It was late January when I first heard about the coronavirus.
Like most Americans I dismissed it as another hyped up illness, comparing it to
the overblown H1N1 or SARS scares of years past. It was something that was
happening a half-continent away in China, what was there to worry about?
In February my family thought nothing about flying to
Florida for winter break. On March 6, two weeks to the date after our return,
my eldest texted me to see if I would pick him up from school. He wasn’t
feeling well – he had a scratchy throat, nausea, and fatigue. He later spiked a
fever that went up to 101.2 and lasted a day, followed by congestion and a
cough. At the time there were no coronavirus cases in Michigan, nor was there
any specific information about the pathology of the illness. The symptom list
was vague - fever, coughing, and difficulty breathing. But I wondered – could
he have picked up the coronavirus at the airport or on the plane? I took him to
the doctor a few days later. When I signed him in I noticed a new spot on the
sign-in sheet – “Have you traveled anywhere in the last two weeks?” I marked
yes. But despite that no one mentioned anything about coronavirus or where we
had traveled; the nurse practitioner listened to his chest, said it sounded
good, and sent us on our way.
On the way out, I picked up a fact sheet about COVID-19 by
the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. It said that coronavirus
spreads through the air by coughing and sneezing, close personal contact, and
touching a surface that has the virus on it and then touching your
mouth/nose/eyes. “Health experts are concerned because little is known about
this new virus and it has the potential to cause severe illness and pneumonia.”
Well, that was certainly disquieting. We’d all had pneumonia a few years back
and it was not fun. I was worried about the possibility that Michael had the
coronavirus and would have to be out of school for 14 days in a quarantine. A
friend in San Francisco posted on Facebook that her daughter’s roommate and
boyfriend were sick and presumably had coronavirus. Their symptoms mimicked my
son’s, minus the congestion.
It was right about that time when Italy became the next hot
spot. Every day the news reported more and more cases and deaths there. I kept
a close eye on this because my parents were supposed to go to Spain on March
10. Soon cases started to appear in Spain. No one wanted to tell my parents not
to go on their trip, but we all were concerned about the risk, not only of them
getting the virus but of getting stuck in Spain if travel to the US was locked
down (which it later was). Luckily no one had to; they made the decision on
their own, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Spain did grow to be the next
hot spot after Italy; the cases in Spain tripled in the three days after they decided not to go.
That fact sheet of early March - it also said this:
“Currently the risk to the general public is low.” Think about that. Only a
month ago health experts were concerned about the coronavirus causing pneumonia
and I was only concerned about my son missing school! And now worldwide there
have been over 81,000 deaths and over 1,400,000 cases,
and that’s only the ones that are known. Schools were cancelled on March 13 and
as of last week have now been cancelled for the rest of the school year. My
home state of Michigan, like many other states in the US, has been on lockdown
since March 24 in order to lessen the spread of this virus that is so
contagious it is spreading like wildfire. Grocery stores were void of any paper
products for weeks, and videos surfaced of fights in the aisles over toilet
paper. Simply unreal.
Admittance - The First Step
I’ve been in a very low mental state for the
last three weeks. My anxiety and fear levels have been through the roof, and
I’m sure much of the world is feeling this way too. I haven’t been writing or meditating
or doing much of anything. I don’t want to talk to people and if I do I find
myself being irritable and short with them. I feel numb, flat, restless, and
unmotivated. I don’t normally pay much attention to the news, but I find myself
being unable to stop refreshing Google News to view the latest updates. Every
day at 3:00 pm I check the local news website to see how many new cases and
deaths there are in my state. With every stomachache, headache, or sore throat
(and there have been many) I take my temperature and wonder if the virus has
finally come to roost in my body and house.
Does it sound like I’m worried and afraid? You bet I am. I’m
absolutely terrified of this coronavirus coming into my home or that of someone I
love and changing the trajectory of my life. It’s why I worry about my 79-year-old father-in-law in Wisconsin, as well as my niece who works in the NICU department at the hospital, my cousin's wife who works in the ICU department, and my friend who is a deaf translator at Beaumont hospital. It’s why I won’t go to the grocery store and
send my husband as my Hunger Games tribute even though I desperately want to go
in his place. It’s why I won’t go on a social distancing walk with my mom and dad
who only live a mile down the road from me. It’s why I call people names (not
to their faces of course) when they’re not abiding by the social distancing
stay at home rules.
