Ma, I Tested Positive
Here are five days of journals that I kept after being diagnosed with COVID-19. I’d planned on going to my sister’s for Thanksgiving, and tested prior as a precaution. Out of respect to all the nurses on the front line, I decided to keep a journal that I dedicated to my mother, who was a nurse for 31 years.
Day 1 — Three Days after my positive test
Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2020
Mom,
I am writing because I couldn’t call you Monday morning at 6:30am after I’d read the email. I tested positive. Tested positive based on a test I took last Friday at 10am. It’s not a positive test for pregnancy or AIDS, but for this new virus called COVID-19. It’s a 2019 disease that is damaging respiratory tracts through its moldy and deadly spores, which look like coronas — latin for “crowns” — when viewed through microscopes. The Spanish Flu killed an estimated 675,000 people in the US from 1918–1920 and an estimated 50 million worldwide. We are hovering around the 265,000 deaths mark in the US right now, and I don’t know the worldwide count. I just know the United States is leading the world in cases and deaths, and that’s as far as I can go right now. I bet that we have another year before we start to see a clearing in what is a dark forest under dark clouds with a little light breaking through. What little light that is breaking through is due to talks of a few vaccines. Until we get there, as of today, your daughter is one of the estimated 200,000 new daily cases in the US alone.
I had to read the test result a few times, and then go back and line up all the negatives — since June, five negatives, Ma. I had to blink again when I saw the positive. The first thing I thought of was just breathing and pausing to feel my body.
I was okay.
I will be okay.
Won’t I?
Then I immediately thought of all the kids I may have put in harm’s way. I called the next closest version of you — your sister, the always reliable Aunt Carol — at 6:35am. She had just sent me a text responding to a comment I had made of how frightened I’d been by the numbers that are climbing as she prepared for work as a school nurse and tracer.
Now I would have to tell her that I am one of them.
“What’s up?” she said.
“I tested positive.”
“Oh.”
“I think I’m fine. I had a runny nose last week and a headache, which I am sure are allergies to the leaves I was raking. And I had a bit of a temp, maybe, but I had my period last week, and my temp changes around it. I don’t think I’ve had any symptoms at all. I’m just worried about the kids and anyone I saw this weekend.”
We went through all the scenarios of how close and how they were all masked, outside and distanced while the kids played basketball. I explained that my obsession with our cleaning of the park by raking most of it was maybe what saved us a lot of anxiety if nothing else because it kept me far away from our kids, staff and parents. Then realized it was best to let them all know immediately instead of waiting hours or even a day for the NYC tracer or my doctor to provide guidance on who was at risk, and who was not.
Ma, it was still hard for me to write those emails. It was embarrassing. It was more than feeling dirty. It felt like I’d been irresponsible. Like I shouldn’t have taken the subway or gone to the grocery store, masked and even double masked as I had been doing on a few occasions. I had just canceled my membership to my high end, “Best in HVACs” gym last week because numbers were climbing and because no one was there anyway, which could be argued as a reason to go or not to go. There were maybe 3–5 people on each floor and no more than three in the locker room ever, and, if there were more than 3–5 people, I moved away from them, including the one guy who was just breathing way too hard as he lunged towards me. The pool was my greatest risk, and maybe that’s how I got it after taking a much-needed dip after working the elections for nine days in Philadelphia. I don’t think I got it in the hotel in Philly, but there was that one night of hearing a loud cougher on my floor. I don’t think it was there though because I don’t think it could go through the vents, could it? It must have been the pool. There were three swimmers in one four-lane pool. Again, best of HVAC systems, and sanitation stands everywhere. But maybe that was it — the lack of open air considering how safe it’s been outside, and the fact that we can’t swim with masks on.
Or maybe I got COVID by not wearing a thick enough mask all the time or those eight minutes I took my mask off to eat at Joe’s Coffee because I was the only person in the joint aside from the guy behind the counter. Maybe he gave it to me or I gave it to him or maybe we should stop with all this blaming of who did what since my god, all I was doing was trying to get a tea and snack and he was just trying to work a job and pay his rent. Or maybe it was my riding the subway from 79th Street up to 116th Street for all of 12–13 minutes even though I was standing by the doors, moving as far as I could from others, and not holding the handrail. Or just sitting down six feet away like all of us were trying to do. It wasn’t like we were irresponsible, or was it, Ma? It is a matter of trying to live even with restrictions, and even that is hard, Ma, after almost nine months of living in a Twilight Zone where everyone is masked and we don’t trust each other because we simply cannot.
I shouldn’t be whining to you because all I think about when I see these nurses and doctors and hospital and nursing home staff is you. They’re showing up, Ma. People are dying, their friends are gravely ill, they’re dying, they’re struggling to keep up, and they keep showing up. I just have to stay healthy enough to not have to see any of them because that would not just be bad from a health standpoint, but it just would be embarrassing, a total sign of disrespect because it would fall under one of the most-often and justified material lines ever: “I told you so.”
You’re right. There’s no other way to cut it. This is my fault for being off my game, for dropping my guard for a swim and/or a sip, for not doubling up my mask when I should have known better.
