Fictions and Facts
Six months ago today,
it was just a runny nose....
I have never been a
super-well person. I pick up most viruses and infections if exposed. Stomach
bugs have always been my specialty though. If whatever was going around
involved vomiting, my body sought it out like a brand new Air B&B owner looking for their first guest; inviting it to take up residence for however long it needed to
make me feel like death.
Colds and sinus
infections are tied for second place. I have been severely congested so often that
I actually had to retrain myself to breathe through my nose. I literally forgot
I could do that. Christmas 1996, the first year I had my own apartment, my mom
brought out a huge gift bag for me. My excitement was short lived. I removed
the tissue paper and saw a bulk package of Kleenex boxes. Twenty-five years
later, she hasn’t missed a Christmas.
I am no stranger to sickness;
neither are my children. They inherited an impressive number of my genes. From the
common cold to Norwalk, they’ve had it all. I've cleaned up every possible bodily
fluid from every possible body in every possible corner of my house. Kids are
gross.
In January 2020, my
husband and I were marveling at how long it had been since I had been sick.
By March, COVID had hit
one of the programs in my district. I worked as a Direct Support Professional
for many years, but in 2018, I began my career on the other side of support notes. Trading in my med cupboard keys for a laptop
keyboard, I got an office job.
March 15
An outbreak was declared, and I was redeployed. I was eager to help. I felt well-prepared and unconcerned.
March 18
I set up a testing appointment for a few days later. Not because I was worried, not because I was sick. I had just been exposed. I was wearing all of my PPE and washing the skin off my hands, but I just felt it was the next thing to do.
March 19
I don’t like the
feeling that I am being questioned, judged, scrutinized, compared, or diminished.
I equally don’t like
the feeling that I am being exemplified, heroized, or pitied.
I shy away from
sharing my experience because any little bit that I have shared has been
interpreted with bias, in a plethora of ways, rarely in the way I intended.
I will not share an opinion on COVID, vaccines, or politics. One's opinion rarely sways another's.
I will only share my story.
Take from
it what you will.
On March 19, as I reached for that first Christmas Kleenex, I was convinced it was psychological.
Then this.
And again, and again.
By the end of the week, I had to reveal to 5 of the 6 other people living in my
house that they had COVID. My husband, my pregnant daughter, and the 3 younger
children had all tested positive for a COVID-19 variant.
I was slightly more concerned.
As the days wore on,
we started to feel worse. I could describe the litany of physical symptoms we endured,
but honestly, they have become sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. People have heard
the list time and time again. We went through them all in varying degrees. I CAN
tell you that at different intervals, 4 of us thought we would die…. or wanted
to.
I am no stranger to
sickness, but this sickness was strange.
As difficult as the
physical symptoms were, the rarely discussed psychological symptoms are
the kicker.
This is where my battle
lies.
I have lasting
physical effects I’m not sure will ever heal. The ice in my chest remains to
this day. Singing is reserved for Sundays only because my breath only supports
4 songs max.
However, it was the
affect it had on my mind that bothered me most.
I couldn’t form full
sentences. I would sit with my phone in my hand trying to remember how to answer
the question, “How are you?”
While I was fighting
to breathe, I kept thinking “Do we own a gun? Even if we do,
does it have bullets?”
I watched my oldest daughter struggling to stand due to excruciating muscle pain, fever, and extra pounds of baby weight.
I helped my incapacitated, asthmatic husband perform personal hygiene. Eventually, I called 911 and watched him being loaded into the ambulance on oxygen.
My youngest daughter couldn’t walk by my bedroom; not because the sounds of wheezing and coughing bothered her, but because when we finally fell asleep their absence made her think we were dead. She couldn’t look.
I received word that my father-in-law was admitted to hospital for a minimum of 2 weeks.
I was struck with the overwhelming thought that
I had done this to them.
Their suffering was my fault.
The guilt crushed me.
In the aftermath,
when I was able to walk, string together coherent thoughts, and remember
passwords, I logged in to my various socials.
Debating my PPE proficiency.
Deciphering what Public Health’s recommendations to my family actually were and how they were probably most definitely wrong,
Was it really that bad anyway or just my contribution to the proliferation of a hoax?
For these reasons, I have stayed silent:
unwillingness to endure unsolicited comments that could be hurtful,
unwillingness to be used as proof of survival rate,
unwillingness to be heralded a spokesperson for the evils of the virus or the virtues of a vaccine.
Mostly because -- regardless on which side of the debate one stands -- people can be mean.
Here is what I am
willing to contribute:
I was sick.
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