After over a year of dodging the coronavirus, I thought I was in the clear. I had fully emersed myself back into society after the height of the pandemic and even allowed myself to go to the college bars downtown after a stressful week of schoolwork. It had been almost a year since I allowed myself to get back to life normally and was ready for my fun-filled senior year of college. After allowing myself a long weekend of fun for Halloween I was woken up with a devastating phone call Tuesday morning. I had tested positive for COVID-19 and was in complete shambles. My entire body went cold as the woman on the phone explained what I needed to do over the course of the next 10 days. I began to panic as all these worse-case scenarios started running around in circles in my head. After the phone call with my universities Health & Wellness, I had to call my mom and tell her the bad news. My mom grabbed her chest and let out some tears with me. I was terrified that I wasn’t going to be the same after contracting COVID, and I did not want to spend 10 full days alone in my room. Being away from home and my mom also forced me to put this emotional wall up, and I quickly sunk into an isolation depression.
The first few days were the hardest. I pretty much only got out of bed for some juice or to take a shower which took all the energy I had. I had never felt so tired in my life but knew I had to work on the piles of schoolwork that were sitting on my bedside table. My brain felt like scrambled eggs while my chest felt like it was being set on fire. I spent the majority of the first few days tossing and turning in my bed and being in too much pain to even sleep. After months of hearing about COVID, I really didn’t think it would hit me as hard as everyone says it does. I didn’t expect to feel as down in the dumps and I just wanted to get out of my room.
After another two days went by of me sulking on the phone to my mom and binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy, I started to feel slightly better. My body wasn’t as achy, and I wanted to eat instead of just forcing myself to drink chicken soup. There was some hope at the end of the tunnel when my nose started to unclog, and I could smell things again. I felt a sense of joy when I knew I was getting better because that meant I was closer to getting out of isolation. These days in my room really did a number on my mental health, and I knew I needed a lot of self-care to get me out of this state of mind. I slowly started working my everyday routines back into my schedule, like waking up at a normal time and actually brushing my hair. I began to do small amounts of schoolwork daily in hopes of not falling behind since I missed so much physical class time. It took all 10 days of isolation for me to feel like myself again, and even then, I am not 100% recovered. My body still feels the repercussions of COVID even though I am no longer contagious and am free to enter society once again.
Please wear a mask everyone, this was not a fun experience.