You’re going to be mad when I say after I read the positive test, I didn’t believe it. I was selfish again, Ma, after I read that positive test because it wasn’t so positive to me. I didn’t have enough symptoms to really have it, did I? I told your sister that I didn’t have it. I emailed my doctor saying that I wanted a retest. There’s just no way I had it — couldn’t I get tested again? Both said not a good idea and “you have it,” then “but okay, if you insist.” False positives are not common, my doctor reminded me. It’s usually a false negative due to a botched test or bad sample. But I kept asking my body, “Is this for real?” Were those sniffles last week, that little headache, that touch of a fever, really COVID-19? Why didn’t it get worse? Will it get worse?
With no way to answer, there was only one way to find out. I took out my credit card, dropped $250 and made an appointment for 3:20pm Monday afternoon. I charged up my scooter. No cab. No public transit. Get in and out. When I got to the rapid test site, I waited outside and saw the woman lip-synch my name through the window. I hustled into my booth and out, holding my breath as much as I could. I think I was in the office for one minute. I wore two masks — a new N95 that I saved for only emergency situations, and this counted — and I wore a surgical mask over it.
After reading the positive result for the second time in one day, I forwarded the results to Aunt Carol.
“Yes, you have it.”
AKA “TOLD YOU SO.”
Then I wrote to my doctor and apologized.
I now get why people deny it. It’s just an embarrassing feeling to get what everyone says not to get 24/7, and I, myself, have partaken in those lectures. You feel dumb and irresponsible and like you were not doing your job. I felt like I let everyone down, and worse, I felt like I’d put others in harm’s way.
I told Meg that I couldn’t come to her rental in NJ for a while, and certainly not for Thanksgiving. She said she’d tell the kids I had to work. I said later that they have to know the truth not “Aunt Maureen had to work.” Heck, Aunt Carol is going to let the word out to all of Wynantskill, NY, and I really don’t care what they think or say. Many of the kids in our program know as do their parents. My niece and nephew could handle it. Meg wrote back, “I’ll tell them Wednesday. I don’t need them telling everyone at school that their aunt has COVID.”
What I want people to know is that I am counting my lucky breaths, Ma. The kids shouldn’t worry, yet we can’t let them think it is okay to make light of what is a deadly virus and all we don’t know about it. What we know about it is harrowing enough. A friend called me last night, and confessed that he had the virus in March. He doesn’t tell people because he’s afraid of the stigma, and he doesn’t want to relive the moments where he went to sleep and was worried that he may not make it. He asked his doctor, “Am I going to die?” And all the doctor said was, “It’s a new virus.”
I know friends who have had it, friends of friends who have died from it, including a rising actor and proud dad, Nick Cordero, who was in good health. I cried for him, his wife and my friends when I heard the news of his passing. Even your son-in-law’s former business partner died from complications of COVID or a kidney issue or both. When Meg text me that Gil had died in Hungary, leaving his wife and young child behind, I cried, and I reached out to his sister who let me stay with them when I went to that girls’ orphanage in Colombia ten years ago right after you died, and that made me think of all the kids who have lost both parents to COVID.
After Gil died from COVID complications early last week, I decided to give up the gym. It was just days before I’d told myself that I have to be healthy and ready to help Meg and the kids. I have to be healthy to help the kids in our program. I have to be healthy to keep picking up trash, raking leaves and doing good things in the neighborhood. I told myself all these things because my god, I’ve seen the horror stories of how awful it to be a parent with COVID, in a hospital, sick or with sick kids or partners. My God, Ma. These stories are everywhere. And if you have a mild case, or you fear a mild case or your work is shut down because somebody has it, it’s too often leveling people financially. People who don’t have it and can’t work because of industries being decimated — travel, retail, restaurants, sports even — they have no idea how they’re going to make it through the winter.
There are icebergs everywhere now, Ma. And the health care workers — your kindred souls — are going to have a brutal weekend watching so much pain and possibly carrying the disease and the pain home with them. That’s what you did, Ma. You lost people you loved. You took care of the hospice patients that nobody else wanted to take care of, the ones who had no family members to stop and see them, so you stayed late, past your clock-out time because, Ma, that is who you were and my god, if there’s anyone who feels so damn lucky today, to not be sick and holding on for air, and to know that she was brought into the world by a woman who would do anything for those in need right now, it is me, Ma. It’s me. Because of you.
I know you are not here to make sure I am okay by doing what others are doing by sending me food, texts and emails, and offering to do a FaceTime or Zoom to help me get through. I know if you were here, if you were healthy, if you could work, you would be finding a wing of the house to keep yourself in so you could love your kids and love your patients at the same time. Not everyone can do what you did, Ma. And if any of us were sick, really sick, we know who would be in the trench with us.
The least I can do right now is suck up this quarantine and thank any spiritual objects that epitomize luck that I am asymptomatic while at the same time, not for once second sending a message or hint that there’s any guarantee or rhyme or reason why I have tested positive with no symptoms. All I can do is hope that my status does not change. Some of the kids in our program and the families are being tested. I was outside, masked, distanced from all of them. Except one girl. On Sunday I went inside Joe’s and she with me for eight minutes, just enough time for me to buy her a smoothie before we sat down outside so she could teach me my first lesson in drawing on an ipad. The tracer I spoke to today said he has to track her, but it’s still low risk. I had already corresponded with her mom by 7 am via text and her family agreed to go into quarantine for five days and then they will test. I told them I was so sorry. Yet she’s my worry, Ma. Her family, too. She’s the one I’m checking in on, and once we clear that test in four days, I’ll stop texting her each day, and feel like I can fully breathe.
