Surviving COVID-19 at Home
Nineteen reflections from my eighteen days of illness and isolation.
Number one. So, you’ve come down with coronavirus. A night sweat and fever during the spring of 2020 sends you into a forced two-week isolation. After the initial shock and disbelief (“how can this be? I’m young and healthy”), you sit for a minute in the room that soon becomes your jail cell and think maybe this could be welcomed time for self-improvement, even self-indulgence. To listen to podcasts. Binge watch shows. Read books. Maybe even write that essay you’ve been musing about for years…. As a full-time working mother of two young children, you’re dumbfounded. Everything about this is unimaginable. But you’ve toyed with the idea of going on silent retreat. Doing yoga every day. Mindfulness. No time like the present….
But then it hits you. Hard. You realize you’re really sick. No. Really really sick. So sick, that the thought of even rolling to the other side of your body requires serious motivation. “You can do this.” But you haven’t yet…and still haven’t….nope….still not...and then soon, you give up on that...and on almost everything else.
Number two. You start to imagine having powers like Matilda. Lying there, you wonder if you might actually have them, but you just haven’t perfected them yet. So you try directing all of your energy to that bag of ice by the door your husband left. You start “willing” it to magically fly and plop itself onto your head. You think: “It took Matilda some time….” Sadly the bag never materializes. You must need more practice.
Number three. The headache is so debilitating that you start envisioning that scary cult film, Pi, you used to watch in high school for some inexplicable reason. (Well, you can think of one reason…) You remember that scene where the guy’s headache is so bad that he starts to drill a hole into his temple. You now empathize with him in a way you never fully understood before. So much so, you sob.
You literally wrap your head with bags and bags of ice. But they keep sliding off. Condensation drenches your pillow. You fantasize about cutting your head off and putting it in a bowl full of ice. You can’t stop thinking about the Golden Girls episode where they’ve cryogenic-ally frozen their heads. “We’re heads! We’re heads!” (You have to see it.) Luckily, without fail, Golden Girls is on cable every hour of every day. In the rare moments you can keep your eyes open, Sophia and Dorothy’s reliable banter keep you alive. And so does Ellen. Her “heartwarming stories” of human triumph become your IV drip.
Number four. You’re the caretaker. The idea that you cannot take care of anyone else, most especially your children — you can’t wipe their tushies, you can’t go to them in the middle of the night when they call out “Mommy”, you can’t kiss their boo-boos, you can’t read bedtime stories, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t — is psychologically, all consumingly, impossible. You’re wracked with guilt. You played out every other scenario. You knew exactly what you’d do if your husband got sick. Or your mother, your father. It was inconceivable that it would be you. How could you possibly be the one to get sick when you’re the one everyone else relies on?
On top of that, you can’t work. Your team at first can’t figure this out. On the handful of days you’ve been out “sick” over the past decade (even during your two maternity leaves), you’ve always been available. You’re really not joining that meeting? Responding to that email? A kind friend points out this might be a blessing. Now is the time to learn how to let go and just focus on taking care of you. This is utterly foreign. Self-care, let alone self-compassion, are purely intellectual concepts. Things you’ve read a lot about, and even preached about to others (given what you do for a living), yet seldom practiced. You realize this will be one of the most difficult tasks required. You can’t think of a time you’ve gone into a room for hours, let alone days, closed the door, and said: “See you guys in a little bit, Mommy just needs some alone time.” You can’t help but think that’s why you got it. You wonder if always putting others first, putting work first, compromised your own strength and inability to dodge this COVID bullet. What a cruel, cruel way to learn this lesson.
Number five. You’re surprised by how resilient your children are. For seven years, you’ve never spent more than a handful of days away from them. Red-eyes were prioritized so there would be one less morning madness your husband had to do without you or night-night to miss. Then, it’s day 3, 4, 5, 6+, and you wonder if they’ve forgotten about you. There are less FaceTime calls. Less screaming “I want Mommy” by your door. What about all those sleepless nights rocking their precious bodies to sleep, holding them just so, choosing their sleep over yours? What about all those clogged milk ducts and ounces pumped because you were so committed to nourishing their infant bodies exclusively with breast milk? You go through a whole process of realizing how horrible it would be if you died, but you’ve come to believe that life would go on for them.
