In February, 2020, I was taking my teenage daughter to school every day and to her driving lessons once or twice a week, looking forward to the day when she would get her driver’s license. Well, not so much looking forward to it really, for I enjoyed those quiet times together when she would tell me about all her plans and dreams, her life goals, the latest fashions, and anything else that came to mind. I was a full-time college student, psychology major, and loving that although I was a non-traditional student (a.k.a. old), I was achieving all my goals and would graduate at the end of the semester. It was my plan to have a huge double graduation party because my daughter was graduating from high school at the same time—2020 was our year. I planned on wearing all the official honors regalia I earned by graduating Magna Cum Laude, really making a big deal out of it. This is totally unlike me. I am an introvert, a happy introvert, but still very much an introvert. I hate being the center of attention, but I worked so hard for this special moment in my life. It took me many, many years to get to this place and I wanted to revel in it. This is especially true since I was going to college in my 50s when most everyone around me was in their 20s. I was looking forward to all the heart-felt congratulations from friends and family.
We were also planning to take a west coast road trip after graduation. Just drive up from California through Oregon and Washington and take the coastal roads back. I wanted to share the beauty of the Pacific West Coast with my daughter. Our last big vacation was spent touring the Eastern Seaboard, so it seemed fitting to top off our celebration on the west coast. I was looking forward to this special summer trip, this last hurrah, just the two of us, unless we could coax my son into joining us, then it would be just the three of us exploring all the gorgeous splendor that nature has to offer. But none of that would happen.
Stories were coming out of China about a new virus—a deadly virus. It was spreading rapidly. For weeks we heard of the global spread of the new virus that would soon come to be known as Covid-19. I remember reading about it spreading through Italy and a small-town mayor opening his window to yell at his people to get back inside. My heart went out to these people. In the back of my mind I thought, if it comes here, which is highly likely, it will spread like wildfire. There will be no stopping it here because less than half of the people will listen to any mayor in any major city anywhere in the U.S. Sadly, we have become a divided country, venomously divided. It seemed so far away at the time, yet we realized it was only a matter of time before the first cases would be discovered here as well. And since I am a bit of a germaphobe, I took all the necessary precautions to keep my family as safe as possible. Even pre-Covid, if I had a sniffle, I would carry a sandwich baggy in my purse with me to dispose of tissues and handwipes, then use hand sanitizer to prevent getting anyone else sick—that’s my norm. Germs are real, people! Now with this new, basically unknown deadly virus, it was time to get serious. As the virus spread from Washington, Oregon, California, and so on, I amped up my germ prevention regime one thousand percent. I watched a doctor on YouTube demonstrate how to stop COVID from entering your home on your groceries, so for months I copied him and wiped down or rewrapped all items coming into our home. All delivered packages were opened on the front porch and the contents left to decontaminate in the entryway for days. This was a heck of a way to live, and it turned out to be an unnecessary expenditure of time, but back then precious little was known about the spread, so we took every precaution. We knew we needed to do our part and help flatten the curve and not overwhelm our medical infrastructure. We were gloved, masked, and socially distanced. We all washed our hands frequently, used hand sanitizers, and offered these items to our neighbors if they needed them. The consideration, cooperation, and concern for others in those early days reminded me of things I read about during the World War II era. Everyone pitched in and did their part. This was a time to show the best parts of ourselves and be there for one another. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long. Once there was talk about shelves being depleted in the grocery stores, many people panicked. Fear can be a powerful motivator. Don’t even get me started on toilet paper and bottled water! I did not understand why everyone felt the need to stock up on bottled water…I still don’t. That’s for earthquake preparedness. Maybe that was just a California thing, I don’t know. But thanks to always being a good scout and to earthquake preparedness, we had both on hand already.
