This One’s A Doozy

“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light.”–Albus Dumbledore, The Prisoner of Azkaban

Clif Notes version: I am one of the many new “breakthrough” cases of COVID-19 with the suspicion I have the Delta variant. I am fully vaccinated, and I thought I had taken all health and safety precautions almost to the extreme. But, here I am, sitting in a doctor’s office getting a monoclonal antibody infusion with the hopes it will mitigate some of the awful effects of the virus. 

Novella version: I am frustrated beyond explanation and words right now. I am healthy, fit, had been training for marathon #30, and now find myself totally sidelined with a litany of lingering side effects because I am now a “COVID long-hauler.” This post is largely to share my story so that others can be aware of how real it all is. I was shocked when I got the call telling me the PCR test was positive. Shocked. And then I was really angry. I find myself with a general dislike of humanity, and it isn’t a side of me that I am proud of at all. But, I’m still so angry.

I had been feeling like I had an inner ear infection a little over a week ago, and that isn’t uncommon for me at all, especially in the summer. I couldn’t hear well, I had vertigo, and I literally almost felt the fluid in my ears.  That all led to a sinus infection, both of which were diagnoses by a doctor once I tested negative for COVID. I started my round of antibiotics and steroids and thought I’d start to get better within a few days. Two days later I was significantly worse. I thought it had moved into my chest, and I honestly thought I had pneumonia, which I am also very prone to getting. I showed up at the clinic with the hopes someone would listen to my lungs and maybe swap up the medicine, had to be tested for COVID, and then found out my rapid test was negative and my PCR was positive. I was sent home where I got worse. 

All of my doctors of late from the orthopedic surgeon who reconstructed my wrist to my cardiologist who was always monitoring my blood pressure said, “you can’t get COVID. You need to get the vaccine and follow the guidelines because your immune system can’t take it.” 

I have run 29 marathon and was scheduled to run #30 in October. I work out EVERY SINGLE DAY. I don’t eat crap food, and I have cut back on my daily wine intake that had gone up over the last 18 months that we’ve all been navigating this virus. I didn’t think I’d be one of the many to contract COVID. Despite how awful the physical side of it has been–wrapping up week 3 and still not “normal,” there is a whole other side of it that doesn’t get talked about. Here’s what I want to say about testing positive: I feel ashamed. I feel very ashamed. And, I shouldn’t. I did everything possible and followed the rules; yet, I feel as if there is a stigma attached to it and if anyone knows I tested positive, I’ll be looked at differently (more on my concern about what others think in a different blog). The other piece of this is the mental and emotional health aspect. I am also not well in this regard. In my earlier blogs about the travel to the Turks and Caicos, I said I took that trip for my mental health, and now I am feel I am further back than ever before. 

At times I have found myself questioning humanity, questioning if goodness is still out there (I know it exists), and questioning my place in it all. Should I use this as a platform to encourage others to get the vaccine, but how credible am I? I have COVID despite having gotten the vaccine. How can I say, without it, I’d be much worse? Maybe without it I wouldn’t have made it? I’m not making light of that at all. I’ve lost people, and it’s devastating.  I think I am doing my best to try to “find the positive” in this and am struggling to find that positive. 

Every day we hear a new story about a mother, father, daughter, son, grandma, grandpa or dear friend whom we’ve lost to COVID. It doesn’t matter where you land on the political spectrum, these lost lives are losses for all of us. All of us. I have a colleague who lost three family members within a two-month time period. Three. Very few of us can even process that kind of loss. While I feel I could actually write a short novel on the loss, I’d rather use this as a mechanism to validate how I am feeling, how you may be feeling, how we all are feeling. 

I shouldn’t feel ashamed, but I do. I am struggling with this mentally and emotionally (and still physically) and wonder when I’ll ever be ok with being in a crowd or near people again. I realize the likelihood of me contracting it again is low, but it doesn’t mean the feeling doesn’t exist. As mad as I am right now about so many things, I also want to return to normal, whatever that may look like. I want to trust others again without thinking about their ability to make solid decisions. I want to be in a room full of people and not have to run through a mental check of who is vaccinated and who isn’t so I know who to stay away from. I don’t want to be that person, but that’s who I’ve become, at least in this moment sitting in a small room hooked up to an IV. 

I thought that my mental health had taken a hit during this time we’ve all been trying to get through working from home, isolating from others, and in some cases, quarantining due to contact tracing. I sent my youngest off to college in Fall 2020, and I was living at home alone with a dog and a cat. I felt very isolated and at times alone, and while I think I did manage to keep the proverbial boxes checked, I missed people and I missed the interactions that I had taken for granted. I was only just starting to process the mental health toll all of this had taken and then I contracted the virus I worked so hard to avoid. 

We’ve all made choices over the last 18 months–to be cautious or not, to get vaccinated or not, and to actually stay home if exposed or diagnosed with COVID. We are in a situation where our choices can directly affect others. I contracted COVID because of a choice someone else made to be around others after being exposed to COVID.

So, I could use this as an opportunity to encourage others to get vaccinated (and I still endorse that 100%), and I could use this as an opportunity to encourage others to mask up and do your part (and I still endorse that 100%). But, mostly I just want to say, for anyone struggling, I am with you, 100%, because I am struggling too. While we feel alone, we actually aren’t alone in this. It took me a long time to actually acknowledge my struggles, but now that I’ve gotten there, I just want to be able to support others who need support. But, I also want to use this as a message of caution. I am one of the 10-15% of COVID patients who is having heart issues. Heart issues! I think we all have had a different experience with COVID, and no one person’s experience is a predictor of how it will be for others. So, be careful, be cautious, and take care of yourself.

Thankfully, I know I will get through this. I have been vaccinated and I have access to the monoclonal antibody infusion, but I know others haven’t been as fortunate. We all experience loss and hardship in different ways and rather than putting us on a hierarchy chart of who has struggled the most or lost the most, I just want to put us all along the same road and walk toward the light together. 

If you have hung with me to the end of this blog, thank you. If you have experienced loss, I am sorry. If you have struggled with COVID yourself, I am really sorry. Hang in there, and hopefully, we’ll all get to the other side of this. 

I have posted two photos of me from the last 48 hours, and several photos of what I am striving to get back to–that girl who runs, often solo, on trails, on the road, and together (with thousands of other people) in marathons, ultras, and half marathons.  The Chicago Marathon 2021 will have to be deferred, but I am looking forward to a half in November and another in February. Right now, I just need to cling to hope and optimism. 

I’ll be back to fun travel stuff soon. Hang in there, friends:)

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”–Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.