Today is a strange new beginning. I started new job today. I had a few job offers and they both started on this day. Because I don't believe in coincidences but instead divine inner-workings, I believe there to be some deep significance to it. Why is this day significant to me? March 16th, 2020, is the day I felt COVID for the first time.
I remember the day before my boyfriend and I had scheduled a double date with one of his friends. Having infinitely more foresight than I, the men cancelled it. I still was naive, didn't follow world events outside of facebook and twitter. But for the updates from my roommate, my boyfriend and my boss, I would've been totally in the dark. My boyfriend bought a thermometer to prepare (at the time we were being told the symptom was a fever). My boss told me not to come into work. She was afraid of me taking the subway. I was glad that I had the week off and was excitedly planning it, totally unaware of what was about to ensue.
The next day I didn't feel well. Jeff (my boyfriend) was going for one of his long runs so he swung by. He brought the thermometer and we checked my temperature. It was normal. I've never checked my temperature so much in my life, convinced that if I didn't have that I must not have COVID. I didn't feel well though and this continued.
I can't remember the day it first lifted. But there were a few days like this back in the early days where I thought I was all better again. I would have a burst of energy and feel back to my normal self. I went for runs. I enjoyed myself. Then, a few weeks later, I would crash with these unbearable bouts of fatigue and aches all over my body. This continued until I finally realized something terrible: this wasn't going away. In fact, over exerting myself just made things worse.
In July of 2020 I left a rally in times square in intense pain in my knees. I had heard about people with COVID developing blood clots and I feared the worst. When I went to urgent care about my knees I was told it was arthritis. This arthritis would develop throughout my body: my feet, my wrists, my elbows, but most notably my knees. Studies about this new post viral arthritis didn't come out until October so I felt like no one knew what I was going through. This is when I reached my breaking point.
I am what's considered a long hauler. The hypothesis of doctors is that for some people the sympathetic nervous system was affected. Now my body seems to be constantly in a state of reacting to something. It's put stress on every organ.
I saw 3 doctors (4 if you count the original one at the urgent care clinic). I emotionally exploded on the doctor who looked at my knee in July (this was not new either. I cried on the phone a few months earlier trying to get a COVID test unsuccessfully). I explained my journey with COVID and how I believed they were related. The urgent care doctor wrapped my knee, prescribed Naproxen, and officially told me she thought it was arthritis. It was only after the visit when she bumped into me in the hall that she told me in hushed tones that I might be right since studies are coming out all the time about different effects of COVID.
The second doctor was supposed to be my PCP. I wasn't able to see her until August. I was going to the office for the first time and apparently picked the woman who went on maternity leave literally right after our visit. So I explained everything to her and she sent me to a clinic in Manhattan for long haulers who didn't accept me because I didn't have antibodies. She had told me to tell her and she would refer me to specialists if they didn't accept me. I couldn't reach her. I was told I had to make another appointment with another doctor to do this. The appointment wasn't for another month. Meanwhile, I was in pain and lacking answers since July. When finally I saw this doctor in September, he did a bunch of bloodwork and referred me to a rheumatologist. The rheumatologist prescribed the same medication both the last doctor and the original urgent care doctor prescribed and sent me on my way (with a hefty $600 bill to boot that the office didn't file with insurance correctly so I thought I had to pay).
I will say she was the only doctor who listened well to me, kept in contact with me, and explained post-viral athralgia to me. She also suggested I bike when I asked her about cardio workouts I could do, which is interesting because gripping things hurts. Not being able run has been (ironic to me) my biggest challenge. I've put on weight. I don't feel like myself. My latest hurdle that I was not expecting was being jobless and not being able to accept work that I would normally be able to do physically like stand or walk a lot.
I have to be grateful though that in the midst of so much pain and uncertainty that I know is felt globally, God really did take care of the details. I have medical insurance and haven't had to pay anything this whole time (ok, $1 for each refill of drugs). I didn't work for a long time and was miraculously provided for. When I reached my breaking point I posted on the COVID survivors group on Facebook and finally found camaraderie with over 60 people who were struggling with arthritis as a result of this virus. Though I was unable to get into the free COVID clinic through Mount Sinai, my boyfriend did and now I am reaping the benefits of the programs they've recommended for him (including breathing programs backed by real science). I started therapy. I've learned so much about caring for myself and advocating for myself, which is something I really needed to learn.
One year is a long time. My doctor told me she thought I'd be fully recovered in a year. Did she mean a year from July? Doctors aren't supposed to make promises like that because of people like me.
I wish I had taken a meticulous physical diary tracking my symptoms each day. I desire this mainly because all the days blur together now and I wonder what it actually feels like to be well. There was a long time where I believed what others had to say about myself and that maybe I was making this up or maybe it wasn't COVID maybe it was depression or something else. I'm still learning to not bring it up because people just do not get it. I don't want to wear a badge of pride about being sick either. I don't want pity. I'm not using it to get any advantages. I just want to be well.
How do I hope? How do I get out of bed each morning? I shared in a previous post that it's literally one day at a time. Some days are harder than others. But as a human beings it's our glory to hope in things. Even after so much despair, we just can't help hoping. It's in our nature. And so I hope in my new exercises I'm doing. I hope in my new diet. I hope in time healing. I hope in the vaccine healing.
But even if none of these things change anything about my physical condition, I've spent a year like this so I know it is possible to go on. I know it's possible to hope in something more than just how I am physically feeling. I now have a new job, one that is perfectly tailored to my physical condition (I haven't spoken at all about brain fog or fatigue really and how they effect my mental capacity but I hear I don't have it as bad as others so for that I can still be hopeful).
So here I am back to the original thought: starting a new job on the day I became symptomatic means something. I'm extremely detail oriented and I've found that the God of the universe is also and that he cares about me and every detail of my life. So why wouldn't I believe that this day was fashioned for me? I choose to believe it means hope. I choose to believe it means new beginnings.
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