Right from the beginning my family talked everything over and decided that our best chance to survive this is to follow all the protocols, avoid crowds, and to avoid medical facilities if at all possible, so as luck would have it, that first week of March, my father needed emergency medical care at the hospital. You can plan all you want but life is still going to happen. The staff at the hospital was well prepared and the doctor who treated my dad was half-masked, meaning she wore a mask covering her mouth, so we were protected from her just in case she unknowingly had come into contact with anything. They had not had any known cases of Covid there up to that point. We were thankful to my father’s medical team. They gave him excellent care from a potentially fatal situation, and he was home within a few days.
Life was tentatively going along that March but so many things were up in the air. There was a lot of anxiety. Fortunately my daughter was able to pass the behind-the-wheel portion of her driver’s test before the DMV offices shut down, but what we thought was to be her final high school spring musical was cancelled, her high school senior prom was cancelled, her cheerleading was cancelled, and then her in-person classes were cancelled. It was challenging for all young students I imagine, but for the Senior classes, it was brutal. By this time going to my classes was a huge stress for me, and thankfully my classes were all put online as well. These were frightening times. It seemed like we were pulling together as a nation, caring for one another, and supporting our medical personnel. Most of us were sheltering in place. We didn’t know how long this would be necessary and adjusting was harder for some than it was for others. We got used to seeing news reporters with less than perfect hair. I preferred seeing the humanity and imperfections more than the standard glossy perfection; it felt real. And for a great many of us, especially those of us who are stress eaters, it became a time to eat, eat, and then eat some more. Weight gain was a common occurrence, as were the jokes about television personalities wearing pajama bottoms with their suit jackets and ties. I went up a size or two during the first five months or so of the pandemic. Every part of my life was hit and there seemed to be no safe outlets.
The next month it was my mother’s turn to make a trip to the emergency room, well, quite a few trips, actually. We are thankful that she went in because it was there that they did a chest x-ray and noticed a spot on one of her lungs. My mother is a bit of a health nut, and she has never smoked in her life, so we were shocked to learn that she had lung cancer. We went from living in scary, uncertain times that we appeared to have acclimated to, to living in terrifying times too frightening to even think about. There were so many doctors’ appointments and tests and procedures to go through. Before several of the appointments she had to get tested for Covid. She is the bravest soul I know. My tiny, precious mom is truly a rock star among rock stars! She did everything her medical team required of her, and she had to do it all alone. I had to take her to the hospital for her lung cancer surgery and drop her off at the hospital door. At the door! They were not allowing anyone inside with patients due to Covid. I understand the reasons, but it was heartbreaking nonetheless. I had to park and cry before being able to drive back home. The sense of helplessness was nearly unbearable. She made it through it all. Her surgeon released her from the hospital as quickly as possible due to the high risk of contracting Covid there. He was great, a brilliant surgeon. He and his wife were about to have their first child, but he was able to finish my mom’s procedure and postop before his paternity leave started. I hope we never see him again, but I love that man for saving my mom’s life. I am deeply indebted to all the hospital staff who gave us peace and comfort during such incredibly challenging times.
Pandemic information was made public when it was available and, it seems, even when it was not. As to how accurate the information was, well, that is anyone’s guess. Misinformation became the new standard and “facts” had to be checked and verified frequently. Statistics have clearly shown that the elderly, the overweight, and those with preexisting conditions are among the most vulnerable to getting more serious cases of Covid-19 and have an increased risk of death. Being old or overweight in our culture is difficult enough already. Many people often feel ignored, invisible. Did we really need a virus to come along and target these groups? It is like the world is saying, Hey, you’re already up to your ankles in self-confidence and feelings of self-worth, let’s just take you down a notch or two. With that knowledge, I decided to reduce my risk of death and lose weight. From September through November, I lost 18 pounds. That was a drop in a good size bucket, but it was a start. For no good reason whatsoever, I decided that I did not want to think about dieting during the holidays. We had been through so much the last few months with my parents’ health issues, so a little break seemed justifiable. That was not a good call, as we were about to be taken down a bit more. It was possibly when my mother had to go in for a four-hour medical test at the hospital that Monday, or it could have been from the in-home health care that my dad was receiving, or it could have been from any number of things, but on Christmas Eve my mom said she didn’t feel well, and by the next morning she felt like she was getting a cold. The next evening, I wasn’t feeling great myself…that icky feeling you get when something ugly is brewing. By the next day it felt like I was getting the flu. No, oh no, not the flu. We got the virus to end all viruses, the dreaded SARS-CoV-2, most often referred to as Covid-19.
