When I left my travel agent job in January, sights set on bigger things, myself and those around me could not have predicted what was to come. I was scheduled to take a trip to Disneyland with some friends and their kids to check out Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in February. I made it to the Harry Potter park not long after it opened, being the Potterhead that I am. I have had a long love of Star Wars since I was a kid. Something about space and the thought of other galaxies and worlds strikes a cord with me. At the beginning of February, we were struck with the news that the company JD worked for was downsizing for the third time in a short span of time. With his job having an end date, we opted out of our trip with disappointment in our hearts. We thought we may be able to go back later in the year.

As we entered into March, JD had a new job. He had begun working for a company he really liked and felt good about. Talks of the virus had spread throughout the world and friends in other countries were experiencing connections to it. While Colorado was not yet on the map of concern, realistically it was only a matter of time. I was trying really hard to think of others and also look at the facts without panicking.

I was taking some online classes and finishing some stuff around the house. I didn’t leave much except to go to the store and run occasional errands. It started during my daily workouts. I had been working out really hard to get in shape and build my immune system. My entire life I have showed symptoms when I get sick very quickly. One day I got really light headed while I was working out. At first I didn’t think much of it, just that maybe I hadn’t had enough protein. I tried to push through it but I ended up stopping and having to lie on the floor, waiting for it to pass. It was odd but I mostly felt okay. Later that day I got a headache. Not a normal headache, but a very intense headache that, for lack of a better description, felt like my skull was being crushed. I started feeling pretty tired, but again, I thought I was short on protein. The next two days everything intensified. I couldn’t finish my workouts and the time was getting shorter and shorter while I worked out before I had to lie down on the floor. I would take Ibuprofen but it didn’t even touch the headache(s). We were planting a tree and I was determined to finish it by myself while JD was at work one day. I was carrying some soil to the tree and I noticed I began wheezing and my chest started hurting. In 2011 I had pneumonia and strep throat at the same time. The two together came on really fast and that is the sickest I had been in years. A little wheezing, a headache, fatigue, and light headedness didn’t seem serious to me. I had mentioned it to some friends in another country and they adamantly suggested I get checked for the virus. I tried to explain that testing was not really available here unless you were to be admitted to the hospital. The feeling of exhaustion was hard to explain. It went beyond fatigue. Even when I was sleeping, I felt the exhaustion in my body. I had begun coughing early on. I don’t cough - not when I am sick, an not when I have allergies. I quickly began tasting blood when I coughed. It was a very bizarre symptom. At that time, symptoms weren’t very known or clear yet beyond a cough.

JD’s company had started talking about closing for the pandemic and it was becoming very real. They were gearing everyone up to work from home. It was hard to wrap my head around what was happening around me. I knew it would be for the good of the community if hospitals weren’t flooded by sick patients. Having family in the medical field. I knew they had to stay safe. The trips I had been looking forward to were becoming distant dreams.

Within days of the fatigue, lightheadedness, wheezing, chest pains, and extreme headache, it was becoming obvious I was not fighting your average bug. At least nothing that I have fought before, and believe me, I have fought many illnesses. I was sitting on the couch after dinner one night in the beginning when my core temperature dropped. I started freezing from the inside out. I couldn’t warm up. I had layers of clothing on, about 4 blankets and I was shivering and my fingers turned blueish. We took my temperature and it read that I was just a couple degrees above hypothermia. I just wrapped myself in all of the blankets available to me and tried to recycle any amount of body heat I could. Eventually I warmed up by the morning but it was alarming at least.

I had been taking an elderberry syrup shot to build my immune system. I started noticing when I took it that my chest pains intensified as well as the aches. Later I read that elderberry was bad to take with the virus. That was interesting since I have never had a reaction to it before. I was trying to eat grapefruit for vitamin C. I tried to go outside and soak up as much sunshine as I could. It was going to get worse before it got better.

Most of the time the heat was radiating off my body enough that my hands almost felt like they were burning if they were close to any other body parts. My chest felt like someone kneeling on it with both knees and all of their weight. The aches felt like my body was being consumed slowly. Almost like something was just holding every muscle and nerve in my body in a press and just kept me there. Nothing touched the pains.

Eventually I would be tested in case hospitalization was needed. While the first test was questionable and sent to a lab my insurance didn’t cover and said I was negative, my next test, less than a week and a half later, confirmed I was positive. My brother in law (a doctor) prescribed an inhaler to at least help my breathing. I wasn’t able to walk much and going from room to room would be very challenging most of the time. I began living in bed and while we did our best to quarantine from each other, I could not keep up with sanitizing after myself. My fever didn’t drop below 99.5 (my normal being 97.3), and often would spike to 102-103 during the day. My oxygen would fluctuate and be in the high 90s or in the very low 90s. Thankfully never dropping into the 80s. I could always feel when it got low though and felt my worst.

It was about a week after my onset of symptoms that JD had began coughing, had a headache, and became fatigued. He didn’t get a fever. He didn’t get intense symptoms at all. I am happy about that. His passed within a week or so and he was pretty much back to normal.

I was like a rollercoaster for about two months. I would start to come back and I would think I was better for one day and then I would crash for days. It hurt to move at times. My eyes hurt from the fever and exhaustion. I fought so hard to stay hydrated. With help from many people who dropped off a pulse oximeter until mine finally got delivered, hydration drops for water, some herbs and supplements, and a thermometer, we were able to monitor important things and also nourish our bodies. An antibody test at the end of my symptoms on JD and I both would show that he had antibodies and I did not.

While I was down, my vitiligo had started to spread. It really only comes on when I am fighting blood sugar levels long-term, or my thyroid is out of whack. It is a result of autoimmune issues I deal with. I knew it was an adverse effect but I couldn’t stop it from spreading further. I watched as the pigment of my skin was disappearing.

