I’m writing at a makeshift standing desk that I’ve crafted out of my kitchen table combined with a $30 adjustable laptop desk. I’d prefer to be lying in bed using only the laptop desk with a nice big cup of creamy coffee by my side, but, currently, I cannot sit down without receiving an onset of lower back spasms that cripple any comfort I might have.
I didn’t realize that this would be a side effect after having COVID.
When I received the two little lines on my rapid test telling me that the fatigue and excruciatingly sore throat I was experiencing was, in fact, COVID-19, I knew there would be certain things I should expect.
The cough, the exhaustion, the isolation, the aches and pains that come along with viral infections — these were all symptoms that I knew I was in for. Even being double vaccinated, I reckoned I would get hit with the full roster of the sickness. It’s just my luck.
I wasn’t expecting the toll this thing took on my mental health.
On day one, I set up my quarantine in the spare bedroom. My family of four lives in a small house, so I couldn’t fully quarantine but did manage to distance myself from my family members for as long as possible.
The sore throat was surprisingly devastating. It came on with such vengeance that I legitimately forgot any knowledge of medical science. At one point, I genuinely believed that one of my enemies was performing some sort of sadistic spell on me by shoving thousands of tiny glass shards into the neck of a miniature LRB look-alike doll.
Then the exhaustion hit. It was like nothing I’d experienced in years. One minute I was making the spare room’s bed; the next, I was collapsed on a fitted sheet that was not yet fitted over the mattress. Throughout the worst of my infection, the bed never got made.
However, the most devastating part was going to the bathroom. Not literally going pee but simply walking into the bathroom in general.
I’m looking at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, sick with the world’s newest plague, and I am reminded of a dark time in my past. My face is as creamy white as a freshly cut mushroom. My eyes are a little too big — not in a beautiful ethereal way, but more of a “your fever is too high to be alive right now” way. I am genuinely worried I might die. As I stare at this sickly image in the bathroom mirror, I’m terrified that the infection will spread to my kidney (that’s not a typo — I only have one), and that’ll be it for me. I’ve been taught from a very young age that my kidney must be nurtured at all costs. Unlike most people, I do not have another to fall back on.
The aches and pains of the virus run through my body the same way football goers do the wave in a packed stadium — the shudder begins in my shoulders and runs straight through to my shins. I can feel the fever running through me. My head is heavy and light all at the same time.
When I notice this, I am transferred back to another time I thought my life might end.
The birth of my son was not an easy one. I’ve written about this before but can’t seem to let it go despite knowing that I should after having put so many words down about it. I’ll give you the gist: After 7 hours of hard labor, it was determined my son was not appropriately positioned for a vaginal birth. Despite many doctors and nurses attempting to reposition him, he remained in the kind of awkward position that could have potentially killed both of us during his birth if we hadn’t been living in a medically advanced time in history.
The c-section was done, and my husband and I were gifted with a beautiful, healthy boy named Lars. I was wheeled into our private hospital room about an hour later to meet my son. My husband had gone home after a long 48 hours at the hospital to get some shuteye.
As I held my boy, looking into the same blue eyes as his father’s, I felt a devastating gush of blood. At first, I thought this must be expected after birth, but when I looked down to see the light green hospital sheets draped over me turn a purple-red color, I knew something was wrong — I’m very perceptive like that.
During the rushed operation to get my son out of me, an artery had been nicked without any operating doctors or nurses noticing. Now I was bleeding out. The room became fuzzy, and as I yelled out for someone to take Lars from me, I realized that the blackness seeping in around the corner of my eyes was anything but normal.
The recovery from this incident was long. I had contracted pneumonia from the prolonged intubation I needed after the operation. I had to stay in the hospital for weeks afterwards. A friend of mine described my bloated and pale-green appearance as “Frankenstein’s monster,” which looking back, was entirely accurate.
The postpartum depression ran deep in the months to come. Because I was so ill, I was unable to do anything physical. Tasks as simple as changing my son’s diaper were daunting and fraught with physical pain. My body had been left weak after two emergency surgeries back to back and then weeks of lying in a hospital bed recovering.
I began to tell myself that I was useless. I was this loser of a human who couldn’t even look after her own baby. When my husband went to work, my mom or mother-in-law would have to come over to look after both the baby and me. I was unable to even lower myself onto a toilet. So by that approximation, why should anyone trust me to care for a newborn baby on my own?
It was both demoralizing and painfully true.
Now I’m looking at myself in the mirror, barely able to continue standing under my own power, and again I feel demoralized and useless. My phone pings with an email, and I shudder. Work is piling up, and I cannot bring myself to look at any of it. The house is a disaster. My daughter now has COVID as well, and it takes everything in me to venture down to her bedroom to check on her. The journey up the stairs seems mountainous, and I cry just thinking about the climb.
The pain is insurmountable. Worse is the knowledge that I am helpless and at the mercy of my physical and mental illnesses once again.
The black bog of an oncoming depressive state is engulfing me. I am reminded of 13 years ago when I knew this feeling all too well. This feeling that I must rely on others to keep my children safe.
The worst of my symptoms lasted for five days. Five days I’d sleep for no longer than an hour at a time, then wake up with my bedding soaking wet with sweat while I was shivering with cold. Five days of crying each time I coughed because my throat was so sore each time I drew breath, it felt as if tiny daggers were scraping my esophagus. Five days of wondering when the virus would find my solitary kidney and begin to wreak havoc. Five days of taking little sips of water every few minutes because even drinking caused pain, but I knew I couldn’t allow myself to dehydrate because all of the medications I was taking were already causing undue strain on my kidney.
But what was worst of all was five days of flashbacks from one of the darkest times of my life.
I specifically remember one night about three weeks after getting home from the hospital. My husband had left baby Lars in my arms, asking me repeatedly if I’d be alright with him while he ran out to the store for milk.
As he left the house, I sat there staring at my new child, wondering if I had the strength to be a mother. My body had left me unable to play or run to him if he was in trouble, or even nurse him as I had planned on doing. My body had forsaken me. It left me with many doubts about my and this baby’s future together. As my tears dropped from my face onto his, I had never felt more alone. I wondered if I was even needed in this family at all.
Now with COVID ravaging my body, I felt the same sort of hopelessness and vulnerability. I was reminded that I am breakable. I’m very breakable. Unable to provide the kind of care my family deserved nearly destroyed me once, and now I was going through those same feelings again.
Of course, I should have thought about it logically, knowing this would not be permanent, but logic is often hard to come by when high emotions and illness are combined.
Laying in bed, hysterically crying but doing so silently because I didn’t want to scare my daughter, who was sleeping just one floor below, brought back all of the memories of that time when the darkness of depression settled over me all those years ago.
It’s nearly been a full week since my diagnosis and I am slowly coming back to myself. My energy is returning but more importantly, the dark veil is lifting. I was lucky enough not to get trapped in my own depression.
It makes me wonder about the people who say, “COVID isn’t that big of a deal!” and, “We need to start living our life normally again.”
I wonder if they’ve ever been so physically ill that they begin to doubt their purpose as a living breathing human?
I wonder if they’ve ever struggled with depression or anxiety that is directly connected to their physical well-being?
I wonder if they understand how “living life normally again” will never be normal or safe for so many of us.
For now though, I’m writing this essay at a makeshift standing desk because my back continues to spasm each time I lay down or sit for too long. The truth is, I am grateful to be standing. I am grateful to be breathing without trouble. I’m even grateful for the back spasms.
They remind me I’m alive for a reason, both physically and mentally.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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The post COVID Devastated My Body but That’s Nothing Compared to What It Did to My Mental Health appeared first on The Good Men Project.
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