Although I had read COVID was surging again in New York, and even started masking up again and limiting socialization, I suppose a part of me, even if only subconsciously, felt invincible. After two-and-a-half years of avoiding infection, COVID would continue to pass me by.
I had stopped being as fanatical as I once was with the isolating and limited socialization, but I was still very much aware and very much limited in my interactions. In between the surges, I socialized with more frequency, but mostly, socializing became a matter of spending more time outdoors.
Even when this crazy sensation of being hit by a brick wall left me immobilized and glued to my bed, I initially thought nothing of it.
I had gone to sleep extremely late the previous night. “I guess I’m getting old and can’t pull that kind of shtick anymore,” I told myself.
Then I started burning up.
For 24 hours I wanted to drag myself to the doctor, but couldn’t seem to be able to move.
Finally, when I did, it was confirmed. COVID had finally got me. Heavily. My test result lit up in a split second. And it was raging red. The viral load was strong.
Immediately, I began calculating and assessing where I might have picked it up. While I know that Covid transmissibility is high, I was nonetheless left scratching my head.
The ripple effect that might have brought COVID on, and the ripple effect I might have already caused in transmitting COVID to others, were my immediate thoughts.
While these type of thoughts made up more than their fair share of my mental energy back in 2020, and perhaps until I was vaccinated, that kind of thinking had weakened over the past year or year-and-a-half. COVID became part of the background. It demanded a little less special attention.
Some people are infected with such a mild case of COVID that it’s barely noticed. For others it’s so strong and so long. Quite serious. So far, it looks like the iteration I have, while it knocked me out and felt quite intense for a few days, has ultimately been manageable, and will remain that way!
I sit and write while in quarantine. Along with my fellow Americans, I had already been in more lockdowns than I care to count. Elective quarantines. This was my first — and I hope last — quarantine brought on by actual COVID.
I dodged it as long as I could, yet here I am, just waiting it out until I feel back to myself; until I no longer have my eyelids at half-mast every couple of hours.
It’s been sobering to realize how grateful I am that it took this long for me to get infected — having dodged the stronger strains.
My mind can’t help but think back to spring and summer 2020 and all the tragic casualties and victims of pre-vaccine COVID.
For too many, testing positive for COVID meant a hospital stay or even a death sentence.
To think we have passed those times when a COVID diagnosis was potentially deadly. To think, we now have therapeutics, such as Paxlovid. It is nothing short of miraculous.
Thankfully, for most, COVID is no longer deadly, but it’s definitely been no picnic.
As the doctor said, almost everyone is going to get it.
The truth is, now that I have COVID, I’m pretty sure I already had it in the winter of early 2020. COVID had already struck China, but it not yet a household word here in America. It seemed like some remote thing somewhere out there, in a different part of the world.
Back then, to connect an ailment I had with something taking place in another part of the world would have seemed utterly ridiculous. A hypochondriac is what I would have probably been branded. A nut case.
Yet now we know how truly small the world it is. Disney’s “It’s a Small World After All” is all too literal.
The ripple effects of COVID are a mirror for me of just how interconnected and interdependent we truly all are. Our lives are ever intertwined. Who knows who I picked this up from? A stranger at the grocery? Who know whom I might have passed it onto?
If you have that cough, or know you are infected, it’s worth holding back and playing your part in preventing the spread of COVID. We are all neighbors, whether in the same building, block, community or work place.
While most people will get COVID anyway and be fine, it is still worth trying to contain.
Especially now, with the concern over reinfection and a tougher recovery.
The truth is, I was just about due for another vaccine.
Well, I certainly got it now.
With my newly minted antibodies, I now have three months ahead of living a life of carefree pre-Covid consciousness.
If only I had the awareness and appreciation for it then that I have now.
Copyright © 2022 by the Intermountain Jewish News
