Cop Car's Beat

COVID City, a reprise

CAUTION: This narrative chronicles one family's experience and should not be considered advice in anyone's case! I'm an engineer, not a medical professional!

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of having to live with COVID. As previously stated, Hunky Husband first showed symptoms of COVID-19 on 9 January - two days after his annual wellness check. According to the CDC's Isolation and Exposure Tool (that has been re-installed on the CDC website), in the absence of fever (and having used no medications to reduce fever), the person with COVID-19 should be able to break isolation without masking 10 days after first symptoms - 19 January for HH. Note that this presupposes two negative antigen tests at 48-hour intervals. I did not, on the advice of Dr N, give HH further testing. Dr N said that HH could test positive for days/weeks/months without it meaning anything.

By 24 January, I decided that if I was ever going to contract COVID-19 from HH, I should have done it by then - 15 days after first symptoms. At that point, I resumed sleeping with HH (how titillating!) The next day, I started coughing and had a sore throat. I tested negative. On th 26th, I felt worse and had headache, became bilious, and had a "fever". (Two degrees above one's normal is considered a "fever" in us oldsters - my actual temperature once measured 100.1 degrees F for a short period of time.) On 27 January I repeated testing and had a strong positive indication.

At 6:53am, I left a message for Dr A's nurse at our medical clinic, outlining my experience and asking advice. When four hours had passed without a call-back, I started getting pissed.

Note on HH's dementia: He obsesses. Have I told you that? He couldn't keep in mind that I was ill (and he asked, "Where do you think you got it?" completely losing memory of his recent bout with COVID) and he obsessed over feeling powerless to help me. He wanted to take me to the doctor's office, which I would not do without being told to go there. Eventually, HH was really in a tizzy. He wanted to take me to the hospital.

 

Since, at that point, I had tried every way I knew to get a real person on the clinic's phone and since it was getting about closing time for the practice, I called our pharmacy, Derby Drug that is in the same building. Nearly all of the people at the pharmacy have dealt with HH and me enough to know who we are. Alexa answered. "Is the clinic next door to you open today?" Alexa said, "Yes". I explained the situation to her. "Let me do some checking with them for you. I'll call you back." When she got back to me, Alexa said that Dr A's nurse had already left for the day, but that she was advised to have me go to their associated urgent care clinic that is in the same building - open 4pm-10pm. HH and I hustled ourselves and our double masks out to the urgent care clinic.

The wait was for an hour, but the nurse practitioner (AP RN) Halsey and her assistant took good care of us. Nurse H sent prescriptions to our pharmacy, and we left. 

Well, the pharmacy didn't stock what Nurse H had prescribed - Ritonavir, one of the components of Paxlovid. (Ritonavir-Boosted Nirmatrelvir is Paxlovid. Nirmatrelvir, has a known interaction with statin drugs, one of which I take.) The only place in the area that seemed to stock Ritonavir, alone, would be a 40- or 50-mile round trip for pickup. At 6:03pm, having been sent home by the Mercedes while she and Nurse H worked it all out, I received a phone call from her. Dr H had prescribed a different antiviral, Molnupiravir, which Mercedes had on hand. If I wished to pick up my prescriptions she would remain there until I arrived - the pharmacy was technically closed at 6:00pm. I thanked Mercedes but told her that I would be there at 9:00am, the 28th - today, when the pharmacy opened.

All is well. I have taken my first dose of each prescription and, I'm sure, will be feeling chipper and well by tomorrow. Ah, yes, wishful thinking. Don't rain on my parade. 

 

 

I've progressed from the coughing stage to the sneezing and runny nose stage. It makes it hard to cook, but that's where frozen meals come in. One meal that is supposed to feed one person is more than enough for the both of us. As retirees (HH for over 28 years, and I for nearly 19 years), we are just happy to be alive.

 

As I had told Nurse Hadley, I am just happy that HH and I had escaped contracting COVID-19 until we had been able to acquire five preventive shots, each. Had we gone through COVID-19 three years ago, we would perhaps be dead, now. (Nurse H said that she wasn't allowed to say that, but I am not bound by any board.)

 

COVID City (last update 1/23/2023)

Interesting things abound when it comes to my testing Hunky Husband and me for COVID-19. First, when I picked up the Paxlovid and Prednisone for HH, the pharmacy also gave me four boxes of home test kits for HH. They alerted me to the fact that the kits had an expiry date that had passed, but that the effective date had been extended by six months. (The extension of such test kit expiry dates may be checked online. The last kits for which I checked had NOT been extended, so I pitched them.)