The more time went on, the more I considered checking myself into the hospital. My will to keep going was starting to dwindle. I was overwhelmed and wasn’t sure I could keep fighting. My mental health was suffering. I was feeling beaten down. I couldn’t keep up with sanitizing without any energy. I had no desire to eat really and would forget most days until I became weak and shaky and knew I needed to eat. I didn’t feel any fight inside of me any longer. Fevers had increased my night terrors. I was disoriented for a long period of time. During normal conversations, I often had to ask people to repeat themselves a couple or more times because I couldn’t understand what was being said. I felt hopeless. I wasn’t suffering enough to justify going to the hospital but yet I was weak and had no sign of getting better. I became depressed as a result. Some days I questioned if I would make it through the night, and other days I would have a glimmer of hope only to feel lousy again quickly. I have a tendency to experience pain or illness but once I seek professional help, it passes enough that it appears nothing is wrong. I am tired of looking like a hypochondriac and getting bill after bill for medical expenses for the visits in which I don’t get help.

One day my fever broke. I dropped back to 98 (still high for my normal but lower than I had been existing). We took the dogs out on a walk where we don’t come in contact with people. I felt like I could breathe again. I didn’t have to take any Tylenol that day. I just felt the click. I gave it two weeks to be sure. Two weeks passed without another fever, nor symptoms. I knew I was better. I was so happy. I felt like I had a new lease on life.

Then the scariest part began. I began getting chest pains. Not pain in my lungs like I had been fighting, but pains right in my heart and down my left arm. Pains so intense they knocked me off my feet a couple times. I knew I shouldn’t mess around as this was a major sign of a heart attack, but I would talk myself out of going in and getting a charge from my insurance only to be told it was nothing and I was fine. I had began working out again slowly to try to rebuild my strength. The pains would come and go and eventually they did pass all together without going to the hospital. I had a CT scan before I was fully better and it showed my lungs looked okay and didn’t have lasting damage. Definitely a great relief. Once the chest pains stopped, I knew I had a real shot at getting better officially.

I am now a couple months “recovered” and while I still cough now, and have a long ways to go to build my endurance/stamina up without becoming short of breath. I thankfully did not suffer visible long term damage but the memory of it is vivid and stays with me. I also have a lot to rebuild my immune system which took a major hit. I also gained weight unlike other people while I was sick. Even though I wasn’t eating a lot, I still gained more weight than ever. I am working on shedding pounds and making my breathing stronger. I was overall a mild-symptom patient. I am thankful all the time it wasn’t worse for me or for JD. However, I am at risk to get it again. I understand being afraid. I don’t feel like I am nearly strong enough to get through it as well another time. I practice much better hygiene than I even realized I hadn’t been doing before. I am hyperaware of those around me, and I take it very seriously. It personally offends me that people do not respect others or take it seriously after what I went through. I tried very hard to keep my information as positive as I could both for my mindset to focus on recovery and not give in, but also because I know people don’t like to hear about other people being sick. I hope that my message is received. It is so important to always be working on your immune system, eat the best you can, drink lots of water, and exercise while you are healthy, but also practice extra hygienic measures. That is my best advice.

PART 2: NAVIGATING A PANDEMIC

Well, it is a crazy time to be alive but we have been navigating the pandemic thus far. We may have a little ways to go yet but we will return to “normal.” Pandemics happen and overall we are all in this together. There will be people who insist on creating a divide between themselves and others rather than dealing with problems in a mature and responsible way. The rest of us can normalize doing the right thing for people we don’t know.

None of us had realistic expectations coming into 2020, if we are being honest. Coming up on our ten year anniversary in October, JD and I had some high hopes for trips we would take this year. There are trips we have discussed taking for years that this year was looking pretty good for. This is one of those years where I feel like perhaps something bigger is controlling my outcome than I can. While I had a couple ideas for travel careers, I can’t make them work without being able to travel. It is important to change course when things like this happen. Put some things on the back burner but do what you can to make the most of what you have now.

Each stage of this pandemic has brought new obstacles and challenges. In the beginning it was just buying paper products like toilet paper, and also soaps and hand sanitizers. People panic shopped and hoarded items other people needed. Then things started shutting down if it wasn’t essential. Food delivery services kept restaurants in business while patrons could not come in and sit down. Then food became short especially long shelf life food. Medicines, thermometers, oximeters, things that were needed were running short and often price gouged. Then the longer things had to be shut down, more people started protesting the shut downs. Gradually things reopened slowly by mandating masks, making people social distance, and other techniques. Some places have yet to reopen. Many big companies are claiming bankruptcy as well as smaller companies. It is sad to watch dreams close shop. Many people have seen their hours cut at work and many have become unemployed. It has not been a good thing for many people. Loss of jobs, loss of loved ones, loss of many freedoms we took for granted, loss of a sense of safety that may have been false all along but now we know. Those of us coming out the other side of this thing will always remember this a different way. What exactly will go down in history books is yet to be determined. We are over halfway through this year but so much is left unclear. Hopefully people are using what is happening right now to become a better person. We can all be a little better but we have to work on it. Many have seized the opportunity to prey on others, and engage in activity making the world a worse place. Many are just throwing their masks and gloves in the ocean and because they are not being recycled, we have a bigger pollution problem. We have a lot of work on our hands at the end of this thing to rebuild, but we can do it. There are enough people in the world, we just need to stop looking for things to divide us and start focusing our energies on something we are passionate about that can benefit the world around us and we can still come together with a little understand and compassion.

Stay well friends! Take care of yourselves and each other.