So You Know Someone Who Got COVID…
Before I get started, here are a few things you should know:
I am not a medical professional.
I had a breakthrough COVID case in November even though I was vaccinated.
Here is a breakdown of what this blog post details:
My experience after testing positive
My opinion and advice to people who know people who have tested positive
Welcome to My Personal H-E-Double-Hockey-Stick
For reference, I am a social creature by nature (as I get older, this becomes less true, but that is beside the point). For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be doing something outside. I have never described myself as a “homebody,” no matter how much I tell people I aspire to be one someday. The thought of being stuck between four walls for two weeks without physical contact with another living being is not exactly my idea of fun. In fact, if you haven’t gathered already, it’s quite the opposite.
How did I know?
At the beginning of November, I had a runny nose. I didn’t know if it was COVID, allergies, or the weather in California getting “colder.” I immediately started documenting symptoms and informed my boss about how I was feeling. The tricky thing is many of the symptoms are simply things I deal with daily or weekly, but this time felt a little different. I got tested through Curative and anxiously awaited results. My greatest fear was that I had spread it to anyone I was in contact with in the recent time frame. I was less afraid of getting it myself and more afraid of the threat I posed to the people in my life and the people in their lives. Then, the moment of truth…*drumroll please* your girl tested positive.
What’s next?
After receiving the news, my mind was running a million miles per hour. I was trying to figure out my situation at home and work, meanwhile trying to process the fact I had just contracted the disease the world has been trying to avoid for over a year. Was I supposed to address this publicly via social media or try to discreetly hide in the shadows? It was all so overwhelming, but I chose to:
Utilize the iPhone Contract Tracing tool, “Exposure Notifications”
Call my healthcare provider
Notify anyone I had come into contact within the days before my symptoms began (even if our interaction was brief)
Inform my job
Ask my roommates how we should navigate the situation
Quarantining with roommates
I live in San Francisco with three roommates, all of which are extremely mindful and cautious about the virus. When I got my result back, I was nervous and scared to tell them and unsure of where I was going to quarantine. We had a meeting about the rules and boundaries of my quarantine, and this is what was decided:
Even though the CDC says you can finish self-isolating 24 hours after you are symptom-free or 10 days from the first day of symptoms, they felt more comfortable with me quarantining 2 full weeks from my test date.
I was not allowed to leave my room, use any common areas, or go outside.
I had to send a text to let everyone know if I needed to use the restroom and was to wear a mask in transit.
We have two restrooms - one was designated for me. When done, I would close the door behind me and sanitize the door every time.
They felt most comfortable leaving food outside my door over any possibility of me stepping outside.
The symptoms
In short, over the course of my quarantine period, I experienced a headache, runny nose, body aches, loss of taste, chills, and a cough, but the worst by far was the depression and panic I experienced. I literally cried almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day. There would be days I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling claustrophobic or like a fish out of water. My heart would race, and the air in the room would feel static. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. On top of that, my eyes often hurt due to too much screentime.
When reviewing the documentation of my symptoms, I noticed how my physical sickness probably only lasted at most a week, but everything after that was a stress response. I was convinced I was the plague and the light at the end of the tunnel was increasingly dim. The loneliness and isolation were killing me.
What helped me:
deliveries from loved ones
people visiting me from outside my window to make me feel less alone
phone calls to keep me company and pass the time
creating a little “activity menu” - I wrote a bunch of ideas for things to occupy myself in isolation on sticky notes, put them on my wall, and tried to remove 1 to 3 per day.
being gentle + kind to myself - I recognized I was not 100% and didn’t expect myself to be productive.
journaling
My advice to you:
Don’t treat them like a science experiment or an amusing anecdote. It’s very easy to want to interview them and squeeze out every piece of information, treating them like a case to crack or feeling a sudden urge to become a detective overnight.
I can’t speak for everyone, but personally, the following questions were not helpful, especially if you do not have any risk of exposure to them:
“How did you get it?”
“Where did you get it?”
“Who were you with?”
“What were you doing?”
Along those lines, I would also suggest not telling people to be productive. Believe it or not - simply existing can feel hard under those conditions. Now is not the time to give people unsolicited advice on how they should learn a new language, reorganize their room, or do something resembling getting their life together while it feels like it’s falling apart.
Instead, choose to be empathetic. Check on their well-being. Treat them like the human they are and not like your workplace chisme. Let them open up on their own terms and share within their comfort. Some alternative questions to consider:
“How are they feeling?” (And no, I don’t just mean in terms of symptoms.)
“How are they healing?”
“How can you support them?”
“How can you make them feel less alone?”
“Do you have the bandwidth to support them?”
That’s all I have to say for now. Thank you for coming to my TED talk on how not to further isolate, other, or shame people who have tested positive for COVID more than they may already feel during what’s already a tough time. Be a nice human. Show some compassion. It could happen to anyone.
*This blog post was written in December 2021 but published with some revisions and edits in May 2022. Quarantine periods and CDC recommendations have changed since then.