Everyday I’ll get up and I will assess how I feel. The sniffles and headache are behind me. I still feel a little off, and maybe I am just anxious, but I am okay. Let’s hope it stays that way. I’ll write, and draw and listen to music and pursue work and projects that often feel like they get me nowhere. I’ll give everything to what I do no matter what because of you, Ma. Because that is what you did for your patients, for your co-workers, for your family, for anyone who was sick or dying in the neighborhood, and for people you barely knew.
When I see these doctors and nurses tell their stories of watching people die and suffer, and when they have to tell them of other family members who are now dead because of the virus, I think of you, Ma. I make myself watch without complaint because you did all of this for 31 years, and you did not complain one bit. You just kept showing up. You kept giving. In all the turmoil that life brought you, and the same grief and turmoil and injustice this year has brought so many Americans, we have to look around, dig deep, show up, stay positive, find the light somewhere in those dark clouds in that dark forest, and just keep on giving.
Until tomorrow …
Maureen
Day 2 — Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020
Dear Ma,
I have good news. Three kids from Friday’s group that I coached for 90 minutes have tested negative, and so have their families (a few of the family members tested). We were outside, masked and I was at a coaching distance. Three other kids who I saw over the weekend tested negative, too. The only one we’re waiting on is the girl I bought the smoothie for. We were both in masks and indoors for 8–10 minutes. Then we went outside and I ate a small sandwich while she kept her mask on. Then I put my mask back on while she showed me how to draw on my ipad. She and her family are quarantining until Friday, the five-day post-exposure (to me) mark. I’ll be relieved once I hear from them.
I don’t think I have any of the serious symptoms. I do have some intermittent tightness that I can feel in my chest. I think it’s indigestion. Or maybe I’m allergic to some of the food I ate. Or maybe it’s something in my head. Or all of the above and it could change. That’s what my friend Alex told me when we spoke today. Alex and I played pickup ball together for years after I graduated at Northwestern. A few years back he visited NYC and said he wanted to treat me to dinner as a thank you for all the times I gave him a ride to the gym back in the late 1990s. He invited me to Daniel, an “elegant French flagship” on the upper east side. Ma, I didn’t know that the night out would include what felt like a 12-course meal with several white-gloved servers. Making matters worse was that I was about 36 hours post-ankle reconstruction, yet I still went, in a white blouse and skirt that didn’t fit right. I put napkins over my elevated leg where my skirt wasn’t long enough so I could block the crotch shot, and who knows what shoes I picked out to match my crutches. Alex and our dinner companions thought it was fine. The servers tried to help me every time I moved, and I spent half the night mortified, which is a big part of what makes it so memorable.
Alex now works at a research lab that is developing a COVID-19 vaccine and he said that some asymptomatic people are fine after the sniffles or allergy-like symptoms that I experienced. Others regress quickly. He said to be cautious about the next few days and hopefully by Monday, I’ll be okay. He gave me more than one story of healthy folks to high performing athletes who have suffered severely over the course of months. One of his martial arts buddies went to the ER several times. He had three cardiac arrests. He’s better now, but he still has to stop and pause going up stairs.
I thought it was a good idea to call Dad and tell him before he hears from someone else. He was upset at first. It’s clear he’s suffering from a degree of pandemic fever and work stress combined. I assured him that I was feeling okay, and it may take a while for me to get to Meg’s place safely, but it’s better that I had the test before my last attempt. Early on when the pandemic struck, we read about the stiff arm coming from upstaters who didn’t want any New Yorkers headed their way. Prior to this mess, during trips back to our hometown, we’d heard plenty of rounds as to why we were living in such an armpit and that “they’d never live there” and “only can stand a visit for a few days” and “they’re all so rude.” We’ve just learned to dodge the insults about the cost of living, filth, crime and people (us apparently) and pivot the convo to another topic instead of trying to defend our new home base where both your daughters seem to be making it — still, in spite of it all, we’re here. Now we’re just trying to get by in the Big Apple as much as rural and suburban folks are trying to make it, too. Like everyone else, we go to grocery stores. Ours are just more populated on the way to the store and inside of it. Public transit is my car. It is shared, yes, and I tried to avoid it as much as I could, but walking 50 blocks to and from work is not as fun as the weather gets colder and the scooter may short-circuit. I stood by the door. My mistake must have been when I took off my mask briefly for my tea, or maybe it was due to the mask I wore to the grocery store that one day. Maybe it wasn’t thick enough or sealed enough.
I told Dad that he cannot go to bars or diners even with the plexi-glass. No more beers and wings every once in a while. He can take no more chances. None. I said that we are too close to the vaccine to make a misstep now (but my god, it’s not close enough). I didn’t go to bars and restaurants for drinks and full meals, and I still got COVID. He’s been looking out for Ryan, who is on the front lines, but outside for most of his work time, thankfully. And dad has been looking out for Billy and Bobby as their surrogate father for many years now. I said to dad that he can’t drive with the windows up with them either. Dad said that there’s been an outbreak at Siena. I told him that if that is true, and his stepdaughter is going to and from campus and hanging out with friends, he cannot breathe the same air as she does. They must be separate in the house or masked or both. I told Dad that I’m sharing the same report that Aunt Carol gives and so does my friend, Alex, who doesn’t trust masks as much as I do. He keeps telling me to make sure they are sealed and thick enough to protect me and others.