On the second or third night, just after midnight, your three-year old wakes. You brace yourself. Then you hear she’s yelling “Daddy! Daddy!” This seriously f*cks with you. It’s unbearable to feel no longer wanted or needed. At the same time, you’re filled with a huge sense of relief.
You have a virus where there’s a live ticker on every news website and TV station counting the number of cases and deaths. By the way, you’re not even in that count. You haven’t been tested because the doctors all say you have it and there’s no reason to leave unless you can’t breathe. For the first time in your almost 38 years of life, you wonder if you’re going to die. You obsessively check your temperature (yes, you still have a fever) and pulse oximeter level (yes, it’s over 90). Your family requires hourly reports. You hear your children in the hallway laughing, playing make-believe. Their joy and love for each other puts you at ease. You close your eyes and go back to sleep.
Number “I DON’T KNOW”. You don’t know how you got it. You followed every precaution. Every rule. You’ve been sheltering in place for weeks. You left the house once to go pick up groceries with a mask, gloves, and a Lysol wipe in each hand because you wouldn’t let your over 65-year-old mother go to the store. You know everyone wants to know what you did wrong. The forensic analysis of your every move over the last four weeks isn’t helpful. Everyone is looking for an explanation: “Oh see, she did that?! There you go. That’s why she got it.” Honestly, there’s no way to know how you got it. And you don’t care. Your poor seven year old — your sweet, highly-sensitive soul—shares with his daddy one morning in tears that he thinks he gave it to you. He confesses that he touched a Nintendo game at the store many weeks ago and is worried he didn’t thoroughly wash his hands. You all followed the rules — so much so, your children are worried they didn’t hand sanitize enough. And you still got it. That’s it. There isn’t anything else to say about that.
Number six. Can Apple please explain why their facial recognition software doesn’t work when you’re sick with coronavirus?! You know you look like sh*t. Or as your 94-year-old grandmother kindly shares over FaceTime: “You look like death warmed over.”
Thanks so much for the constant reminder, Apple. This is cruel, mean, painful, not to mention a total pain in the ass. (Good luck with face masks, everyone.) If you have to enter your six-digit code one more time, you’re sure the phone is going out the f*cking window…if only you had enough strength to pick it up and throw it… You used to be able to read my thumb, you piece of sh*t. I hate you.
Number seven. You have never sweat this much in your life. It really can’t be described as sweating. It’s swimming. It’s as if you got out of the shower or the pool and just forgot your towel. Only this time, you’re in bed. Your sheets, your clothes, your hair are sopping wet. This lasts the full two+ weeks. You’re in a constant state of dampness. Damp is not a good look. At the same time, some people think it’s okay to make comments about your weight: “Well, at least you’ll get to lose those pesky extra pounds.” It’s not okay. It’s never okay. Trying not to die over here, people.
Number eight. Your husband, an Eagle Scout, is the most prepared person on the planet to handle this situation. He’s home-schooling, cooking, bathing children, working, not to mention caring for you: bringing everything to your door (hot water, bags and bags of ice, more hot water, more ice…), washing toxic dishes and disgusting sheets…. Someone give this man whatever the highest medal of honor is of whatever this land holds. I will never wonder about his love for me ever, ever again.
Number nine. You feel waves of electricity go through your body. It’s like slowly easing into a bath of seltzer. First the tips of your toes, up your legs, your torso, to your neck, and then slowly back down again, easing out of the seltzer tub. This comes on days of 103–105 fevers. The electrical waving sensation is bizarrely embraced. 105 feels like death. Torture. Especially when the only way to break the fever is by forcing yourself to uncover from the many blankets keeping you warm and by packing your convulsing body with ice. Groin, armpits, neck. While you’ve physically not been able to move in many hours (days?), the involuntary tremors and electrical currents waving through your body are a welcomed presence of life. Movement. It’s not painful. They help remind you that your body is still alive. It’s trying to heal, even as you feel your world closing in.