The first photo shows the difference in expiration dates as marked on the box and as marked on the little packets that contain the vials of reagent. (I barely got the date on the box in the photo - at the very top edge.) The second photo shows the contents of one box, each box containing two kits.

 

 

I gave each of us a test on Monday per the tool that had been on the CDC website (which was taken down!) - the results shown, below. HH's result is shown in the upper part of the photo; mine, in the lower.

The instructions with each kit caution that a minimum amount of reagent is required to obtain valid testing. As it turns out, each vial of reagent was short - I assume from having been on the shelf too long. Thus, for each test I had to use the contents of two vials of reagent. We have pieces and parts left over. Most of the pieces and parts that were left over from the first four boxes of test kits are shown in the next photo. Anyone want spare parts?

By the way, HH is still testing positive, today - weakly, but positive. I did not bother taking another test, myself, as I am asymptomatic. According to the CDC tool (no longer available), I need to test a few days after my last known exposure.

The pharmacy checked and were able to give me another set of test kits, in my name, without charge to me. Like the first batch of tests, the expiration dates on the boxes do not match the expiration dates on the packets with the vials of reagent. It may come down to buying more kits, but we won't starve because we have to pay for the kits!

Which reminds me to share with you that HH is already groaning over taxes. I keep telling him that it's not a big deal since we now have Robert, of H&R Block, do our taxes, but it's just the idea, I guess. I downloaded most of our Form 1099s this morning. I wasn't sleeping and what else should I be doing at 3am??

ADDITION of 1/20/2023 - No steak for us!

Hunky Husband was severely disappointed, this morning, to learn that we are not through with testing. He can't keep it in mind that he must have two negative tests before we break his isolation and I must have two negative tests after the last positive test that HH has. I promised him that if he got a negative test this morning I would pick us up a steak and we would celebrate. ("I'm not hungry!" said he.) HH's test is at the top in the next photo while mine is at the bottom. (I had taken my test before HH arose, this morning.) I noticed that each test of this set of test kits, although dated the same as kits in the previous set, includes a sufficient quantity of reagent in one vial - barely.

I think that HH's viral load is asymptotically approaching zero. Aaargh! He'll never get there! If he hasn't tested negative by the time he sees his physician on Monday, I'll ask if we should have him tested for real - not just an at-home test.

ADDITION of 1/23/2023 - Surprise

It was a surprise to me when HH started coughing, again, Saturday afternoon and continued throughout the night. Even more surprising was his test result on Sunday morning (photo, below). Testing is, again, showing strongly positive for HH.

HH had scheduled an appointment with his primary care physician for this morning - to check for permanent damage to his heart. While online, early this morning, I ran across an article in Scientific American concerning "Paxlovid Rebound" which, to my own satisfaction at least described HH's situation perfectly. Regardless, we did keep the appointment with Dr N.

• Dr Niederee says that testing beyond 10 days after first positive test is a waste of time and resources – CDC has changed their recommendations. (The CDC tool that I had been using as guidance had been taken down from their web site a few days ago, as mentioned above.)
• Those who contract COVID-19 can test positive for weeks/months or a year.
• HH’s heart and lungs passed muster. He will notice that his endurance is less, but he should push himself just a little bit in exercising. Continue Vitamin B & Zinc for about a month.
• I should stop testing myself unless I become symptomatic.
• No follow-up appointment required. He'll see HH in a year for his annual wellness check.

I asked about canceling the neurological appointment (Dr N had referred HH in response to my question about suitability of Leqembi for HH, and the consultant wasn't available until 5/1/2023.) Dr N was all for that. “Let [HH]’s body tell you his needs.” I’m not sure what that means, but I will cancel the neurological appointment (Leqembi isn’t yet available, anyway, as it turns out).

Yesterday introduced more excitement into our lives.

Routinely, Hunky Husband sneezes a lot (a bout of fewer than 7 sneezes doesn't count!) and coughs a moderate amount. He always ascribes the coughing to the nearly-40 years that he spent polluting his lungs with cigarette smoke - unfiltered Lucky Strikes, no less. Monday night was different. He coughed - a bunch! Since Elder Brother is coming down off of a horrid cold, I accepted it when, in the middle of Monday night, HH complained that he was coming down with a cold. 