Talking to Alex today reminded me of another Alex who I met because of you in New York City one year in the early 2000s. It was another New York memory, and my god, Ma, I miss them so much. When you were alive, I brought you down even when you were really struggling to hold your head up, but I wanted to get you out and you so badly wanted to do the same. I bought us fifth row seats to Wicked so you could hear and feel all the magic, and that’s when we met another Alex. This one is a famous one. You could barely hold your head up, but my God, Ma, you loved those show tunes. I spent most of my time staring at the maestro, Alex Lacamoire. He was one of the most magnificent professionals I had ever seen, and I knew nothing about music relative to the crowd I was in. He burst with joy and held a perpetual smile. His team beamed back at him, quietly, confidently as to not disturb those up above who were stealing all of their thunder under the brightest of lights.
After the show, I helped you leave, and he stopped and smiled at us both with his warm and happy eyes. I stopped and chatted, telling him how wonderful he was at what he did. He asked me out on a date a few days later, and we met at the diner around the block where I used to live in Hell’s Kitchen. The one thing I didn’t realize as Alex stood in the raised pit was that I would tower over him on even ground. It was incredibly awkward at first, but he was kind and filled with love for life, Ma. He told me about a new play he was working on — In the Heights — and how he’s writing all the music with a talented, rising friend. Ma, Alex Lacamoire is the musical composer behind Lin-Manuel Miranda, the most talented man and show to hit Broadway.
I finally watched Hamliton last week on Disney. I couldn’t afford to go back when it started on Broadway, although you’ll be happy to hear that your younger daughter, the corporate pro, had dinner with the author of Hamilton, met Lin-Manuel Miranda, and saw the play. I guess I was just working too much to put my name out there for tickets, to get them at a discount, or to pretend to be someone’s date to go (Meghan’s suggestion). I told myself I’d see it someday, and I kept putting it off.
In March, when the pandemic hit and all the lights in the theatre district went dark. As our country’s political turmoil brought me lower and lower, I didn’t want to watch it until we had the results from the election. I started watching it while on the treadmill at the gym after the election, (and hell, maybe that’s where I got COVID). I literally started dancing on the treadmill while watching it, and a guy turned around and just stared at me. I didn’t care. I could not believe what Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alex Lacamoire and that remarkable cast did. They made boring history about white guys fascinating. They made those white guys with uncomfortable clothes and odd hair styles look so damn talented and cool. I know people are going to start telling me how brilliant and extraordinary those men were as scholars, economists, writers and that they didn’t need a musical for me to sing them praise.
Here’s where we call a TIME OUT, MA…
There’s a song about them at the end about who will tell your story that counts more than your being dumb enough to agree to a duel where you think you can fire some “warning shot” instead of killing the guy and get out of it. I mean if Hamilton was considered the best and brightest men of that time — as one of the founders of our country — and he agreed to a DUEL with guns and witnesses and was unable to do that math on the odds that you would either 1) DIE or 2) COMMIT MURDER IN PUBLIC, how brilliant was he, Ma? Seriously? I mean the music is pure magic and the writing is as clever as it gets, but Hamilton lost his oldest son to a duel years earlier. Yet he still wanted to show his manhood and give away his “shot” over a guy who got under his skin?
And did the police ever show up to arrest Burr? Did we even have police back then? Or did everyone just settle it if the military didn’t? Did men just shoot each other and say, “Problem resolved?” And what was up with Hamilton and the sisters, and his the sister-in-law,? And yes, I’ll admit that Lin made a rap song so sexy that it almost was an official pardon of Hamilton, the “extraordinary” for adultery? He pulled that one over on me, Ma. What the hell? And if he hadn’t gotten shot in that duel, would he have made it to Broadway?
The time out is over. It’s fair to say the production of Hamilton revealed a very flawed man, and the material you need for a great story.
Here’s where else my mind went when I saw while watching all those talented actors on that screen, I wonder where they are living now, and if they have enough cash to last what could be two years off the stage. Can you imagine how much not being able to work crushes their soul? Performing in front of a live crowd is their oxygen, Ma. It’s what they love the way you used to love caring for others. That is how they, like you, take care of yourself. For you, working and taking care of others seemed to be the ONLY way you lived. It’s what got you out of bed in the morning and kept you going all day.
At the end of the conversation with dad today, he just fell apart. He started talking about a shooting of a young boy in Troy this past fall. More guns, Ma. More boys and men just playing with them like they are toys and kids are being shot. Then we talked about a sick family member (non-Covid related). He just fell apart, Ma, telling me, “If any of my kids went before me, I don’t think I could go on.”
And that made me think of the doctor on the CNN who said how heartbreaking it has been for her patients to ask her to call loved ones, and in some cases, no one answers or someone else picks up and says that COVID has taken their lives, too.
I am having so few symptoms, thankfully, but still — these are just hard and frustrating times. We all want to help, and the best way to help for most of us is to stay inside and hope we don’t fall apart mentally and physically. Granted none of us are going off to war or fleeing a country as refugees, and we can remind ourselves of this, but in doing so, we end up headed down another rabbit hole.
It’s much easier to watch and criticize Hamilton again, or be captivated by The Queen’s Gambit, get pissed off yet again by The Trial of The Chicago Seven, and and made uncomfortable by Hillbilly Elegy.
