world to emphasize the “co” part. I will do what I should, when I know what that is. I ask you to do what you can, just as I would do for you.
Waiting for a nicer word to inhabit my vocabulary.
