Sick Of Feeling Sick
I'm here to document the misery of this summer’s nasty respiratory virus. I caught it while traveling, and it’s taken me DOWN. Instead of wallowing, I'm choosing to write this beast out. Wish me luck.
I first start feeling sick while traveling in — of all places — Carefree, Arizona.
The initial throat tickle shows up on Friday, just as my beautiful week of scouting locations for my next Write to Heal retreat comes to a close.
I’m scheduled to fly home the next morning, but when the United Airlines app recommends I bump my Saturday flight to Sunday due to the Arizona monsoons, I click a few buttons, make a few calls, and thank my lucky stars that my work as a writing coach can be done from anywhere. At that point, I don’t give much thought to my dry throat. After all, I’ve been moving between air conditioning and temps of 114 Farenheit. And, I’m in the dessert — where we all know it’s a dry heat.
But on Saturday morning, I wake with a throat so dry and parched that I can barely swallow — and I realize there’s likely a war raging within.
By early Saturday afternoon, I’ve left a heaping pile of tissues and toilet paper on the floor next to the bed — evidence of my failed attempts to stem the output from my nasal passages.
By dinnertime, my body shakes from the chills it creates, a response to the fever nearing 103. Throughout what feels like a neverending Saturday night, heat lightning illuminates the sky as I toss and turn and blow my nose and wonder if this will be my second round of COVID this year.
SHIT.
Seven months earlier, despite being double vaxxed and boosted, I caught COVID-19, and it was miserable. My first symptoms showed up on New Year’s Eve — body aches, fever, congestion, cough, and a complete loss of taste and smell. I took COVID home tests for six days straight before my results finally showed up positive.
Though I was down for the count for two solid weeks, what lasted for months were
1) a nagging sense of exhaustion
2) brain fog, and
3) a deeply disturbing case of vertigo.
As 2022 rolled on, I started training for a marathon to build my stamina. I also slowly regained my taste and smell, learned to laugh off and tolerate my ongoing brain fog, and watched the lingering signs of vertigo fade…
…until this new illness hits me in Carefree, Arizona.
By now, I am even double boosted. Could this new thing possibly be another case of COVID?
At the hotel on Saturday and Sunday, I take home COVID tests, and both are negative. And, since my fever had broken that morning, I pack my suitcase and drive to the airport in Phoenix — stopping once to fill up the tank of my rental car and once at a pharmacy for some decongestants and extra tissues.
At the airport, a public address system announces a CDC recommendation encouraging travelers and airport personnel to wear their masks to prevent the spread of COVID. I wear my mask, but very few others around me do. Every time I sneeze or cough, I know I’m riskin spreading germs. I feel terrible for the people around me who aren’t masked. Whether this is COVID or something else, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to feel this miserable.
On the plane, I sit in my window seat and suck on a lozenge, hoping the spasms won’t kick in and send me into an uncontrollable coughing fit. The cabin air pressure sends shooting pain through my clogged ears, and every time I wipe my nose, I tuck my used tissue into the sleeve of my sweater. By the time we land in Chicago 3+ hours later, my wrist looks like it’s about to give birth a guinea pig.
On the drive home from the airport, my ears feel like they’re about to explode. I call my primary care physican and reach the doctor on call. Explaining my circumstances, I request antibiotics to be sent to a 24-hour pharmacy. “I’m sure I have an ear infection,” I say.
“We don’t normally prescribe antibiotics unless we’ve seen a patient,” the doctor counters, but I’m in no mood for a debate.
“I will go to Immediate Care tomorrow morning,” I say, noting the local time (8pm). “They’re now closed. I’d rather not go to an Emergency Department.”
“I’m not sure…” she says.
“My ears are full,” I say, coughing constantly, “and the pain and pressure are horrible.” And then, I get very quiet.
“Okay, okay,” she concedes. “What’s the pharmacy number?”
Have I somehow just played the system, or was that some badass self-advocacy? It’s hard to know these days, and definitley rare to feel a sense of accomplishment with medical establishments.
I pick up the prescription for Augmentin and climb into bed coughing and gasping for breath. I suspect I’m in for another long night.
When I wake up on Monday, I drive to Immediate Care as I promised, where I’m diagnosed with a double ear infection. My COVID PCR test — as well as my Flu A & Flu B tests — are all negative.
I sleep all day Monday and Monday night.