And just what are those rules exactly? They’re always
changing. The people in charge don’t seem to know what they are either. First
it was wash your hands and use sanitizer to block the spread of germs. Then
after schools were shut down we were told to put into practice social
distancing and keep 6 feet from others who were not part of our immediate
family or household. But could we still see other people as long as we were 6
feet apart? Unclear. I started reading articles posted by friends in San
Francisco about the measures they were taking. Walks with others? Nope. Their
advice was plain and simple: just stay home. And so I did. I declined walks
with anyone outside of my home, parents and brother included. I cocooned myself
and my family inside my home.
I watched videos of nurses begging everyone to stay home and refrain from socializing with anyone outside of the home because the hospitals were
limited in supplies and almost at capacity and you did not want to end up there.
I broke down for the first time after watching these videos as the threat of
what our world was dealing with became all too real. The second time I broke
down was after the announcement that the schools would remain closed for the
rest of the school year. Not because I would have to be in charge of
homeschooling my teens for the rest of the year, but because our present
situation was expected to remain so dire that we wouldn’t be returning to
normalcy before the end of the school year. Mostly I was afraid that this would
be the new normal, that our lives would be irrevocably and forever changed.
Looking at social media didn’t make me feel better; for some
reason it just made me more irritated and annoyed. Many of the people I follow
were sharing meditations or other resources designed to help you feel better or
to help ease your anxiety and fear. Others advocated learning new skills or
making masks or doing anything to keep busy. I felt less than because I didn’t
feel like doing any of these things. I did put a thank you heart on my mailbox
but couldn’t get motivated to do anything else because I was busy being angry,
afraid, and processing my grief over this situation we found ourselves in.
Last week I went on a walk in nature with my son. It was a
beautiful spring day, warm and sunny, and I wanted to walk amongst the trees. I
knew it would be the perfect medicine for my mental health. We drove to a trail
head, only to discover that everyone else had the same idea. The parking lot
was packed with cars. My need for sun and nature outweighed any sense of fear I
felt at being so exposed, so near others (near being a safe 6 foot or more
distance), but afterwards I wondered if I had done myself and my family a
disservice? We passed a lot of people on the trail - had I just risked my
family’s health?
My worries intensified two days later when the CDC came out
with the advisement to the general public to wear masks anytime we were outside
of our homes. They now believed the virus could be passed not just from touch,
sneeze, or cough; it would linger in the air after you talked or breathed and
you could, in that manner, be exposed to the virus. The developments keep evolving.
The latest, according to Kaiser Health News, suggests that the coronavirus can
infect the heart muscle, leading to heart failure or cardiac damage in
patients. Yikes!
Every day things are changing and my anxiety keeps ramping
up. Perhaps others think I am going over the top by locking my family down so
stringently. The thing is - I’m no stranger to viruses. In fact, I have spent
the past decade being vigilant about eradicating them from my body and
household.
In 2013 I was hospitalized with Epstein Barr Virus (EBV),
the virus that causes mononucleosis and contributes to Chronic Fatigue. Recovery
was not simple. My immune system was severely altered and I had to be careful with
what I ate or drank (no alcohol for me - it would cause me to get sick again).
I even had to be wary of my daily activity levels as overdoing it with exercise
or cramming too much into one day would catapult me into a relapse. In 2014 I
started seeing an infectious disease specialist. He discovered that in addition to EBV I had
high levels of other viruses. This viral load in my body was significantly
overwhelming my immune system, causing chronic fatigue and illness. Antivirals
were the cure and in this case, the cure WAS almost worse than the disease, but
over time it was effective. I turned to holistic medicine once my viral load lessened
and began to get significantly better, and ever since I have worked really hard
to strengthen my immune system and protect myself from a relapse.
In 2018 my eldest son, who was 15 at the time, was diagnosed
with PANDAS/PANS brought on his heavy viral load of the same viruses I had. Our
world shifted dramatically as the illness caused him to have unreasonable
contamination fears and OCD behaviors that ruled his life. With the help of
some talented doctors we made it through that crisis too, but the threat of a
relapse always lurked in the back of my mind.
While I would not want either of us to experience being ill
like that again, those viruses were a cakewalk compared to COVID-19. They
weren’t deadly, like coronavirus can be. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer
wisely said “COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate along state lines, or party lines,
or socioeconomic lines. COVID-19 is ravaging our country.” She’s right.
Coronavirus also doesn’t care if you are strong and healthy or young or
middle-aged. Not everyone has the same reaction. You could have mild symptoms
or none. It can strike you down within days if it feels like it. And it wants
to be transmitted - that’s how this virus survives and proliferates. You can
have it and not have any symptoms, thereby passing it along unwittingly,
perhaps to someone who will die from it.