Number ten. You hate hate hate Gatorade. Ugh. Please no more Gatorade. Yes. You also experience the lovely GI symptoms of zero appetite, nausea, and the worst diarrhea known to mankind. This is mind-boggling because your only caloric intake has been yellow and red. You know dehydration is a surefire way to end up in the emergency room. On more than a few occasions upon standing up, you feel lightheaded, dizzy, lose your vision and balance. You force the disgusting liquid down. Like your husband’s favorite joke, Dave Chappelle’s “grape drink” — there’s no nutritional value in what you’re consuming. “It’s water, sugar, and purple.” But, at least you’ll drop those pesky extra pounds! (See what I did there? And also, it becomes true. 14 lbs.)
Number eleven. You realize that nothing about this is linear. You experience moments when you suddenly feel the slightest bit better, semi-human, and think to yourself: “Whoa. I made it through the worst of it.” You start to feel hopeful. You tell people you think you’ve turned the corner. Everyone is so pleased to hear this. Hugs and hearts and rainbow emojis flutter your phone. The news they’ve been waiting for. You too.
Then, like dark storm clouds that swoop in during hot Maine summers, it turns. You begin to spiral downward. “Oh no. It’s back.” You think, “I was such a fool.” You feel discouraged. A day or two or three go by. You didn’t turn the corner. You just went around the block. It feels like you’re right back where you started. Everyone keeps reminding you that it’s “two steps forward, one step back.” Everyone who hasn’t actually lived through this horror show themselves. Oh how easy it is to text that sweet little phrase, and oh how hard it is to actually live through it. The phrase has a whole new meaning. You vow never to use it again.
Number twelve. Said Eagle Scout preaches the wisdom of a PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) to get through the biggest (and smallest) challenges in life. This is not your standard operating procedure. Maybe that’s why you’re such a good match. You try to stay positive and think about silver linings. Immunity. Plasma donation. You’re loath to make comparison to the Holocaust. (This, of course, is most certainly not that.) And yet, your three-day-a-week Hebrew school upbringing left indelible marks. You’re reminded of Viktor Frankl who said that the people who died were the ones that thought: “Oh, we’re definitely going to be out of here by Passover.” And then Passover came and went, and they were heartbroken. You try not to set yourself up for the same kind of disappointment, even as you creep into days 10, 11, 12….still with a fever, knowing there’s no way day 14 is the end of your confinement. You need seventy-two hours fever-free.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” — Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
You loosely hold onto the hope this will come to an end and the reality it will take longer than you have patience for. For a type-A person, this virus gives you a smack-in-the-face reality of something vastly beyond your control. You force yourself to believe you will get better. That’s your only job. Though there are moments where you fail even at that.
Number thirteen. Every time your door opens, a tray of something gets slid into your room, and then the door gets slammed, you imagine yourself a prisoner. All you want is that person opening the door to say one word to you, to acknowledge your existence. You know your husband is holding his breath so he doesn’t breathe the toxic COVID air permeating your room. You don’t blame him. This is by far the single most painful thing of your experience. Crippling isolation. In the face of such illness — the sickest you’ve ever been — being alone, trying to nurse yourself back to health, is a whole new kind of pain. Heartsick pain.
You fantasize about your mom coming in to check your temperature, her prolonged kiss on your forehead. She would change you out of your bunched-up damp sheets, put a cold compress on your neck, rub your back, sit by your side. You long for her presence. You know it would be healing. She keeps offering, but we both know she can’t come in. There’s no need for contact tracers here. You’re patient zero. And you’d never forgive yourself.
Number fourteen. You remember the dinner the night or two before you came down with this… it was your third or fourth week in quarantine. Your three-year old (actually, your now three-year old, as she sadly turned three with her mommy in isolation…) insisted on sitting on your lap, eating off of your plate and fork, for every. single. meal. Aside from obvious germ problems (so far, everyone else is symptom free!), you remember saying: “Can I please just eat one meal without you sitting on my lap?!” You fished your wish.
Number fifteen. The cough. You’re coughing, but nothing’s there. Cough cough cough. Can’t stop. Cough cough cough. Breathe. Cough. Cough. Why can’t you f*cking stop coughing?! Cough. Cough. F*ck. You try to talk. Cough. You gasp for air. Cough. No talking. You got your silent retreat.