 

During Tuesday, HH coughed, but not enough to get my attention. Came Tuesday night, the barrage of coughs hit, again. In the morning, I hunted up our thermometers and took HH's temperature - 98 degrees F. As his temperature had been 98.3 degrees at the doctor's office on Saturday, that seemed normal. However, I did some research on COVID-19 symptoms, having had them slide out of my mind during the past couple of years, and discovered that if a person is fully vaccinated, s/he is unlikely to run a fever upon contracting COVID-19. I gave HH a home test. Immediately, the second line showed up - strongly - so (don't ask me why) I took a test, myself. Negative.

I called HH's primary care physician's (Dr N's) office, leaving his test status and vital numbers - 98 degrees, 152/87, 107 bpm, 90% oxygenation. In about 4.5 hours (well...the COVID-19 wasn't going anywhere!) she called back to say that Dr N wished to see HH and transferred me to the person who would make an appointment. HH saw his physician at about 5pm. The result is that he was given prescriptions for Paxlovid and a steroid. Fortunately, when I picked up the prescriptions for HH (after taking HH home I returned to the pharmacy's drive-up window), the pharmacist's assistant thought to ask me if Dr N had given us instructions on HH's taking the pills. No, he had not - Dr N had merely told us what he was prescribing, and that Vitamin D and Zinc might be helpful. Upshot: HH has three horse-dose-sized pills to take morning and evening plus two large round pills to take with the morning dose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Per the suggestion at the Pharmacy, I gave one of the steroid pills to HH last evening before bed and started HH's 5-day regimen this morning. Little did I know what a struggle it would be to get the pills into HH. It took at least 20 minutes to convince him to take them. Having grown up helping at his dad's pharmacy and having taken one year of pharmacy school, HH doesn't trust me when it comes to medications. Oh, no. It's OK that I advise/do for him when it comes to finances, but not medications. He read and re-read the instructions printed on the box/blister cards/vial, muttering about how it didn't make sense and was ridiculous. His dementia just wasn't letting the message get through to him. Thirty minutes after he (finally) took the pills, HH came in to charm me with his apology. Even (or, especially) with his dementia, HH recognizes when he has been difficult and apologizes for it. He takes after his dad that way! 

If it doesn't rain, trees need to be watered.

We've been in drought conditions since early last summer, so I've been having to water the trees that I've planted/had planted within the past five years. Normally, I've tried to water them deeply, once each month. I did not get it done in December - mostly because the hoses were frozen up and I'm not hale enough to carry 20-30 gallons to each of the dozen trees. (In writing that sentence, I just realized there is a cluster of very small trees in the front yard that I'm ignoring. Shoot!) Monday and Tuesday, I watered the trees and the roses in the bed that I try to keep for Hunky Husband.

The following photo shows, in the foreground, the tree stump that I had saved last fall when the tree guys were here. I had thought it a good place to feed the squirrels. They agreed, but I've not had to feed them at all. They gather black walnuts from the ground near the woods, taking them up on the tree stump "table" to shell and eat them.

In the background of the photo appear six of the trees that I watered.

The second photo shows a scattering of black walnuts - the little black balls on the ground. I did absolutely no gathering up of the nuts, this year, making it somewhat hazardous to walk in our far back yard. Things are tough all over. I can no longer keep up with the yard work.

Summary of the Week

Get-together Fizzled

We had planned to have a family get-together, today - Pizza Friday on a Saturday. Alas, it is not to be. The first to bow out was Elder Brother who was intelligent enough to have been spooked by the weather forecasts for Colorado. He would have been driving through areas that received over 12"of snow getting here, and possible blizzard conditions are forecast for his expected trek homeward. Next to bow out was Wonderful GrandDaughter and her boys, for possible exposure to COVID-19 (they are thoughtful enough not to wish to kill us old, old folks off by passing it along.) It is possible that Dudette and WichiDude may drop in to see us today or tomorrow, but we are all playing it by ear.

No, I do not play the guitar. The above graphic is just what I happened to pick up.

Flapper Valve

Something that could have happened while Elder Brother would have been staying with us involved the guest bathroom. Yesterday, the flapper valve in the toilet tank gave up the ghost. Fortunately, I am in the habit of keeping at least one new flapper valve on hand and was able to replace the dead flapper without having to make a run to the plumbing supply store in Wichita.