It took me five days before I realized this was no regular flu bug because I had few of the symptoms they were listing as being Covid related. I did not have a cough or a fever, and I wasn’t short of breath. I was weak, nauseous, a little bit headachy, and had gastrointestinal issues. Eventually my sense of taste was affected, but not during that first week. Then water tasted awful. It was either too sweet or too salty. All flavors became intensified. For ten months we managed to avoid this dreaded disease, but it got us all at once. All five of us. My dad didn’t notice any symptoms except his food didn’t taste the same. My mom was sick like with a cold for about a week and she couldn’t taste her food. She ended up losing about ten pounds over a few weeks, and she only weighed 118 pounds to begin with. My daughter had about three days of not feeling well, a bit feverish, tired, kind of like a bad cold, but she soon felt okay. My son and I got hit the worst. Before long, he started to get a bit better, but I was going downhill fast. At this point things tasted funny to me, smelled funny. One of the biggest changes that happened to me with Covid was that I became a big baby. Truly a whiny-ass baby! I actually boo-hoo cried in front of the nurse who administered my Covid test complaining that she wouldn’t stop when I asked her to, and that she was skewering my brain. That poor woman! And my poor daughter! She had never seen me out of control before. I am usually calm, collected, and in control of myself, yet here I was blubbering like a ninny while they were trying to help me. It was brutal. My daughter said, in the slightly snarky but lovable way that she has about her, “You know, you don’t get a sticker for that.” My usually high pain tolerance was now non-existent. I mean, when my son was born, I went all natural—natural childbirth that is, no drugs. There was no screaming or name-calling like the poor woman down the hall from me, I just did the breathing techniques that I had practiced for months and sucked my ice chips—for twenty hours! I am usually not a whiner.
My son came in my room one day to check on me, and he knew by looking at me that I was in bad shape. I had tried fighting it off for two weeks, but I was drastically worse. He took my pulse oxygen level and when he saw that it was only 85 percent, he said we had to go to the emergency room. I was so weak and now excessively short of breath just walking to the car. It is no wonder they would not let me take a shower before we left, which I was unhappy about, but I had no strength to put up any kind of an argument. On the way to the hospital, I remember I was crying and telling my children that everything smelled like Easter candy. I could taste salt or sugar in everything now, in excessive amounts. I did not want to eat or drink. I became dehydrated on top of everything else. My cognitive functioning was impaired, severely impaired. Emotionally I felt similar to the times when I was pregnant. I was nauseous, weak, and weepy.
They were so efficient at our hospital. My son took me into the tent set up just outside of the hospital emergency room where they were triaging the Covid patients and told them my pulse oxygen level was 85 percent. They took it again and within minutes I was whisked into a room inside the ER. It all happened so fast I did not get to say goodbye to my children. This was distressing to me. What if this is the last time I see them? Do NOT think like that, I told myself. I knew I could not let my mind dwell on that. The doctor who came in to see me was kind and patient. I appreciated him and his vast knowledge. I remember asking what my chance of survival was, and with kind, compassionate eyes he told me the truth. He said that two out of three Covid patients in my condition get better. Now a 67 percent chance of getting better means roughly a 33 percent chance of dying. There was no way I was going to succumb to this without putting up a fight. I was determined to listen and follow everything my medical team told me to do. That was no easy task because the brain fog that I was experiencing was very, very dense. It was debilitating. I did not want my kids’ last memory of me to be crying in the car about the smell of Easter candy! I would survive. I would beat this and make it home and be with my family again.