Feeling My Fears
So YES, I am very afraid of this virus. One wrong
interaction could change my life in a horrible way. Maybe my immune system is
strong enough to handle it now. But I’m not willing to play Russian roulette
with my health or the health of my family. I am being uber cautious and careful
as we all should be. No one wants to die. So we have to live life for a while
without face to face connection or socialization. I think that’s a small price
to pay to avoid the spread of this deadly disease.
This isn’t the first time I’ve felt fear like this, however.
For several years I’ve been actively addressing the overwhelming anxiety I have
about something happening to my family. It has been a very big fear of mine,
probably the biggest fear I have, and it is also a huge anxiety trigger for me,
like when my mom landed in the ICU with pancreatitis and the doctors weren’t
sure if she was going to make it. Or when I was afraid that a virus or illness
would take my son down again and wipe away any progress we’d made from
PANDAS/PANS. But the way I feel now is different somehow. I’m afraid to do
anything lest the Sauron eye that is coronavirus focus its attention on me. I
feel it roaming over my house at all times, lurking, watching, waiting.
I consider myself a spiritual person, a person of faith, and
I usually have a tendency to only want to look on the bright side of things -
an eternal optimist. But in order to do so I push away feelings I don’t want to
feel, like anger and grief and fear. I think this is a normal response but I
don’t think it’s a very healthy one, for where do these unacknowledged feelings
go? They become buried until the next crisis or trigger, and then they come up
again, wanting to be addressed or acknowledged.
I have a friend who is a realist. She tried to tell me that
she was worried about the coronavirus when it was still “just” a China issue.
But I, like our country’s leadership, didn’t want to listen. I didn’t want to
hear that a pandemic could come to America and become our new reality. Later
when the coronavirus hit here I tried to find silver linings in our “forced”
quarantine like everyone else. I thought of all the writing I could get done,
projects to tackle - maybe now was the time to clean the basement? But the
truth was I couldn’t do anything because I was at war with myself, although I
didn’t realize it at the time. I was stuck in my emotions, hiding from fear.
I don’t like looking at the darker emotions of my psyche but
I am very familiar with how they get my attention, hanging around as fatigue,
depression, irritation or even headaches and stomach issues. I don’t like to
think about what I am afraid of, nor am I in the habit or admitting when I am
afraid or even showing it. Showing fear is scary; to me it means I am not
strong. It means I am less than as a woman, that I am vulnerable and have a
lack of control. Instead I push it away and escape into the dramas of
television or books.
Healing and Moving Forward
Today I realized that until I address my fears they will
remain stuck. And so I address my fears,
face them head on by writing this blog post, admitting them to myself and to you,
my readers.
I am rewarded with insight and guidance. I am reminded that
feeling fear is not weak. In fact, avoiding fear is the weakness, akin to
sticking your head in the sand. Fear may be part of what makes us human, but it
is not something we are meant to get stuck in or avoid.
Now I understand. Keeping myself walled off from fear
doesn’t mean it’s not there or that it doesn’t exist. It’s like when a child is
afraid of monsters or the dark and puts a blanket over herself to hide. Even
though she is still in plain sight of said monsters, she feels better because
SHE can’t see what is out there. She’s not necessarily hiding from any
perceived danger, she is hiding from herself, from her fear, because it makes
her feel safe.
In writing this post I have learned that giving your fears a
voice takes the charge out of the actual emotion. It releases them from your
body and mind. There’s a saying I like to tell my kids: “You can’t always
control a situation but you can control how you react to it.” This is good
counsel right now because we don’t have any control over the spread of the
pandemic right now. Yes, it is certainly bringing up a lot of fear and anxiety but
we don’t have to live subservient to those emotions.
My friend posted these wise words from her nephew, Joshua
Cate, who is riding out the pandemic in South Korea: “Don’t live in fear… did
you know there are other things you can live by? Live by awareness. Live by
respect. Live by responsibility. Live by the fact that what you do can either
help stop this virus or help it spread. Live in the knowledge that your actions
can cause yourself, your loved ones, your family, your friends, your coworkers,
and all those whom you come in contact with to either be safe or be sick.”
I’m not advocating living life in fear either, because
that’s not what I’m about. I’m saying feel your fears, don’t avoid them. Give
them a voice, either by writing them down, speaking them out loud, or drawing
pictures of them. Do what feels healing to YOU. Then release them. Afterwards,
hopefully you will feel like I do today, lighter, stronger, and ready to get on
with my life in quarantine.
In the days, weeks, possibly months to come I hope and pray
I’m not adversely affected by this virus and I hope and pray, dear reader,
you’re not either. Much love to you all. Thanks for reading.
Feel free to share your fears with me if you’d like either
by commenting on this post or sending me an email. After all, we’re all in this
together!
