A Look Inside Testing Positive for COVID-19

 

Picture this: you have been in Athens for six weeks now, social distancing, wearing a mask when you leave your house, using hand sanitizer, and washing your hands regularly. You decide to go home for a long weekend to see your family, but as a precaution, you get tested for COVID-19. You feel fine so there is no way the test will be positive. Except it does.

 

That is what happened to me this last week, and the saying rings true, you never really know how much something will impact you until it does. The fear I felt when I read and re-read the test result caused a giant pit in my stomach. I feared for myself, my family, and anyone I had been in contact with. 

 

Even with all the safety precautions, I was taking I was still exposed. I feel that this has become an issue that needs to be readdressed. COVID-19 is still an active virus and people are still getting it. This means we cannot afford to become lax in being precautious to take care of ourselves and others. 

I was shocked and stunned when I read my results. I could not fathom how I’d been exposed even after all of my precautions. I felt what could be compared to the stages of grief and after I processed my situation I needed to reach out to the proper authorities. Which meant contacting my boss, the OU COVID-19 hotline, and the president of my sorority.

 

Everything was handled so efficiently and quickly; I was very impressed. Like other students I have been receiving emails from the University about their protocols in place, but actually experiencing it and speaking with the people running them was eye-opening. Everyone was on top of making sure I was okay physically and mentally.

 Once all of the proper steps had been taken my mind and time was consumed by my quarantine. Ten full days of isolation. That doesn’t seem like a big deal in the beginning, and I was thinking I don’t mind being alone anyway, I love some quality alone time. I was completely wrong. Choosing to be alone and being forced to stay in one room with no physical contact are two very different scenarios. Add in the fact that I was missing seeing some family from out-of-town and I was heartbroken. 

 

I compensated with FaceTime calls and pictures to make the separation bare able, and I focused on my schoolwork. This helped me get a head in the week with my courses, so then I turned to everyone’s new favorite time consumer; streaming platforms.

 

I delved deep and chose a series on Hulu called Bones which has 12 seasons, plenty of episodes to fill my ten-day quarantine. So, my normal for the next week is completing schoolwork, watching tv, monitoring my health and talking on the phone with loved ones.

Testing positive reminded me that just because we are careful doesn’t mean we are untouchable. I was lucky and my case was very mild when so many others are not. My understanding and perception of this pandemic and the state it has left our country has shifted and adapted since actually having the virus. It became more than just something I am learning about on the news or hearing about statistics in towns, I became a piece of the pandemic narrative.