On Tuesday, I’m still miserable, coughing nonstop and barely able to eat or drink. I don’t remember much of this day.
By Wednesday, I can’t eat, I feel weak and dizzy, and I’m experiencing intermittent pain in my chest. Once again, I call the doctor’s office.
“It sounds like you’re dehydrated,” the nurse says. “I want you to go to the E.R.”
Once there, I’m given an EKG (which shows an abnormality) and IV fluids. My bloodwork also shows a low white blood count, about which I am told to follow up with my PCP. Another COVID test turns up negative. The doctor on call describes what I have as a nasty summer virus she’s seeing everywhere.
My copay for the E.R. visit is $1,000, and the administrator who delivers this news apologizes profusely.
“I’m sorry to hand you this copay bill before we can issue your discharge orders,” she says.
I actually feel bad for her for having to be the messenger, but I’m too exhausted to show any reaction. I just hand over my credit card. When she gives me the receipt, she also slips me a little sticker to put on my parking lot ticket.
“I know it’s not worth much,” she says, “but I feel bad. Think of it as a sign of goodwill. Who doesn’t like free parking, right?”
“That’s sweet,” I say, though my mask can’t hide my monotone.
“I figured it’s the least I could do,” she offers before slinking out of the room.
As the curtain settles in her wake, I just stare at it. She’s “saved” me a whole $4.25. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. And yet, I appreciate her display of humanity.
As I drive home from my $1000 Emergency Room visit after having missed 3 days of work, I ask myself why it is that more of us can’t make our own small efforts of goodwill, or to consider the lasting impact of our actions on others.
Particularly in this case — why is it that people find it so hard to mask? At this point, it isn’t even about COVID. How about common decency and courtesy and consideration for others’ wellbeing? I’m someone who can actually figure out how to afford an almost weeklong hit from work and a thousand dollar unexpected bill. What about the families who can’t? What about them?
Did I have to wear a mask on the plane when I KNEW I didn’t even have COVID? No. No I didn’t. But I wore one anyway. Why? LOTS of reasons:
a) I like humans
b) I care about people besides myself
c) I don’t have a crystal ball, and I didn’t know if I might have had COVID after all
e) I didn’t want anyone to catch whatever it was that I had.
f) I didn’t want anyone to feel this level of shittiness, because that would just make me feel even shittier.
At one point during my travels, might there have been someone with this nasty summer virus walking around without a mask, perhaps near me? Very likely.
And you know how that makes me feel?
Pretty sick. Pretty damn sick.
As I near my home, I recall a conversation I had in Arizona with a man working behind the counter of a coffee shop. He’d laughed at himself after starting a drink order, only to realize he hadn’t put the coffee cup under the dispenser.
“I’m such an airhead!” he shouts as coffee overflows on the counter. “Brain fog alert!”
“Oh man,” I say, “I totally get it! Ever since I had COVID in January, I’ve had brain fog like you wouldn’t believe…”
He turns to face me with wide eyes. “Really?” he asks.
“I’m tellin’ you…” I say, nodding my head. “The struggle’s real.”
Shaking his head, he says, “You know…my wife had COVID, and ever since then, she’s been forgetting everything, too…”
“See?” I say. “There ya go.”
But then, something shifts in his voice. It’s almost like the wheels start turning backwards. “Actually,” he says, “I have a doctor friend who says that it’s the vaccine, not COVID, that gives you brain fog. He’s against vaccines for obvious reasons.”
And that’s when I know enough not to engage this man further.
Yet he continues. “Thing is, I never even got COVID … or the vaccine … So it’s funny that my wife got the vaccine AND THEN GOT COVID. So much for that vaccine even working, you know?”
I slide my money on the counter and wait for my drink. Don’t engage. Don’t engage.
“And as far as me being an airhead,” he says, winking, “I don’t really know who or what I should blame…”
Ha!
Believe me, I have plenty of my own theories, but it’s probably best that I rest up for now and focus on getting well before exploring subjects that make me literally sick to my stomach.
Oh Christine, that sounds absolutely miserable!!! And yes, Several friends have been sick as well without formal diagnosis or positive Covid tests.
I got my hair colored at a beauty school yesterday and wore my mask for over 3hours- the only one in the school that was wearing a mask- continually questioning why I was even there, feeling foolish for putting my vanity above my health. And here we are. A nation of fools. 😔
Hope you feel better soon.
I hope you feel better soon and regain your strength.