I’ll take it easy, Ma. I’ll drink a lot of water and get some rest. I’ll think of the girl and her family who are quarantining through Friday because of me. I’ll text her.
And I’ll let Dad and others check in via messages or calls to make sure I am okay, too.
Maureen
Day 3 — Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020 — Thanksgiving Day
Dear Ma,
Here she is — your granddaughter Reese. Since she was an infant, I have called her “The Pigeon” because she entered the world in what looked like a feathery ball, with her Italian hair nice and neat, as compared to her brother, whose long legs and chords made him look more like a thick worm. Reese lived up to the billing as soon as she could grab her own food. Before she was able to speak, she used to sneak around and eat off of everyone’s plates with or without them looking. She even did it to strangers, which left me apologizing more than once.
One day after I put the same dollop of coconut ice cream on everyone’s plate, Reese still went around for her sampling. I said, “Reese, why are you digging into other people’s food when you can see it’s all the same size portion of the same food? There is no difference.”
“I just want to make sure yours doesn’t taste better,” she said.
I think we have the makings of an equal opportunity lawyer on our hands, Ma. She’s diplomatic and well-spoken even with her issue with her Rs and her Long Island accent. We have no idea how or where she got it, Ma. Reese’s full face appeared live on the screen of my phone late Tuesday night, and as usual, she spent most of her phone time smiling and flirting with herself. Often she calls me just Aunt or Auntie or Aunt-Aunt (with a sense of urgency).
“Aunt,” she said.
“Yes, Reese?”
“So I heard you have the ka-wona-viwus.”
I said that the rumor is true, and that I am okay so far and thankful. I said to start planning for the Thanksgiving family Zoom where we’d all have to bring our own drawings of turkeys and lots of jokes.
“Where do the bees stop to go pee?” Reese said.
“Where?”
“The BP Station.”
Today we had Thanksgiving by Zoom, and all of your grandkids were in on it along with Carol and half of her grandkids. We presented our turkeys to the group, and I told my story of Fred, a masked turkey with a Yankee jersey on. I said how he escaped from the Bronx Zoo, took a dip in the Hudson, stopped for coffee and then hopped on the subway. Now he has COVID-19, but he’s feeling okay. He spends most of his time in quarantine telling people to wear masks, not trust indoor public air for a second without a mask on, and seal your masks to your beaks.
Four kids told corny jokes, and we talked about the coronavirus. Carol is working as a school nurse and tracer. Others work on the front lines as a professor, first responder and hospital security. Three are pharmacists who are extra careful behind the plexiglass. On dad’s side, we have doctors, more nurses, teachers and more. We’re all trying to go about our lives and carefully and as responsibly as possible while keeping the kids as happy as possible.
New York City Department of Health called today during the family Zoom, which is what they do if you miss the form they text to you and don’t respond by 2pm. As the rep went down the list of questions, I said “Thankfully, no” when she listed the worst of the symptoms. I didn’t tell her about the tightness I felt in my chest since Monday night when I ate the matzo ball soup. I googled if someone could have an allergy to matzo, and COVID and matzo, and thought I was crazy, so I just gave up and said I’d ask a reliable Jewish source later. I thanked the NYC rep for working on the holiday, and I thought of you, Ma, because given the need for support right now, you would have worked it, too.
You never gave up your job until they forced you to, and even then you volunteered to be with the girls even if it meant doing a task as menial as wiping down stretchers until it became too hard for you. I am a 48-year-old woman. You were 54 years old when you were diagnosed with dementia, your life changed radically, and it began to slip out of your control. That is how so many people feel right now — healthy or unhealthy — that they’ve lost control of their full being. They live in fear of getting it or it getting worse, or of living too much or not living enough as time is slipping away from us all.
I am starting to write again because I think that part of me gave up on it a while ago. I used to do it all the time, but then work piled up, and I always had that antagonist on my shoulder saying, “Who cares?” Back when I first came to NYC, I was able to shake it off of me. Over the years, as the world seemed more weighty and complicated beyond any real hope of repair, I’ve felt that I have just so little to add, or whatever I could add would never really make a difference.
I still believe that your peers who are doing the work on the front lines, the first responders, and all those who are keeping our food and water supply intact are the difference right now. All the rest of us can do is try to stay healthy, and if we get sick, hope it is a mild case like mine and that we do not infect others.
As far as my symptoms right now, I still have that tightness in my chest after I eat and an occasional, barely a trace of a headache. I keep thinking I ate something with too much gluten — like matzo ball soup — because I ate the leftover matzo soup again tonight, and felt the tightness again. I haven’t had those few moments of acid reflux since having them once or twice last week. I remembered thinking to myself, “Ma had this” when I spit up a bit in my own mouth. I thought I was just getting old, or maybe I ate the wrong thing and I’d have to start paying attention to what I was eating. But, of course, I didn’t think too much of it at all, and I kept working while carrying the virus.
The virus and life are being very fair to me right now, Ma. I am one of the lucky ones who is having it much better than others and I can only guess as to why that happened. What’s more important is knowing that I think we have a few more days with a few more benchmarks to pass. Hopefully the one girl who taught me how to draw and her family will be in the clear soon.
Love,
Maureen
Days 4–5 — Friday-Saturday, Nov. 29–30, 2020
Ma,
I have good news — make that the BEST news all week — and a little wacky news, too.
