A Final Thought: My Battle with Covid-19
By Mitch Allen
On Friday, November 6, I sat outside by my firepit with a couple of neighbors until well into the evening. On Saturday morning I woke up foggy, tired and a little congested. I assumed it was from staying out in the night air, breathing smoke from the fire, and having perhaps one bourbon too many.
As fate would have it, one of my youngest daughter’s dogs died that morning, so I spent the bulk of Saturday repeatedly hugging all of my family members as we mourned the loss, unaware that I was infected with the novel coronavirus.
On Sunday morning, I felt worse and realized my “hangover” was something else entirely. On Monday morning, I had a tele-health visit with my doctor who told me there were several things going around that could cause my symptoms—fatigue, mild fever, body aches, congestion—but that getting tested for Covid-19 would be smart.
I wanted the results as soon as possible so that afternoon I drove to a UH facility on the near eastside of Cleveland, where I rolled down my window as a very friendly healthcare worker in a hazmat suit shoved a telephone pole up each of my nostrils and scrambled my brains. On Tuesday morning, my doctor called to tell me that I had tested positive for Covid-19. “Yeah,” I replied. “I figured as much.” In addition to the flu-like symptoms, I just felt weird.
I immediately contacted my daughters to let them know they needed to quarantine for 14 days. I felt guilty for putting them through that. Had it not been for the dog crossing the rainbow bridge I probably would not have been exposed to them. I also contacted everyone else I had come in contact with. Fortunately, that amounted to only four other people and we had all practiced social distancing. To my great relief, each of them tested negative.
On Wednesday morning, I felt a lot better—well enough to make homemade chicken marsala for lunch. On Friday, I considered myself healed and celebrated by grilling a London broil that had been marinating in my fridge for two days.
But Covid-19 just laughed, for on Saturday morning I could not get out of bed.
The third round of The Masters golf tournament was on television so at least I had the whispers of Scottish and Australian sports announcers to sleep to during the crushing fatigue. Although the tournament ended the next day, my symptoms did not. The body aches and fatigue persisted for the next eight days, during which time I lived in my bed or on the couch. Friends dropped off soup, but I still lost 10 pounds.
One day I received a call on my cell phone from “anonymous.” I didn’t answer and didn’t check the voicemail, which was from the health department. Not hearing from me, a uniformed officer arrived at my home with a bright yellow notice asking me to call. I did, and had a nice chat with a young woman about isolation and contact tracing, all of which I had already done.
Thankfully, I never experienced shortness of breath or a loss of smell. Beyond the fatigue, my primary symptom for a full two days was one no one talks about—devastating depression, or, perhaps more accurately, an existential crisis. Why were my symptoms relatively mild while other people were in the hospital or already in the cold ground? When would I stop being tired? Would I ever get better? Would I ever see my children and grandchildren again? I could not go back to the self-absorbed life I had prior to being in the clutches of Covid-19, yet what kind of gone-to-hell-in-a-handbasket world would be waiting on me if I did get better?
For these two days, I went through an entire box of Kleenex listening to 1970s love songs and replaying in my head every poor decision I had ever made. I have since read the disease can alter your brain chemistry, but my issues were more likely related to another condition: I’m just a big baby.
After two days the depression waned, and Covid-19 rewarded me with three days of a piercing sinus headache. I had never had a migraine, but they must be like this. It hurt to move my eyes. Meanwhile, I was getting text messages daily from friends I had not seen in a while who had also tested positive, 15 in all, two of whom were in the hospital.
Finally, on the day before Thanksgiving, the sun came out and burned through the dark clouds. My energy returned and I could hear birds singing in the blue sky. Our kids were still quarantining so my wife and I prepared a Thanksgiving meal for two—turkey, dressing, giblet gravy, collard greens, black-eyed peas, cornbread, sweet potato soufflé. We had leftovers for a week.
I was officially released from isolation on Black Friday, but my wife still had several days left to quarantine, in spite of the fact that she tested negative and never had a symptom. I don’t know how she tolerated me. She’s a saint.
If you or a loved one contracts Covid-19, my heart goes out to you. I was one of the lucky ones. I pray you are, too.