Every time I look in the mirror my face seems smaller. My hair, which I usually keep short, is very thick. It looks as though my head is being swallowed by a Lhaso Apso.

This morning I heard Michael get up. He walked into the living room, then returned to the bedroom. After a few minutes I went in to find him propped up on his pillows reading his Ipad. I put my hand on his forehead to check for a fever (felt normal) and asked if everything was all right. He insisted he was fine. Just felt like relaxing in bed.

I pointed out that this kind of somnolence is a bad precedent. In quarantine, we need at least some sort of shape to our days and we wouldn’t get that by spending the day in bed. I was going to toast him a bagel with artichoke spread and would put it on his desk. If he wanted it, he could go there.

He’s now at his desk eating his bagel and typing away.

This is the time of year when we usually get our check-ups, and even before the pandemic that made me uneasy. I have long considered myself a borderline hypochondriac. I once convinced myself, via a Facebook post, that I had cancer of the tongue because I had an allergic reaction to a mouthwash our dentist had given me.

Now I’m going to have to go get my blood drawn in a couple of weeks for my yearly lab work, and I dread going to that crowded, dirty little office downtown. Michael, in the meantime, is due for some yearly tests and has to find a new specialist because his physician abruptly retired last January. Everything has to be done and seems twice as complicated. Nail biting time.