YoungCOVIDPatient

Everyone mentioned fever, but I didn’t notice that high of a fever. I noticed that I started to have a cough that wasn’t like any I’d had before, like I couldn’t really catch my breath. It went: cough —> headache —> low fever —> chest pain —> positive result. I definitely noticed the cough before the fever.

As for having already survived thyroid cancer and facing the fact you’re “too poor” to isolate, there aren’t words for how sorry I am. I know the idea of social isolation is great... if your paycheck arrives straight in your wallet via magic, but I know it doesn’t for everybody. The best you can do is: train yourself not to touch your face or mouth, wash your hands like crazy, and if anyone gets too close to you, you punch them right in the snot locker. And again, I wish a lot of countries had a hell of a better system that wasn’t “be safe” or “feed my kid.”

My housemates (people voted most likely to get COVID by making fun of someone with COVID) said it’s strange because it sounds like both a wet and a dry cough, and they were trying to emulate it. My husband said it starts off sounding wet when I start coughing and then it keep going into a dry wheeze that just doesn’t stop. I know there are people coughing up a lot of phlegm and even blood now, but I’m not; it just sounds “deep wet.” As for having an itch, I have a sore throat that only itches once in a while, fairly independent of the cough.

Actually, I was in recommended “isolation” before it was semi-normal, due to my underlying conditions, so these are the only places I could have gotten it:

• from an asymptomatic carrier living with me

• from two of my doctors’ offices (I went to see them in the two weeks before I was symptomatic) - they are not general doctors who see coughing people though

• from the pharmacy I go to, to get my medication, though I always went at first opening before other customers (it’s very small and nothing like an American pharmacy like CVS - think more like a place with a “shopping area” the size of an American living room

• and I went to the grocery store across the street at opening to get a loaf of bread

But, and this is probably what did me in, despite everything I know, despite my underlying conditions, despite taking immunosuppressives... I still bite my nails. It’s a habit from pain and nerves, and I should have stopped long ago, and I think wherever I “got” COVID... I probably “caught” it by biting my nails after touching something.

If you find yourself in a hospital or dealing with health care professionals in any other setting, the best thing you can do right now is be patient. These are people really working to the limit of the hours they seem to be able to stay awake for, and they’re still keeping it together. Sure, every once in a while, I run into someone who has just run out: run out of ability to interact with the public right now, run out of give a crap, just run all out, but those doctors and nurses are few and far between.

As for what it’s like at the hospital itself, it feels like the whole thing is a triage. My neurologist wanted me here so I could be observed. She said she informed the ER (“urgences” here) and neurology and it would be no big deal. Instead, I’ve ended up in some random department for another three hours, waiting to be transferred to the place I was supposed to be in the first place. I know there are people who would yell, but at who? All these people who are trying as hard as they possibly can? I’m in the hospital, nothing’s going to happen, and I’ll get there soon.