First, let’s start off with my dreams this past week. I dream that I’m stuck outside and I’m COVID-positive. I can’t get back inside when I’m supposed to be in isolation. I’m walking through schools with a ton of kids, and I’m holding my breath under my mask. I’m refusing to tell them why I’m so nervous. But the hallways and rooms just keep getting more crowded, and I keep picking the wrong ones. Then I find myself out on the street, but I can’t get home.
The weird thing about these dreams is that I can see everyone’s faces up close. It’s not just my panic, but it’s everyone looking at me knowing I’m panicked about something, and not wanting to make eye contact with someone who makes them uncomfortable because she looks crazy.
I didn’t have the dream last night, and it’s probably because I finally was able to fully breathe. The girl I’ve told you about — the one I bought a smoothie for before we sat down and I ate a sandwich outside as she showed me how to draw on my ipad — she isolated for five days with her family. Ma, they all tested NEGATIVE on Friday evening. They waited five days after I notified them by 7am Monday morning. I am so thankful that they are okay, and they were so kind and gracious in accepting my apologies over and over all week.
All of my kids who tested ended up being negative, Ma. Outdoor, masked, distanced works. Fresh air, plenty of space, breaks and good masks.
As for me, well I had some funny conversations this weekend. I talked to one of our alum who is now a senior in college. Max had COVID-19 when he was in Spain for a semester in March. I was in a Zoom with his mom, who has become a reliable friend. Max hopped on to say hello, and it was so great to see him. During that convo, I asked his Jewish stepdad who was off screen if he’d ever heard of matzah ball soup giving anyone indigestion. Max fielded it, and said that he had acid reflux for at least a month almost every day after COVID-19. I remember having it last week, but this week it’s just tightness after I eat. I asked Max if he still has acid reflux or indigestion.
“The acid reflux gets bad now only when I drink,” he said. “So I take a Tums.”
“Wait, instead of not drinking, you drink and eat Tums?”
He gave me the one shoulder shrug and smile.
College boys, Ma.
Max was sick for a few weeks to a month, it seemed, and he’s since recovered. He plays a lot of hoops outside, and feels like his wind is almost back in full, but it took a while. Max also filled me in on a symptom that I’m now monitoring — it’s called COVID toe. His younger stepbrother, age 11, had it when he had COVID back in March. “Google it,” Max said. “And you’ll see.”
After I spoke with Max and his mother, I hopped on the phone with my Jewish grandmother, Lois Anne, who was kind enough to adopt me and house me during a trip to Kentucky in 2018. I was so happy to call her and talk because she always makes me laugh. I wanted to draw an image of someone for today’s entry. The problem with Lois Anne is that she refused to let me take her photo. I had to google “Jewish grandmother” and I found a happy Jewish woman.
Lois Anne lived in NYC for years before moving to Louisville where she is a phenomenal gardener, cook and dog-lover. I am none of the above except that I’ve grown very fond of dogs since the pandemic started. I stop and pet them sometimes, and I find dog and animal videos far too entertaining. This is what happens maybe when you either slow down or have little to do aside from work and go to the grocery store.
“I really thought it was matzah ball soup and left over matzah that was giving me indigestion,” I told Lois Anne, who makes the best chicken soup I’ve ever had.
“Matzah ball soup is supposed to make you feel better,” she told me.
“I just felt awful after I had it for dinner on Monday and then almost every night dinner just made me feel lousy. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention to how far back this went. I kept thinking matzah was what caused it. Like I was allergic to it.”
“It’s not the matzah,” Lois Anne said.
“It’s the COVID,” I said with resignation.
I told Lois Anne that I do yoga while watching movies and series on Disney or Netflix. I said that I watched Hamilton, finally.
“Whenever I start to watch it,” she said, “I think of 10 things I have to do. I just can’t get through it.”
“Hamilton was supposed to be brilliant — a writer, economist, founder, right? Yet he agreed to a duel with Burr, which is only going to end with one of two scenarios, neither of which is good. What the hell was he thinking? I loved how all the raps moved the story forward, but what a stupid way to go,” I said.
“They’re men,” she said.
Lois Anne said I haven’t watched a musical until I’ve seen American in Paris and The Bandwagon. She said I had to watch them both. I promised I would. She offered to make me some banana bread. I said no thank you due to the distance and the mailing hassle.
“You really need some soup,” she said. “I wish I could make it for you.”
My friend Heidi text and said to get some Listerine for apparently it is supposed to help. I wrote down chicken noodle soup and Listerine on my grocery list, but it isn’t enough to put in a delivery, so I’ll wait until I can think of more things I need.
I’ve been watching a bunch of movies and series — Queen’s Gambit, The Queen, Hillbilly Elegy while doing yoga and working and drawing. I’ve also been watching my toes. They’re looking kinda purple, Ma. My Northwestern friend Rick called to check on me. I told him that I was monitoring a possible case of COVID Toe.
“Well, maybe it’s just a little Northwestern toe.”
Your grandson Luke was nice enough to FaceTime me during the Northwestern vs. Michigan State football game. “Aunt Maureen,” he said. “Northwestern is on. We’re big fans.”
“You are?” I said with a smile. “As of when?”
“Did you know they’re eighth in the country?” Luke said.
He pointed his dad’s phone toward the TV and we watched together. The Cats did not perform well, but the silver lining was watching Luke learn about the rules of football with his dad while watching my college team. He said, “We’re fans.” I was so proud.