It was fortunate that my son, who knows me so well, knew that I was not improving at home. I was deteriorating quickly. It was urgent to get me to the hospital, but if it was up to me, I would not have moved out of my bed. Everything was excruciatingly difficult, and I was not thinking clearly. I was blessed that there were many people who were praying for me and helping me so much. Also, by the time I was hospitalized the medical world knew a great deal more about this disease that had been ravaging the world for about eleven months than it had initially. They had a plan. The nursing staff in the hospital was amazing. They had to be everything to every patient since no family members were allowed in the hospital, and miraculously, they were able to do it. One of my kind nurses even went downstairs to where my children were waiting outside to get my little bag of necessities for me since they were not allowed to come in. They could not even hand it to the front desk personnel due to the fact that they recently had Covid. I felt bad imposing, but she insisted and was gracious about it and I did need my things. The nurses are given a next to impossible job and they managed to do it and to still have patience with their patients. I cannot express just how much respect and admiration I feel for these women and men who nurse us back to health. They risk their own health to take care of others. Yes, it is their job, but there are many, many less demanding, less risky jobs out there. The nursing profession requires gifted, highly trained people and the rest of us who depend on them had better do everything in our power to help them make it through this nightmare. They are experiencing burnout at frighteningly high rates.
My medical team told me they were giving everything to me that had even a slight chance of helping. They even gave me vitamins, which outside of prenatal vitamins, was a first for me from a medical doctor. With the medications and various treatments they administered to me, I started feeling a bit better. They told me they thought I would be there for about a week. Before too long I was able to eat again and could get up and use the restroom unassisted, well, without my nurse, using just a walker. I mainly rested and listened to soothing music between getting poked, medicated, and x-rayed. At one point I turned on the television to HGTV and they played back-to-back episodes of HomeTown all day long. The sounds of Erin and Ben talking were comforting to me. I could not watch television, but I could listen a bit and that was soothing. It was like a little piece of home was there in my room with me. While I was thankful to have my phone with me, talking and texting just took too much energy. I loved receiving all the messages but was unable to respond often. Most of the time I did not even have the energy to open my eyes. Texting with an IV taped to my inner arm was so difficult, even painful at times, and holding the phone up to my ear to talk was too exhausting. The fatigue I felt was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. It was completely debilitating. For the first time in my life I was unable to read anything and had no desire to do so even though my kids brought me my Kindle (I raised them well). There were times when I felt less foggy, but sometimes it seemed like I was in a dreamlike state—and I was not on that type of medication! Although I had my eyes shut most of the time, I was not actually sleeping. I was suffering from sleep deprivation. It took a great deal of effort, but I did communicate with my family daily. Everything was challenging. There was often a concern over my forgetting to order my meals. When you are not hungry, why order food? They insisted. I forgot a lot of things. It was important to me to try to not be a difficult patient and increase the workload of my caregivers. I do not know if I was successful, but great effort was attempted and intended.
One of my favorite nurses shared with me about her family’s Christmas. Her husband, who is also in the medical field, tested positive for Covid a week or so before Christmas, so he isolated himself. She and their children never got it. That did lead to her getting a little lighthearted teasing from friends and co-workers about how close their marriage must be, but she took it all in stride, grateful that they made it through without any major problems. She let me know that she was going to be off the next day, but then she would be back the following day while I was still there. The next day I received a phone call on my hospital telephone line, and it was from a nurse letting me know she was getting her first Covid vaccine the next day and decided to take the day off to rest. At first I thought it must be my favorite nurse and that she was so sweet to let me know, but it sounded a bit funny. After she finished talking, I thanked her for letting me know and wished her well with the vaccine. Then I told her my name, that I was a patient and which room I was in, and that I thought maybe she meant to call someone else. She burst out laughing. Yes, she was calling her supervisor. We shared a good laugh. The vaccines were newly available and were only administered to medical personnel at that time. I was so happy that they would now be offered more protection than just thin masks and gloves.
