So I woke up and couldn’t smell the coffee.
That was Tuesday, March 24th, and I live in New York City, the epicenter of the coronavirus.
I wasn’t feeling great the Saturday before — probably a cold, I thought, and I also had a stiff neck. I figured I must have slept wrong. I called my boss to let him know I wouldn’t be in. “Nothing to worry about,” I assured him, “No fever, no cough.” The restaurant where I bartend was frantically trying to adapt to the city-mandated closures by switching to takeout, and I was scheduled to work the takeout window. I felt guilty for not going in, but I also felt really tired. I thought I’d better check my temperature to be sure. I walked a few short blocks to CVS, but the lady behind the pharmacy counter laughed and laughed when I asked where to find the thermometers. “Oh, honey, I wish I knew; we’ve been out of those for weeks! Good luck now — you take care!”
As I trudged up the aisle, I was suddenly brought up short. Wait — was that Easter candy ON SALE, even though Easter was still a couple weeks away…?! (Hmm… that didn’t bode well for Easter, but it sure did for me.) I am an inveterate bargain-hunter — you have to be when you live in NYC — so I bought three big bags of Cadbury chocolate eggs for only $8.00. Since we were self-loathing, I mean self-isolating, I figured it was prudent to buy in bulk.
But then that Tuesday, not only did my sense of smell disappear, my taste suddenly checked out as well. Oh…hang on a minute here! My cold was gone, but now so was my main pleasure in life. My coffee tasted like warm water. I brushed my teeth, but couldn’t taste the paste. I took a deep sniff of the lemon-scented Lysol sanitizing wipes kept by the door since all this started. Nothing. Perfume? Zilch.
And suddenly I knew. If you think your shit don’t stink, you might just have the coronavirus.
I had read an article in the New York Times about this symptom possibly being an early sign of Covid-19, so now I felt pretty sure I had what the kids were calling the “Boomer Remover.” Age and underlying issues seem to be of particular concern. I’m 58, and my only “underlying issue” is that there is, perhaps, a bit more of me than there should be. My doctor said it sounded like a mild case of Covid-19, but presently testing was limited to those admitted to the hospital. She advised me to stay quarantined for two weeks, and to go to the ER if my symptoms worsened.
I live alone in a small studio with a big dog, Ruby.
I walked her three times a day, always wearing a mask, and never allowing anyone to touch her. (There were still questions about the virus’s transmission and pets, so — better safe than sorry for killing people.) This annoyed Ruby, as her MO is to lay down in front of strangers and wait for belly rubs; passersby usually oblige.
There was no need to go to the market; I had previously bought plenty of Tylenol, chicken soup, and juice, just in case. As the days slowly ticked by, my Cadbury chocolate eggs remained intact. Never mind what the doctor thought, for me — that pretty much clinched it. I’m a gal who loves her snacks, and while I was well aware that people were suffering devastating illness as a result of this virus, my not being able to taste chocolate was a pretty substantial blow.
Even Ruby seemed to sense something was up. In need of comfort, I’d reach out to pet her, but she would shake me off and scoot to the other side of the couch. She was socially distancing herself from me as much as possible in our tiny studio.
I live two blocks from Mount Sinai Hospital, and now (with even Ruby giving me the brush) my social life consisted of hanging out the fire escape every night at 7:00, banging a frying pan with a spoon to cheer for the healthcare workers as their shifts changed. I shout “Thank you!” to anyone in scrubs, and they always look up, laugh and wave. Even though I know they’re tired and depressed. I think sometimes that maybe it helps us, the pot bangers, a lot more than the healthcare workers.
One night I saw a homeless guy pushing his cart down 17th Street. He stopped and applauded for two minutes. At 7:02 he carried on his way. It made me cry.
I’m not sunny by nature. I felt ok, but one thing kept nagging at me. Loss of smell/taste may be an EARLY symptom. I’ve always tended toward the anxious side of life; to tell you the truth, I was scared. While walking Ruby in Stuyvesant Park, I noticed a tent set up outside the hospital, right on the other side of the fence. “That’s intake, where they’re testing people,” my friend Andy told me. “My brother works there, they have 300 Covid-19 patients already.” Andy leaned down to give Ruby a belly rub, but I stopped him. “See all those white boxes in the windows?” he continued. “Those are the rooms with the ventilators.”
And then the white refrigerated truck appeared, parked outside the hospital. The makeshift morgue to catch the overflow from the regular morgue, I was told.
Just the way everyone describes the beautiful, clear blue sky of 9/11 — the weather here in NYC, at the epicenter of the coronavirus, has been disconcertingly beautiful.
Spring has never been so relentless, and birdsong never so loud, almost intrusive. That’s the other thing — the city that never sleeps, dozing and eerily quiet.
Aside from the birds, the silence broken only by wailing sirens.
An EARLY symptom…ok, then what’s coming next? One night I was watching Tiger King when I suddenly became very aware of my breathing. There was a heaviness in my chest that had not been there moments before, even when that girl had her arm torn off by the tiger. My heart started to pound. I felt hot. I put a leash on Ruby and slapped a mask on me and went outside to walk it off. My brain was spinning. Go to the ER if your symptoms worsen. As I walked to the park, I took a little detour to see exactly where the ER entrance was. Ok — just across from the refrigerated truck/morgue; a five-minute walk from my apartment, if it came to that. The mask wasn’t helping my breathing, which was coming faster, and feeling more and more shallow. Who would take care of Ruby? Who could I ask to come into my contaminated apartment and get her if I had to be admitted? You’re not awake when they put you on a ventilator, are you? I remembered my friend Vinnie, a firefighter and fellow bartender, who had tested positive telling me “The virus hates heat — so hot showers, hot tea, hot soup.” I quickly walked home, and turned the shower on as hot as I could stand. As I stood gulping deep breaths of steam , it occurred to me I hadn’t gotten my affairs in order. And now there might not be time.
I started to cry, my heart thundering in my chest, when out of the blue — I suddenly understood that what I was experiencing wasn’t the worsening of Covid-19 symptoms. I was having a freaking panic attack. Ok. My breathing slowed. I got out of the shower, made myself a cup of tea, sat as close to Ruby as she would permit, and did F*ck That, a guided meditation. Twice. I highly recommend.
The next morning I got up and walked Ruby over by the East River. I walked for an hour and a half — a way to guard against the panic should it rear its shitty head again later that day. (If the virus was invading my lungs, I reasoned, no way I could walk three miles, right?) I have done that every morning since then, and it worked. No more panic attacks. My taste and smell returned after 10 days, and I felt well, and strong. Once I was sure I had recovered, I contacted Mount Sinai. I’d heard they were looking for people to donate blood with antibodies for their plasma donation program (Mount Sinai COVID-19 Plasma Donation). I thought maybe I could do some good.
I was also curious — had I actually had the virus, or was I just being a Covid-19 drama queen? The results came back: positive for Covid-19 antibodies, but not a high enough titer to donate plasma. I guess my stingy immune system only made enough antibodies for me, so I can’t be a hero after all, but boy — I feel very, very lucky.