I've long thought Thanksgiving is an underappreciated holiday, sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas. I especially feel that way since the 2020 Thanksgiving I spent battling COVID-19 at a hospital intensive care unit in a small northern Colorado town where hardly anyone knew my name.

Don't get me wrong: There are worse places to die than Loveland, an economical alternative for those who love Colorado's scenery and lifestyle, but can't afford to pay Denver or Boulder housing prices.

Still, I wasn't expecting COVID-19 to jump up and grab me the way it did, transforming itself almost overnight from an abstract topic I was covering as a journalist into a bitter enemy that came close to strangling the life out of me.

All of this happened five years ago, before the days when COVID-19 vaccines or even nonexperimental treatment drugs were available. The week before Thanksgiving, my then-wife and I both started coming down with symptoms at almost the same time.

The first couple of days I had COVID ‒ actually, before the test results were back that confirmed I had it ‒ the disease didn't seem like that big of a deal. I was sick enough to know it was right to stay home from work, but I felt no worse than if I was dealing with a bad head cold.

Then, the Friday night before Thanksgiving week, I took a turn for the worse. My fever spiked during the night, and I woke up struggling for breath. The mucus that had slowly been building up in my throat was........

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