Sure, it stinks that the Cats had a let down. But as my good friend who played at Michigan always says, “You get up to win each day.” We won the day, Ma. None of my kids, staff, parents or contacts that I know of woke up with COVID because of me.
On Friday before I found out about the final negative test we were waiting on, I called the shoe store where I bought a pair of shoes on West 72nd. I told the manager that I was sorry, but I had COVID and there were two older gentlemen who helped me — last Saturday. I called on Friday AM because I was afraid the city wouldn’t get around to doing it. I apologized for not calling earlier in the week.
“We’re all healthy around here,” the manager said.
I gulped. He didn’t ask for the names of the men or my name or when I was diagnosed or for me to repeat the day and time I was in the store. There was no way for me to go to the store and tell the men myself.
I’m just going to assume that the wide open doors, the circulating air, the fact that I wasn’t close to either of them for long helped prevent me from passing it. I was so glad that I switched into the thicker KN95 mask that molded more to my face than the others. I am going to assume that these two men, like the girl who was inside with me for a short time — less than 10 minutes — are okay. I know why the manager acted the way he did. I know what he was thinking, and I get it, Ma. I also know that there are many people with COVID going in and out of stores, and let’s hope that those wide open doors are protecting everyone because hope is all we got while this virus spreads like wildfire. Whether we are symptomatic or asymptomatic, it’s still running wild and only going to get worse before the Hail Mary of all vaccines is available for everyone.
My chest still gets tight after I eat, but I am eating less and it’s helping. I’m going to figure out how to get some soup tomorrow. I’m also now looking at my feet and wondering if I have COVID toe. I’ll ask Aunt Carol and see what she says. She checks in with me everyday and asks for my symptoms. Other than that buildup of tension in my chest after I eat, and that trace of a headache that seems to be dissipating for good, I’m feeling good, Ma. I’m feeling lucky and more thankful than I have felt in a long time.
Love,
Maureen
Day 5 — Sunday-Tuesday, Nov. 30-Dec. 1
Ma,
I was going to start out by telling my COVID-toe story, but I just watched a woman, who happened to be an ICU nurse out of Oklahoma, tell the story of how she lost her husband and mother within three days last week. Her husband just beat one of his sons in a push-up contest the week before he died. Her sons are still alive, but they are all gutted. I worry that unless we play these videos on a loop, too many Americans are going to sit back, share indoor air without a mask on, and think this is almost over because the vaccine is almost here. This false sense of security, the “won’t happen to me” and the pointing to largely asymptomatic cases like mine will set the course for storm after storm, especially in rural areas that don’t have enough beds or staff.
I’m around days 10/11 since my first positive test. Aunt Carol thinks, like me, that I lucked out because I was distanced, masked and not anywhere for too long or in a place where I was too close to people. Our guess is that I inhaled less of a viral load, leaving me with Corona Light. Yes, I’m young and healthy, relatively speaking, but I do think the amount and intensity of the exposure — how long you stay in the cloud of the virus, how potent it is, if you had a mask on at all — has to play a role in all of this (according to a washed-up basketball player turned coach, of course). Thankfully I wore a thick mask for most of the time that I was infected. Thankfully I knew to test well before my plans to go to Meg’s for Thanksgiving. Thankfully, I did not pass it to any contacts, or at least to any of the dozens that I know of and was able to contact.
And thankfully I had Aunt Carol to call or check in on me. Over the weekend, I thought I had a case of minor COVID toe. Or maybe not. When I sent her photos of my slightly purple toes — make that maybe 2–3 toes then down to just one toe — she wrote back, “Haven’t your toes always looked like that?” Any family or teammates who have seen my toes knows that there is much room to make this observation, which is why I won’t draw a photo. My hammer toes are not red or itchy, so that’s good. The left big toenail just is more purple than usual. I look at them and think of how odd all the symptoms are of this virus — from the mild allergy-like symptoms of sniffles and a slight headache to indigestion to full blown severe cases involving chest pain, shortness of breath, blue lips, vomiting and diarrhea. And COVID toe. The first doses of the vaccine will stunt the number of cases of COVID for sure, but it’s going to take 4–7 months to get to everybody in the states, Ma. We are at about 275,000 deaths in the U.S. now, almost one year to the day that the first patient in China was diagnosed one year ago. Where will we be in April? How many people can take 10–14 days away from family or work to recover even if they have mild symptoms like I did? How many countries have shut down and will have to shut down again, some for the third time?
The news of the vaccine feels like a nice shot in the arm, or it will be, but in the meantime, COVID is tearing us apart, Ma. I just heard from a reliable source today that 32 percent of New Yorkers have been to a food bank this week. We have no stimulus package because that selfish-traitor-and-a-hole-in-chief just cares about rigging an election that he lost, which has been proven more than once in more than one state. No, COVID wasn’t his fault, but Jesus, a-hole, can you stop talking about yourself for two f’ing minutes?
A week ago today, I called your sister, Aunt Carol aka “AC” at 6:30am and said, “I tested positive.”
There was a pause.
“Oh,” she said.
“I feel fine,” I said. “Who do I need to tell?”
Basically everyone, Carol said.
Immediately.
And that is what I did.
Keep in mind that Carol and I had been emailing back and forth how out-of-hand COVID was getting and how hard it would be to avoid it. And Carol, a recent retiree after 35 years on every floor of the hospital, checked in on me regularly while working two jobs as a school nurse and tracer.