Number sixteen. You have a bedroom and bathroom. A co-parent and your own parents caring for your children. An extra generation of love and hugs that are mutually beneficial. Food and shelter, ample space and resources for you all to navigate this. Doctor friends calling daily and checking in. Paid sick leave. (Yes. I repeat: Paid sick leave.) This virus might not discriminate who gets it…but circumstances vastly differ how you weather this brutal storm. Your privilege is not lost on you. And this feels wholly unfair. At the same time, you know how lucky you are. Gratitude fuels you.
Number seventeen. You know everyone is scared. You’re scared. So many people in your life want to know how you’re doing. You’re blessed to have a thick web of friendships and loved ones checking in on you, caring for you, rooting for you. Even if you can’t keep up with all the emails and texts and FaceTimes. You know they’re there. In your corner. It’s a balm… There is a Balm in Gilead… a beloved song from high school concert choir. You remember just how proud that made your Jewish parents feel hearing their daughter sing passionately about Jesus… and yet, the warmth rushes over you as you sing the song on repeat in your head:
There is a balm in Gilead ….. to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead….to heal the sin-sick soul.
You will get better. You will heal.
Number eighteen. On day 11, a dear friend signs you up for a virtual session with an energy healer. You’ve never done anything like this before in your life. But the fever and diarrhea and cough and nausea and sweats still have an inescapable grip on you. You find yourself open and resigned to do just about anything. For over an hour on a video call, the healer calls upon names of elements and gods and minerals you’ve never heard of to release COVID from your body. While this is happening, you experience the full body tingling sensation like never before. The fever has come back in full force. You’re all too familiar with this. No doubt back to the 103s that you’ve not seen in days. Outside you hear the unmistakable sound of a hailstorm. Ice pellets hitting your windows. Thunder and lighting. Either the fever or the healer or the dehydration sends your consciousness somewhere else… it’s all too much. You take your Tylenol and start the antibiotic. The antibiotic that half the doctors say not to take and the other half say, sure why not. At this point, how could it hurt? You swallow the pills and cover your head with ice.
In about an hour, you wake. The storm has passed. The sky has cleared. You feel this newfound energy to stand up. You look out at the sky. It’s magical. For the first time in your life, you begin to see a full end-to-end double arch rainbow appear. Like the man in the meme, you experience what can only be explained as unprecedented awe. Tears fill your eyes. The fever has broken. You wonder how it’s possible such magic and beauty could appear right before you like this. It feels in the strangest way like it was created for you. A sign. The most hopeful and remarkable sign you’ve ever seen. Maybe it was the energy healer. Maybe the antibiotic. Maybe the double rainbow. But for the first time in two weeks you begin to feel that you really will get better.
Number nineteen. Finally, on day 16, your fever holds constant at 100.0, as if the thermometer lost its ability to read anything below it. Your appetite has come back a bit too. More than ice and hot water get delivered. Raspberries. Apples. Yellow peppers. Some yogurt. Anything fresh, you’re craving. Then you see 99.6 for the first time without the aid of Tylenol. Technically, under 100.5 is considered non-febrile. Should you start the 72-hour clock? Oh how you’re longing to be reunited with your family. You’re also riddled with fear of emerging too soon. Exposing them to this illness would make your isolation for naught.
On the eve of your 18th day, you’re filled with anticipation, like the night before visiting day at camp. You can’t sleep. For the first time, in weeks, you’ve felt a desperate longing to leave your room. Not once before had you felt this. People wondered if you were bored. Bored? You were way too sick for that. But now, you start to fantasize about your escape. Do you get dressed or stay in pajamas? Have your coffee first or meet the kids before they gallop down the hall? Do you hug them? Will they want to hug you?
Reentering the life you know so well, but then suddenly disappeared from…what will have changed? How will you have changed? You lie in bed not knowing what tomorrow will bring, but no matter what, know it will be your best day yet.
“I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does.” — Anne of Green Gables
Jennifer Hoos Rothberg lives in New York City with her husband, Jonathan, and their two children, Elliott and Abigail. She and her family are quarantining with her parents at their home in Milford, CT, not far from where she grew up. Jennifer is the Executive Director of the Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, a foundation that focuses on human connection, social cohesion, and belonging. She has served in that role since 2007.