C-17 Jigsaw Puzzle

On Tuesday, Hunky Husband inserted the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle that The Chef had sent him. Completing the sky was just plain drudgery.

Down the Drain

People sometimes toast, informally, by saying, "Down the hatch!" This past week I finished the job of sending Hunky Husband's old store of wine "down the drain". For the past two or three years, I've been trying to off-load HH's stash of wine and liquor, for free, to anyone who wanted it. To no avail. I know, I know, good old wine is worth money. None of these wines was anything special to start with. The wines are now all gone, excepting one bottle of Riesling from 2011 that I am drinking - a couple of ounces per day. (With my floppy heart valve(s), my physician doesn't wish me to drink alcohol - with which all of my physicians have agreed since about 1985.)

Although I know the conditions under which the wines have been stored since we moved here in late 1999, I don't know the conditions under which the wines were stored for the first 10-20 years of their lives. The corks proved to be badly deteriorated. Most crumbled at the touch of a corkscrew, only one (vintage 1985) having been extracted whole. The 2011 Riesling cork came out in two pieces. BTW: A cherry wine from Denmark (vintage early 1980s) smelled wonderful.

There are but a few more bottles of liquor to be dumped.

A Shirt that I Like

Closing out the weekend

Emergency Crews

There was some excitement on our street, Christmas Eve. I still don't know what was happening. I had peered out our dining room window to see where the fire truck, whose siren I heard, had stopped. The two fire trucks were there for an hour, the two police cars were there for another 30 minutes, and I lost track of what was going on with the ambulance and whatever the other ambulance-sized truck was when I closed the front blinds for the day at about 5:30pm. The action was two doors west of us.

Hunky Husband and I had asked our local family to excuse us from participating in plans they might make for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Dudette and Wichidude dropped Christmas cards off to us early in the day, Saturday.

Old Friend Found

Back in the days during which I was just getting started with volunteering with the American Red Cross, one of the up-and-comers in our 4-state region was Jono Anzalone - a super guy who helped me get the training I needed and saw to it that I quickly advanced to being a manager in providing liaison with FEMA and other governmental agencies. As the years went by, Jono went down to Panama with the International Red Cross, served a stint as a FEMA person in our 4-state region, and came back to the Red Cross in increasingly lofty positions. Once Hunky Husband and I retired from Red Cross work (HH served with them for 20 years - mostly directing disaster responses - while I had served about 14 years in various liaison roles) we rather lost track of some of our fast-moving friends, such as Jono.

On Christmas day, I happened to think of Jono and being otherwise unbusy looked him up on my iPhone. Imagine my delight in finding that Jono is now with another non-profit organization, The Climate Initiative. Jono had participated in a recent conference in Boulder, Colorado, the website from which the following is excerpted.

Jono Anzalone is the executive director of The Climate Initiative (TCI), a nonpartisan organization that aims to inspire, educate and empower 10 million youth around climate action by 2025. He joined TCI after a long tenure at the Red Cross, where he started as a youth volunteer in 1994 in Omaha, Nebraska.

Most recently, Anzalone served as the head of disaster and crisis preparedness, response, and recovery for the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and Red Crescent Societies for the Americas and Caribbean region, based in Panama. He also served as the vice president of international services at the American Red Cross based out of Washington, D.C. Anzalone’s hundreds of national and international disaster assignments with the American Red Cross, IFRC and International Committee of the Red Cross have led him to serve in places such as Mexico, Belize, Suriname, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Liberia (for the Ebola crisis) and Haiti, to aid the United States Agency on International Development (USAID) after the 2010 Haiti earthquake and lead donation management activity. Anzalone served as the advocacy committee chair for the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (National VOAD) from 2012 to 2015 and is the vice chair of the Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF+).

Anzalone graduated from Creighton University with a BA in political science; the University of Nebraska with an MS in economics and a doctorate in educational leadership and higher education; and completed the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative program at Harvard University. He has earned the International Association of Emergency Management Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) credential and, in 2017, was named the Meta-Leader of the Year by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Kennedy School of Government National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. Since 2003, Anzalone has held teaching appointments in economics, disaster management and leadership at colleges and universities across the country.

Most amazing, for those of us who met Jono, later, was the fact that Jono had spent his first 5-8 years out of college, in banking. Well...his MS is in economics.

Jigsaw Puzzle from The Chef

Once HH and I completed the C-17 aircraft part of the puzzle, we rather lost interest. Now, if we add two or three pieces of sky in a day, we are satisfied.