Actually, every time they came in my room they had to wear new protective gear, and then trash it as they left my room. I understand the necessity of that, but I started thinking of the waste. The minimum visits I had per day were two for meds, one to two for blood draws, three for meals, several from nurses checking in with me (bringing me water, bathroom assists, stopping the horrible sound the intravenous machine makes if I bend my elbow), one to two times for housekeeping, one to two physician visits, and at times the x-ray technician. Wow! That’s a lot. Approximately fifteen or more visits per day times the six days I was there (much longer for many people) times the number of people hospitalized with this virus. The mountain of hazardous medical waste created during the pandemic is enormous! The sooner people can get vaccinated, the less waste there will be. Less waste of lives, work hours, financial resources, and hazardous materials that must be put somewhere. A few members of the medical team had specialized masks that were not removed. They looked much more efficient. They probably had to purchase those high-tech masks themselves—that also needs to change.
When my doctor came to see me on day six, I felt like I had improved a great deal. We were at the January, 2021, peak number of Covid cases, and I knew there must be people who needed my room much more than I did at this point, and I was desperately tired and homesick. When he said my lungs sounded good, I was thrilled. My heart was beating a bit rapidly in anticipation. I asked if I could go home early. He was hesitant at first, but I explained to him that I was doing all my personal self-care and that I had family at home who would help with whatever I needed. I put on my most cheerful smile and positive attitude—really should have earned an Oscar for my performance here, to be honest. He tentatively agreed. I don’t know what I would have done if they said that it was too soon to go home. For my sanity, I needed to go home! I was completely exhausted. I needed uninterrupted sleep, and I needed it now! They finally did agree to let me go home, but not until I had completed the final treatment of intravenous medication. That meant somewhere around ten o'clock that night. I was on supplemental oxygen, which was vital. They sent me home with both the oxygen concentrator and a portable oxygen tank. They also taught me how to do the daily temperature and oxygen level check-ins on my phone. I had to stay till late into the night, but with several prescriptions and a long list of instructions in hand, I was finally able to leave. The wonderful nurses on the Covid floor gave me a package of little gifts and then wheeled me to the door while they played Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” just for me and happy tears streamed down my face. “You made it!” they cheered. I survived Covid-19 and was going to go home! One of the nurses handed me an open box of tissues from the counter since I was a blubbering mess, and my first thought was "I can't use those! Who knows what germs are on that box!" Then I remembered, it's a little late to be concerned about that now and blew my nose.
I still had a long road of recovery ahead of me but being at home made a huge difference. I was with my family in my own comfy bed with my own pillows, no needles in my arm, and I could finally take a shower! It had been over a week! I know in the scheme of things that is a minor issue, but I have never gone a week without showering before in my life and I felt absolutely gross. Even when we go camping, we still set up a shower. Laugh if you want to, but it was glorious to be able to shower (in all honesty I have no idea how I was able to stand up for that long, I was so weak and wobbly—don’t tell anyone). I crawled into clean jammies and was able to get real sleep!
The truth of it is that taking a shower became the mark of a good day. It took every bit of strength that I had just to do that, and I would go from shower to clean PJ’s and back to bed. I was usually only able to do it every other day. It was quite a while before I was able to sit up and dry my hair. After my shower I was short of breath and had to be on supplemental oxygen and go back to bed. Then I noticed my hair started falling out by the handful. It was unbelievable how much hair I was losing. I had excessively thin spots in the front and temporal areas. I have what is called long Covid, or post Covid syndrome, and it is the most debilitating illness I have ever had to endure. I also started experiencing dizziness when first sitting up, which started after getting home from the hospital, but I cannot recall when exactly.
