Last week as I lay in bed one night I felt a feeling I had not felt in a LONG time. I felt a heaviness in my chest…I remembered having that feeling before – when I’d get bronchitis every year. Now, the interesting thing is, it has been since before January 2020 since I’ve had my yearly bronchitis. In fact, my cough would be so severe and last so long (often for months) that at the start of COVID my hubs and I were very concerned what would happen if I were to catch COVID – would my lungs be able to handle it?
At the beginning of the pandemic, it was quite scary. Hearing this virus was so easily transmitted and how it went straight for your lungs concerned me. I had been hospitalized as a child one summer with double pneumonia and I think my lungs probably have some lingering damage from that. Anyway, I was very worried about how my body would react to this mystery virus that was plowing through the world and inundating hospitals. As more and more information came out I found myself vacillating between terrified and relieved, depending on the story.
I got my vaccination as soon as possible, followed up by a booster. As more and more people around me contracted COVID and came through it well, I figured I would be fine if/when I found myself exposed. We had a few close calls, but it wasn’t until August of 2021 that anyone in our immediate household tested positive. I was the primary caregiver for my elderly father when he tested positive and trust me when I tell you that if I didn’t get it from HIM, I wasn’t going to get it at all!
Now let’s pop back to last week when I felt that old familiar heaviness in my chest. I thought it was odd, but it sure did feel like I was getting sick. By the next morning I was sure – I was sick. I had a barking cough and my voice was raspy. I stayed home from work, hoping it would pass through quickly. I’ve been dealing with it for over a week now, with Sunday being the worst of it. Each day I feel much better. And yes, I did take a COVID test because we had some here at home and I was NOT positive.
Here’s the thing, though – do you remember what it was like to be sick BEFORE COVID? I needed some OTC cold meds so on Saturday I went into Kroger. I was wearing a mask to protect people from my germs. I was not chatting anyone up or leisurely shopping. I went in with a mission to get what I needed and get out with minimal contact. One of the items I purchased required a DOB, so even through I had gone to self-checkout (again, to avoid people) the cashier had to come over and enter my DOB into the kiosk.
She was so repulsed by me that I seriously felt like Patient Zero for the next global pandemic. Did COVID freak us out to the point that we cannot handle normal illnesses in our fellow humans?
One of my friends said it best. She said “Remember when we all just went into the office everyday with boxes of Kleenex and bottles of Chloraseptic with our sneezing and coughing because it was ‘just’ a cold?”!!! YES!!! Yes, yes, YES!
Pre-pandemic we were more tolerant of sniffles and sneezes because, well, because they’re germs and we all have them and that’s how our body learns to fight germs off. I feel like the pandemic has made a lot of people fearful.
I get it. People are traumatized. Lots of bad decisions were made during the pandemic, but nobody knew what the hell was going on or how to handle it. And now when we hear a cough or a sneeze we’re Pavlov’ed into a sense of fear. This was my first time encountering that fear as a sick person. I would imagine I’ve expressed that fear to someone in public, perhaps without even being aware that I was doing so.
As for me, I’m finally feeling better and will be going back to the world of the living. I think all traumas make us long for a return to “before”….I wish we could just go back to how it was “before” that happened. My experience Saturday at Kroger reminded me how much the pandemic changed – both good and bad – and gave me a longing for a return to a time that we didn’t hear someone sneeze or cough and find ourselves filled with fear and anxiety for our own safety.
The Neverending Lori 