That’s what nurses do. They just keep going, they keep giving, they keep doing this hard work. I’m not sure enough people care about them or the docs or the custodians or the people who are cleaning non-stop, and removing the bodies.
I have read many times over that around 80+ percent of people who get COVID will not struggle to the point of death or die or be “long haulers.” What just crushes me is what know-it-alls say of those who have struggled. “Yeah, but those people had other pre-existing conditions” as if 1) this is always true when it’s NOT, and 2) as if anyone arbitrarily deserves to be pushed to death’s doorstep. I am disgusted by the “not me” folks who think that like welfare or food stamps, if you’re on it, there’s something wrong with you. It’s your fault for having had cancer or being over 65. It’s your fault if you thought you were healthy, but you really weren’t.
The same people don’t think about the weight it puts on the hospitals and the PTSD that it brings to all the staff who are overworked and getting sick. I read about one nurse who quit because she could not keep up, and she had no days off left to take because she got COVID at work and had to use all of her days to recover. Then she went back to work, and after repeating the same horror day in and day out, and fearing she’d bring it home to her family, she had to stop being a nurse.
Yesterday was my 10th day post-first positive test. This means I can go outside and empty my trash and get my mail. I’m going to play it safe and just go outside and inside my apartment only until day 14. I’ll keep testing until I get a negative test before I go to Meg’s and take my mask off. Although the medical world says I’m not contagious after the 10–14 day mark (depending on your symptoms), it still takes a while for the virus to shed itself. It may take 21–35 days per what the NYC tracer told me on the phone. And I will have antibodies, but we can’t say for sure how long, and what that will mean when the vaccine comes out.
I am thankful for Aunt Carol. And for all the friends who checked in, including Rachael who was the first to send me flowers and the matzah ball soup, pickles, biscuits and salmon. I’m thankful for Steph Howze for stopping by with soup that calmed down my indigestion and a restock of kombucha, which I feel cleans my gut and reduces the tightness that is better with each passing day. I’ve done yoga every day, and I feel fine. I kept saying that because I didn’t want to admit I felt run down, but I was. A little. I can’t verify that my products or approaches are working, but it’s good to believe in something, and it was even better to hear Steph’s voice outside my door.
“I’m sorry I can’t open the door,” I said to her. “And I don’t want you staying inside the building too long.”
“Feel better, Mo.”
I think that was the day I truly started feeling better, Ma.
I know there’s never been a time in my life that I can remember anyone going into isolation or quarantine. Now plenty of folks have done it without knowing thanks to social media and technology, but we seem to have given that all a pass because of our addictions. Back when this hit, we needed to direct all the businesses to make high quality masks for everyone for free. We need a prize for the first at-home test, and to also make that free. Even if it isn’t possible to do overnight, the effort to promote unity, will, citizenship, patriotism, discipline and taking one for the team would have made all the difference. We would have at least said try, try, try.
I was trying and it happened to me, so that led one person who doesn’t wear his mask enough around others per every medical profession’s advice, to tell me on the phone yesterday, “You were wearing your mask and look what happened to you.” Then he went on. “Businesses won’t make it through another shut down. People have to live.”
Yes with to “live” being the operative word.
I tried to explain to this “people need to live” person that I did my part for this reason, with this in mind, I did what I could to contribute conservatively. The MTA is down 80 percent, Ma. I wasn’t riding it much, so I thought it was important to ride it, safely and intermittently as a way to do my part. The gyms? Almost leveled. When I went to mine, there were maybe 1–3 women max in the locker room, and 3–5 people on the floors. Restaurants? Coffee shops? We’re all pretty much eating on the sidewalk or in the bike lane.
I tried to explain to someone with all of life’s problems and answers on the tip of his tongue, a person who thinks he’s healthy, that he’ll be fine if he gets it — I hope so — that trying may have been what kept me out of the hospital, what kept me from giving it to someone else, and what gave me the humility to have the scare and to write about how odd and out of place you feel when you get COVID.
But my luck with Corona Light may not have been the same outcome had I given it to someone else, who may end up in the hospital, and that same person may pass it to a nurse or doctor. And there are too many who think that’s the risk doctors and nurses must take. They shrug, Ma, and some jerk on Twitter wrote that hospitals aren’t exactly places for the healthy. Some of these same selfish a-holes say they’re not taking a vaccine “forced on them by the government.”
Whether you have it or not, the virus has pushed us into angry, frustrated and isolated camps. It’s so quiet in New York City right now that I can hear the light wind of winter blowing like I heard the air conditioners on my street running at night in the summers. I am hoping that people can find some way to hold it together whether they are in the throes of the chaos on the front line, or in the locked-down confines of their homes.
Wherever they are, whatever they’re doing, I hope they do what your sister keeps texting me over and over. The instructions are easy. Wear a mask. A good one, a thick one that is sealed around your face. Wear it all the time when around others. ALL THE TIME. Wash your hands. Stay away from people as much as you can. Get in and out of places as fast as you can.
This psychological and physical health war against ourselves and all of your peers in the medical profession is going to go on for another several months, Ma.
I miss you and think of you every day. I never told you I loved you as much as I should. Part of me wishes you were here like I’ve done for many years, but then again, right now — or at least for the next 4–5 months — maybe it’s better that you’re not.
Love,
Maureen
/end of five-day journal