Christmas Dinner

Hunky Husband and I shared a fillet mignon and baked potato, topping it off (after HH's nap) with a piece of pecan pie. Please note that 1) I took the photo of the meat and potato before cooking. (While cooking I don't have time to worry about photos.) and 2) I used Marie Calendar's frozen pie crusts. She does so much better with pie crusts than do I - and it's so much easier. She makes the rim of the crust quite thick, not only adding to its strength, but keeping it from burning or requiring shielding during part of the baking process. I did wet the rim of the crusts, just to ensure no burning.

You may subtract points from my photo presentations for lack of better composition - lol.

We heard from everybody! Texts from the local family and phone calls from Bogie, The Chef, and Elder Brother. Having begged off from getting together with the local family this once, we hope to see them this coming weekend.

Happy Holidays

"The following video contains effects that may affect photosensitive viewers** Happy Holidays! Chief Bernadette DiPino and the men and women of the Sarasota Police Department wish you a safe and peaceful holiday season." So was written on YouTube a couple of years ago. I don't recall how first I found the video, but I thought it cute. I do have to reduce my monitor from a full-screen display to a shared-screen display when viewing the video, embedded below. As a migraine sufferer of many years' standing (although, I've had very, very few recently), I found the full-screen display to be bothersome.

 

Hunky Husband opens presents from his sister, The Chef

The Chef and her husband sent us a package of goodies - delivered by the USPS on a day that demonstrated adherence to their motto*. Inside the package was a jigsaw puzzle custom made from a C-17 photo taken by The Chef's younger son and two small tins of sweets made by The Chef. (The Chef is employed as head pastry chef at one of the upper scale restaurants in St Louis MO.) Note that HH is wearing the heated jacket about which I wrote earlier, today, below.

I sent the above photo to The Chef with thanks. As it happened, she and her husband were on their way to their younger son's home in the Chicago area. The son had driven to St Louis to take them to his home for Christmas. She said that they were driving through fairly heavy snow (at highway speeds, that needn't be terribly much snow, I'm thinking.) I know that The Chef is thrilled that she gets to see the son, the daughter-in-law, and the two young adult grandsons. Although she and her husband are younger than am I, they are still over age 80.

Note to Family: HH's Swiss Army knife, which he used in opening the outer packages, sits at the left edge of the photo. An item that HH habitually carries, it belonged to his younger sister.

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* While the Postal Service has no official motto, the popular belief that it does is a tribute to America’s postal workers. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”— is not the official Postal Service motto though it appears chiseled in gray granite over the entrance of the James A. Farley building at Eighth Avenue and 33d Street in Manhattan.

The phrase comes from book 8, paragraph 98, of The Persian Wars by Herodotus, a Greek historian. During the wars between the Greeks and Persians (500-449 B.C.), the Persians operated a system of mounted postal couriers who served with great fidelity.

The firm of McKim, Mead & White designed the Post Office, which opened to the public on Labor Day in 1914. One of the firm’s architects, William Mitchell Kendall, was the son of a classics scholar and read Greek for pleasure. He selected the “Neither snow nor rain …” inscription, which he modified from a translation by Professor George Herbert Palmer of Harvard University, and the Post Office Department approved it.

The popular belief that Herodotus’s description of the Persian postal service was about USPS is a tribute to the men and women who have delivered mail reliably and dependably, through all conditions, for centuries. #USPS240

Author: Denise Varano

A little early - wintry blast

Hunky Husband and I stayed abed, this morning, not arising until about 8am. We had been preparing and the wintry blast had hit. The first thing that happened was an emergency weather alert on our phones. It was terser than the wind chill warning shown, below.

I looked out the dining room window, espying our newspaper being blown directly up our driveway toward the house. I threw on my robe and my slides, opened the garage door nearest to the street, and scratched my head. I saw no newspaper. I let the wind blow me back to the back edge of the parking apron in order to scan the back yard. No paper. I walked out toward the street (gritting my teeth and girding my loins), finding the newspaper in the front lawn. Aha! A little gust had shifted the newspaper's course.

Wichita's current weather conditions:

 

Our own outdoor thermometer reads -3 degrees Fahrenheit (it read -1 when I arose.) We haven't received much snow, nor are we expecting to do so, but the wind is blowing enough that our neighbor's flag is flapping straight out, confirming the 15mph wind speed in the above image. I should add that this weather is anything but unusual for Kansas winters. It is a bit earlier in the season than we would normally expect to be hit by an Arctic air mass blast.

