This week’s post was meant to be about the wonders of Boston, but a positive Covid-19 test put a spanner in the works. I haven’t had the energy to process photos or whip up a travel guide, so instead here’s a slow post about me being stranded in the States with Covid-19.
After spending two months in the States – and a mere two hours before my flight home to New Zealand – I tested positive for Covid-19.
I knew something was wrong the day before my flight. I had a sore throat, tightness in my chest, and anxiety everywhere in my body. But I chalked that up to stress at leaving my family and a looming long journey back to New Zealand… a total of 4 flights and 36 hours.
On the big day, I woke up feeling like a deflated balloon. Something clearly wasn’t right, and I stood in my mother’s foyer, looking at my packed suitcases with dread in my belly.
My mother had one Covid-19 testing kit left. And I used it up to yield a positive result.
Delaying the trip home
Since the pandemic started in 2020, I’ve been complaining on this blog about being stuck in New Zealand. Being unable to go home was hard, despite that fact that I built a life to be proud of while I waited for the world to reopen.
June 2022 felt like a big hurrah as I returned to the US and made my rounds across states, reconnecting with all my loved ones. By August 2022, I wouldn’t say I was ready to return home… my family is tight-knit and two months could never make up for the years we lost. But I was geared up to rejoin my life. To reunite with my partner, see my friends, and continue building my business.
Hard as the last two years have been, I had my game face on.
Except that I felt like shit. Two hours before I was meant to be at the airport, my mother recommended I take a Covid test. And it was an instant positive.
It’s one of those moments in life where the world tilts under your feet, and you’re not sure what to do. My first thought was to fly anyway. I had been away from my job long enough. My partner waited. My life waited.
But what right did I have, going around infecting people across four planes and five airports?
Also I genuinely felt horrible. I could hardly walk, let alone lug around two suitcases.
I spent the next hour on the phone with the airline. Paying fees along the way, I delayed my flights by a 10-day isolation period.
I called my partner to let him know. I cried.
And I went back to bed.
Laying around in an infected heap
After it was all said and done, relief coursed through me in waves. Not only did I not have to fly sick, but I had an extra 10 days with my family.
My sister and I spent quality time together in bed as I writhed from muscle aches and an inability to breathe. My mother continued to feed me her beautiful cooking, this time a chicken soup for my inflamed throat.
Being sick is a misfortune and a gift. You stop trying to fill every hour with meaningful things, and get meaningful time doing nothing with the people you love.
On the first day, my head pounded and I could scarcely tolerate a screen. I drank tea and fed on lozenges as each nostril competed for oxygen. Every injury I’d ever had seemed to rear its head, and my body battled aches and strange clicks. It was impossible to get comfortable.
To take my mind off things, my sister suggested we watch every Marvel movie ever made in timeline order. They have this option on Disney+. It’s an ambitious undertaking but, in my state, it was a godsend. We marathoned the movies and I suckled on countless popsicles as a break from tea to soothe the throat.
I also made a habit of getting out of bed to stand in the kitchen and see if I still had a sense of smell. I was happy that I did. My mother’s Lebanese cooking continued to titillate my senses and the beautiful warm scent of chocolate enveloped me like a blanket when my sister made brownies.
Weird symptoms no one talked about
When I tested positive for Covid, I thought I knew what I was in for. I’d heard the symptoms list enough times since 2020, and I’d watched countless TikTok videos of the infected. But here are a few weird symptoms I wasn’t expecting.
- Inflamed eyes
Waking up that morning, my eyes were inflamed and it was very uncomfortable. They were hot to the touch and stinging in a watery haze. My eyelids were bruised around the edges, dramatic enough by film standards, the perfect extra to play like the plague had come for me.
- Prominent veins
A bit gross and unexpected, blue and purple veins became prominent under my skin. Over my legs and hips and even in my hands, the labyrinth of blood flow became extra visible. I assume this has something to do with inflammation of the body. Either way, it was a strange sight and I couldn’t wait for it to go away.
- Tingles in my fingers
Perhaps the disease triggers a stress response in the body because my fingers kept lighting up with tingles, and it wasn’t comfortable. It may have been related to muscle aches making some nerve endings fire, but it was a strange sensation that hit every once in a while. It didn’t help with the nausea.
- Dizziness
On day 2, I kept nearly falling over from bouts of dizziness. They happened so frequently, I told my sister I felt like an anime character under a confusion spell. Every five or ten minutes, it would start. My head would loll back and I’d work to refocus my eyes on what was in front of me. I tripped a few times getting out of bed, leaving behind a giggling sister with a paused movie in her lap.
Testing positive for Covid-19: a gift
I’ve been open about it on this blog… the pandemic has done a number on me. And I was determined to come out of it without ever contracting the stupid virus. After ruining our business, our finances, our timeline, my family life and wellbeing, my physical health was the last thing standing.
But in the end, it came for me.
I learned many times in life that sometimes, you have to get intimate with the storm to make peace with it. The pandemic and I sparred at every level. But in the end, it gave me a gift.
The time I had with my family during that isolation period was a dream. A slow week in bed with my favorite people on earth, watching movies and drinking hot chocolate.
This was the ending I needed for this trip. Instead of a mad rush to squeeze every last activity into the dwindling days, it was a quiet, nourishing conclusion. I feel truly rested, and my game face doesn’t feel so difficult to erect as I now approach my new departure date.
I wrung every lesson imaginable out of this pandemic since it began. But it doesn’t seem finished with me yet. And perhaps I’ve made peace with that.
