Joy thief
If you’re like me, sometime in the past eight months, you’ve entertained the thought that you just might not mind getting the virus and getting it over with. I did, plenty of times, even as my family and I took strenuous steps to avoid it.
The sentiment is fairly common whether it manifests itself as college students contemplating the idea of “Covid parties” or people who proclaim that they refuse to live in fear of getting the virus.
Here’s the thing. You don’t get to choose when it infects you and you have no idea how it will affect you. In my role as a writer for a business publication, I’ve listened to the last two community conversations led by one of our area’s health care organizations. “This virus is an equal-opportunity invader,” ThedaCare CEO Imran Andrabi said. “It doesn’t differentiate between who you are, what your political views are, what you think, what you don’t think. All it’s looking for is the next host.”
And it’s true. The virus didn’t care that my husband was already recovering from carpal tunnel surgery and that I was taking on extra work in our home in the face of that. It didn’t care that he’s scheduled to have surgery on the other hand and that I’m scheduled for a one-year follow-up procedure that’s already been making me anxious. It didn’t care that we are already filled up on adversity at the moment, thanks just the same.
I could not have conceived how getting the virus would make me feel, the anxiety that would set in about how it would play out, the bone-crushing exhaustion that comes for me every day, going on nine days into this. I’m someone who thrives on activity. I’m a long-distance runner, a miles-a-day walker, a yogi, a Pilates practitioner, and friends, this has laid me low like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
And I cannot begin to describe the anguish that has come with losing my sense of taste and smell. It began when the balsamic reduction on my portabella sandwich tasted like metal. By the next morning, my sense of smell quickly faded to non-existent. I walked around the house like a lunatic, testing out my olfactory sense with deep whiffs of vanilla, cinnamon and coffee. I came up blank. When I eat, I can distinguish between major flavor profiles, but the nuances are completely dulled, and eating has become joyless. I’ve abandoned my beloved morning coffee, which tastes like little more than a mug of steaming water.
The crowning experience of this whole time came today, when I had to submit to a second Covid test in anticipation of the EGD I’m supposed to have on Tuesday. A year ago, I was diagnosed with a condition called Barrett’s Esophagus, and it’s time for a follow-up. I thought I knew what I was in for with this test. “This a nasopharyngeal swab,” the tech said. “Have you had one before?” No big deal, I thought. I have a high threshold for discomfort.
She instructed me to put my head back and said she would have to swab around for 10 seconds. She tried one nostril, then the other. Both were so swollen from a week and a half of cold and sinus symptoms, she could scarcely do the test. It was the free prefrontal lobotomy I never wanted and it practically stunned me into involuntary tears.
So, if you’ve contemplated that you might not mind just getting it over with, please know, you do not want this virus. You do not want to have to go through the disruption, the discomfort and the anxiety. Know what it is and what it can do and that if you’re handling the situation correctly, your life will likely grind to a halt for around a month, best-case scenario. Understand all of this, and please appropriately avoid this virus like the plague it is.