The next photo of our bird feeders, snapped from the kitchen bay window, actually includes a pair of northern cardinals. I don't yet know how to zoom in, using my iPhone, so the cardinals are invisible in the photo. (I need to learn how to zoom!)

As HH said this morning, "We have cookies and brownies and wine...we're good to hunker down." Dudette, via text message, said, "Love the nutrition there! But, he's not wrong!" Dudette and WichiDude (and Wonderful GrandDaughter) are experiencing the same weather as they are but 16 and 17 miles mostly north of us, respectively. I can't guess how intense will be Bogie's bout with this weather event. Bogie will surely keep us updated on her blog.

Speaking of Dudette: Dudette gave HH a heated jacket a couple of weeks ago. When she had asked him if he would like a heated jacket a few weeks ago, I was (silently) skeptical. HH has rarely been fond of change and with his deepening dementia, I wasn't sure how well he would take to that change.

Like a house afire! HH wears that jacket most of each day. He's even gotten the knack of turning the electrical controls on/off and setting it to the temperature he wants (usually "low", but sometimes "medium" or "hot".) You can see that I set the controls on "low" for the photo by the blue glow on the chest. Some evenings, with a bit of coaching, HH even puts the battery on its charger, himself.

The battery is kept in an inside, zippered pocket of the jacket.

The battery power lasts for about 10 hours if the setting is "low", and is fully charged in about five hours. HH finds the jacket delightful!

I'll miss reading his weekly column - Leonard Pitts Jr

Thursday, December 15, 2022 - Retirement of a favored syndicated columnist

There is no columnist (or person, for that matter) with whom I have ever completely agreed - my being a dedicated contrarian. One whose weekly column I have long appreciated, though, is Leonard Pitts Jr whose column in this morning's The Wichita Eagle announced his retirement from writing his weekly opinion column. I'll miss his thoughtful approach to his subjects - and his humor. I hope that he enjoys the retirement on which he embarks. Mr Pitts announced his intention to spend more time writing books to add to the few that he has already had published, about which I was ignorant (or about which I had forgotten, at least.) The following excerpt is from this morning's column. I found the paragraph to be amusing.

"Thanks to a bunch of people – and so long! By Leonard Pitts Jr: Miami Harold"

....

"Thanks to Judi Smith. My former assistant retired in 2019, but still insists on proofreading the column. I will miss sparring with her over what does and does not constitute an extraneous comma. I wrote this, sentence just, for her."

....

Excerpts from Wikipedia*:

Leonard Pitts

Leonard Garvey Pitts Jr. (born October 11, 1957)^[1] is an American commentator, journalist, and novelist. He is a nationally syndicated columnist^[2] and winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. He was originally hired by the Miami Herald to critique music, but quickly received his own column, in which he has dealt extensively with race, politics, and culture from a progressive perspective.^[3]Raised in Los Angeles and educated at the University of Southern California, Pitts currently lives in Bowie, Maryland. He has won awards for his writing from the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and the National Association of Black Journalists, and he was first nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1993, eventually claiming the honor in 2004.^[4]Pitts is a bestselling author. His first book, Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood, was published in 2006. His first novel, Before I Forget, was released in March 2009, and earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly. The novel centers on a faded soul singer whose early-onset Alzheimer's disease compels him to reconnect with his father and son. Pitts's third book, Forward from This Moment: Selected Columns, 1994–2008, was published in August 2009. It is a selection of his columns from the Miami Herald.Pitts gained national recognition for his widely circulated column of September 12, 2001, "We'll go forward from this moment", in which he described the toughness of the American spirit in the face of the September 11 attacks.^[5]

 

^{_____________________________________________}References

1. 1. ^ "Leonard Pitts". Who's Who Online.
   2. ^ "Leonard Pitts Jr. columns". Tribune Content Agency. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
   3. ^ Pitts, Leonard Jr. (April 4, 2016). "Column: So, Leonard Pitts, are you liberal or are you conservative?". Miami Herald.
   4. ^ Fish, Stanley (March 14, 2011). "So's Your Old Man". The New York Times. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
   5. ^ Pitts, Leonard Jr. (September 12, 2001). "We'll Go Forward From This Moment". Miami Herald.

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*    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/