After much searching, my daughter was able to find a brand of water that I could tolerate—most still tasted too sweet or too salty. I'm pretty sure we are born with an aversion to consuming salt water! The water with a high pH level was tolerable. That helped a lot because now I did not have to fear dehydration so much anymore. My precious, wonderful family was helping me in every possible way to recover. They had to bring me everything for I simply could not do anything. My mom made me many wonderful omelets and even French toast! She hates to cook, so I know that was a big sacrifice. It was shocking how weak I was and how long it was taking to see any small signs of improvement, but at least I was still here. Days when I could shower, dry my hair, AND get dressed, now those were the days! It took several months after being released from the hospital to get to that point. It does not sound like much, but when you cannot do it for so long, you have no idea how great it feels to accomplish even the smallest of tasks. I was consumed with the desire to take care of my personal needs by myself but was unable to for so long. I do not like to make things harder on others if I can help it. I dug down deep into my strong will reserves and iron resolve only to discover they were nearly depleted. I had to learn to cut myself a little slack and that it was okay to depend on others for a while.
It was almost baseball season. I love baseball! My team won the 2020 World Series, and I was looking forward to watching all the games of the 2021 season. It was the first time that I ever had time for that. I needed to be able to sit up to watch the games. It was only my love for the Dodgers that helped me get up and make it out to the family room to watch the games. Just sitting was so exhausting, but I did it, albeit in a recliner. I was not totally sitting up, but it did take tremendous effort. Towards the middle of baseball season there were a few days when I could shower, get dressed, and watch a game—progress! I often dozed off during the games which was frustrating, but I caught up during the postgame show. I was doing something normal again, and it felt good. It seemed like forever before I could sit at my computer and work. I could not even read for months—my lifeblood—because I was unable to focus and concentrate well. Sitting at my desk was so hard. Just about everything was difficult and took energy that I simply did not have. The fatigue! The fatigue was so fatiguing. It is so beyond what people usually think of when they think of fatigue. Extreme fatigue, debilitating fatigue, near death fatigue. I guess you could use any of those descriptors and almost have an idea of the severity of it. And if I overdid it even just a little bit, I would pay for it for days with lower oxygen levels, more shortness of breath, and as difficult as it is to imagine, somehow even greater fatigue. I was suffering from post-exertional malaise, which means I felt even worse after doing anything physical. I had to pace myself and decide what I wanted to do the most each day. I had about fifteen to twenty minutes a day for mild activity, and I usually used it to shower.
If you are not vaccinated yet, please get it now. You never want to experience this, and there is no way of knowing how it will go for you. Even some of those who had just mild to moderate cases of Covid are getting long Covid! I still do not know what all it has done to me, or my long-term prognosis. I would not wish this on my worst enemy. Okay, I do not really have a worst enemy, but if I did, I would warn them to get vaccinated and protect themselves in every way possible. Even healthy people and those without weight issues are sometimes struggling now with the new variants. As previously mentioned, I have never been a whiner in my life. I am pretty patient with most things, but I cannot tolerate whining, not in myself or others. I am trying so hard to be myself again, to be strong, to get things done, to get things for myself, to do things for myself, and to not whine and cry, but I am still struggling. I cry over everything. Happy things—tears. Sad things—more tears. Emotional things—buckets and buckets. I want to get off the supplemental oxygen and have been trying to get to that point, only to have my levels drop back down to 92-93 percent again, which makes me feel even more exhausted and more forgetful. There is no easy answer for this, believe me. I have been eating pretty healthy food now for weeks and losing weight, and I am hoping that as I lose the weight it will get easier for me to walk and breath. These last several days are what I call set-back days. I was starting to feel so much better; this is depressing. I am trying to take it in stride. I am broken.
By the time I finished the second month on the healthy life plan, I was able to pause the supplemental oxygen and I am feeling much better with oxygen levels usually hovering around 96-97 percent. I’ll take it! I have done everything that I can think to do to improve by getting sufficient sleep and additional rest, eating healthful foods and taking vitamins, practicing relaxation breathing techniques, gently increasing moderate activity levels, stress reduction, and weight loss. If nothing else could sufficiently motivate me to drop the excess weight, the fear of ever getting Covid again has done it. I cannot imagine ever having to go through this again. Next month I am eligible for the booster, and I will be there with a big thankful smile!
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