Having been a year since it landed in the United States, COVID-19 is something we’ve all become well acquainted with. We all know what it is, and what it is supposed to feel like: A cough. A fever. A runny nose. A loss of taste or smell. Sometimes weird sores on the toes. An anvil on the chest. All of those things are true. But knowing those symptoms exist clinically, and becoming intertwined with them are two entirely separate things.
I tested positive on November 20, 2020. A week before, my mother tested positive. Since March, my family and I had taken every precaution. Hell, we probably took more precautions than most people. I didn’t leave my house for at least a month at a time, only to drive around my hometown. I gave up my senior year of college to continue school remotely and to never risk bringing home the disease to my family. To this day, that decision still hurts to my core. But, I know that I did absolutely everything right and that I will never have any regrets of potentially exposing my family to COVID that I could have picked up on campus.
So, I’m sure you’re wondering, “If she did everything she was supposed to, how did she test positive?” I wonder that, too. To this day it’s still a mystery. My family and I hadn’t done anything differently. Things were “normal,” and one day my mom came down with a horrible stomach bug. She got up every fifteen minutes to throw up anything in her system, even if it was nothing. At the time, vomiting wasn’t really considered a common symptom and we thought nothing of it. So I laid in bed next to her, slept next to her, and took care of her throughout the day that cold Saturday. With each new day, she got worse. Her fever reached 104, she started coughing, and we all became wary. Three days later, she just knew. So my dad, mom, and I drove out of state to go get tested. Hers came back positive, and we came home and quarantined her in her bedroom.
That day, I had already begun to feel sick. But considering that I had only just recently become exposed and that the rapid test couldn’t pick up on it yet, I was a sitting duck. It was nearly finals time, that horrible part of the semester where professors drown us in last-minute assignments and papers. Inevitably, my brain got slower, and foggier. My chest got heavier, and breathing got harder. My body began to ache with every subtle movement. I felt the pain in my fingers, my kidneys, my ankles. It felt like my body was beginning to die from the inside out. All I had to do was wait until testing was available near me to feel relief and validation that this was real.
Days go by, and I feel worse and worse. I’m hoping it’s all psychosomatic, that my brain was telling me I felt bad because COVID was literally on the doorstep next to my kitchen. I could see the masks we put on to deliver food to my mom, and the tray we used to bring items in and out of her room. They were seeping with this deadly disease that had killed several hundred thousand people, of course it wasn’t happening.
But oh, it did happen. Six days after my mom’s positive test, I went to an urgent care clinic near my house. When I went in, they told me it’s probably just a sinus infection… that I’ll be just fine. But inevitably my test comes back positive, and they have me leave the building out of the back door within thirty seconds of giving me my results. Funny enough, my dad went to the same exact clinic the day after me, and he tests positive, too. They give him a steroid shot in the butt, and like six different medications, whereas I was told to leave immediately… Tell me again how women aren’t consistently screwed by the medical field.
I go home, and I isolate in my bedroom upstairs. I think that it’s been a week already with it, and that it should be smooth sailing from here. Boy, was I wrong. I wear an Apple Watch to keep track of my pulse ox every few hours to make sure I literally have enough oxygen in my body. I take medications around the clock to ease some of the pain and take my temperature. There’s nothing like downing a shot of robitussin and making sure my temperature is low enough to keep me from needing immediate medical care every four hours.
With each day, my body decayed more and more. It felt like an actual child was sitting on my chest… like an obese toddler who refused to move. I couldn’t think or move without hurting. I coughed so hard and so frequently that my back and chest cried with each movement. My bones and my mattress become one, as my eyes bore into season one of Grey’s Anatomy, because my brain could handle nothing else. Though, McDreamy can always take away some of my pain.
I cried a lot. I laid in bed crying, trying to catch my breath. No matter how I was positioned, no matter how still I was, I could not breathe. I was breathing, and air was entering my lungs through my mouth and throat. But it didn’t reach. It felt like I was motionlessly running a marathon. For half an hour, several times a day, all I did was lay in bed trying to breathe. A function we perform without thinking, in our sleep, was now something I had to actively think about and couldn’t even do if I put in my best effort. That was fucking terrifying. A common experience my mother and I had is that we both went to sleep sometimes, wondering if we would wake up the next morning. Tell me about a time where you felt similarly.
But, things slowly got better. I felt vitality enter my body again, but along came new symptoms. I was nauseous a lot. I had to take a final for one of my major courses, and my professor emailed to ask why I hadn’t logged onto the exam yet. My response was, plainly, “I just left my bathroom from vomiting, logging on now. Sorry for being late!” I did just fine on the exam, but after that, I was bed-ridden all day. My taste and smell had finally vanished. Do you know how weird it is to not know what you smell like? To take a scentless shower? To eat eggs without tasting them? God. That was disgusting.
Like I said, I began to slowly return. But I have never ever been the same: mentally or physically. For a few weeks, I could only work for a total of three hours a day. Then I had to sleep or not move or do nothing. My body was still healing, and it even is today. A few nights ago, months after I’m COVID-free and fully vaccinated, I could finally smell my new body wash. It’s as if my nose was working at a level of 25% this whole time and I didn’t know. I’ve never been slapped across the face with such a strong eucalyptus scent, and that’s something I’ll never forget. Honestly, it was a moment of pure joy. Unfortunately, I can’t smell it anymore. Just that one time last week.
I look at objects, and I know exactly what they are. But I am missing the literal word of what it is. The “radar detector” in my car now is a “radio detector” for a few minutes, until I figure out what the actual word is. I type out texts, and the words are spelled wrong but I can’t figure out why. I spend minutes staring at the word “taught,” wondering why it doesn’t make sense in the sentence I’ve written. The word I mean to type is “thought.” I can’t remember certain things anymore, some of my more insignificant memories are lost. Some days, I walk up the stairs and have to sit down after because I have to catch my breath, or my knees and shins are so sore that even moving just inside of my house hurts. Even writing all of this now, I am unsure if I can remember everything I feel after beating COVID.
At the beginning of the semester, one of my professors was talking about the absurdity of how fast science can change. All of a sudden we have to wear two masks, when a year ago it was probably best that we didn’t wear any so medical professionals could have them. He wasn’t at all dismissive of COVID or what we needed to do to live now, but still, even the discussion caused me a significant level of anxiety. Thinking back on that time is unnerving. Watching Snapchat memories from when I was sick hurts. The fear of going to sleep and never waking up sits with me, and lying absolutely still to catch my breath is a pain I will never forget. I am scarred by the pain and fear I endured.
So, like I said. We all know what COVID is. It’s everything I described it as. But it’s so much more. My body took itself to and fought in a war. My central nervous system is forever altered to the point where I live with only 4 of my senses. I live with the knowledge of feeling what it feels like to be absolutely helpless, as I lie in bed catching my breath wondering, “Is there anyone who can help me?” And knowing the answer was no at the time. Remember this. Don’t become numb to it. Just because I, and many others, survived doesn’t mean that we aren’t paying some price every single day. And no one else should have to endure that. Don’t become complicit.