Covid Stories: Rachael

There were flowers everywhere. They were on the wallpaper. On the bedspread. On the sheets. On the pillowcases. My friend told me I should name them. I briefly considered counting them, but that idea was as short lived as my short-term memory. I couldn’t keep track past 23. There wasn’t much in the room. A bed, a couple of dressers. A small, old TV that didn’t work.

Shortly after we got there, I started feeling sick. I thought I had a cold at first; I just felt tired and rundown. I took a day off from work and laid on the couch watching Love Is Blind. That evening, I started coughing. It was a phlegmy, gross cough, that rattled in my chest and throat. The next morning, I talked with my friend who works at the CDC. I described my symptoms: extreme fatigue, cough, headache.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, Rachael,” she said. “But you should isolate yourself in the bedroom for two weeks just to be safe.” Jeremy and I looked at each other over the phone. Earlier that morning, he had woken up to me coughing in his face. It felt impossible that I hadn’t exposed him if this was COVID.

“The longer you have exposure to each other, the more likely he is to get it,” she continued. “He’s probably already been exposed, but it’s better to be safe.” She went on to describe what we needed to do. I had to stay isolated in the bedroom and shouldn’t be in any other rooms of the house. We should use separate bathrooms if possible. He should clean all the surfaces in the house that I’d touched.

Jeremy left the bedroom and I sat there, still somewhat dazed by what had just happened. Those first few days were miserable. My head was throbbing and wouldn’t stop. Tylenol didn’t touch the pain. I was profoundly exhausted. My whole body ached, and I barely had the energy to get out of bed. My trips to the bathroom were the only time that I got up. I didn’t have the energy to shower every day; it felt like a monumental effort every time I tried. It was hard to sleep because my head hurt so much, and my cough would always intensify at night and in the early morning.

At the beginning, I didn’t even have the energy to watch TV or read. I just sat there. Staring at the flowers on the walls and wondering how long I’d feel like this. I was scared it was going to get worse and I was really concerned that Jeremy would get sick, too. We eventually got into some semblance of a routine. Jeremy would make my meals and leave them on a tray outside my door. We’d FaceTime while we ate, to try to make it feel less lonely. Jeremy thankfully never got sick; if he did have COVID, he was asymptomatic.

I’ve never experienced sickness like that before. And I also know how lucky I am. My cough was scary, but I didn’t have shortness of breath. I also had an incredible support system. Jeremy was amazing and my parents and friends were constantly checking-in on me. My full-time job was flexible and supportive; as soon as I told them I was sick, they told me to focus on my health and to take as much time as I needed. I also had access to great health insurance, so I knew that if things took a turn for the worse, that I wouldn’t end up in large amounts of medical debt. The cottage we were staying was also conducive to isolation; there was a second bedroom and bathroom that Jeremy had access to. I shudder to think about what it would have been like to go through that in our tiny NYC apartment.

Because of institutional and structural racism, so many people in our communities don’t have the resources and support structures to navigate COVID-19. So on top of dealing with the fear, pain, and uncertainty of a potentially deadly illness, there’s also questions of job security, health care, infecting other family members, and figuring out how to put food on the table.

It doesn’t have to be like this. We could be the kind of country that supports our people as we navigate through the uncertainty of a pandemic. We could double down on making sure everyone—not just those who can afford it—have access to the healthcare they need to stay safe. We could ensure that people who get laid off from their jobs receive unemployment for as long as they need it. We could institute more flexible work policies, recognizing that the load people are carrying right now is unfathomable. We could ensure that people get help paying their rent if they need it. We could offer more protections for frontline workers. We could be targeting resources and support to the communities hardest hit by the pandemic, which not surprisingly is communities of color.

Over time, my cough eventually started to subside, and my headache gradually receded. I was still tired and spending a lot of time in bed. After about two and a half weeks of being sick, I finally forced myself to go outside. I started going for small walks; the feeling of air in my lungs and the salty wind against my face helped me start to feel like myself again. It was off-season on the Cape, so there were thankfully very few people around.

A few weeks later, the doctor told me it was okay to stop isolating. As Jeremy and I hugged for the first time in a month, I felt overwhelmed with gratitude and joy. All the fear and anxiety we’d been carrying finally dissipated as we worked to build a new routine that didn’t involve Jeremy as my primary caretaker.

I can’t stop thinking about all the people in our communities who have been touched by COVID and never get the opportunity to hug their loved ones again. There’s so much more we could be doing. My hope for us as we continue to grapple with both the short and long-term effects of this pandemic is that we don’t give up on each other. That we use this as an opportunity to put in place the structures and systems we need to support everyone in this country, not just those who have wealth and power. That we allow the pain and devastation of the last year and a half to teach us important lessons about how we move forward.

Because if there’s one thing I learned from this, it’s that we need each other now more than ever.