—
ON THE FIRST DAY I returned to the city and my classic prewar apartment, I bought and installed a deadbolt. Mainly to prevent cross-contamination and unwanted visitors, and what a comforting series of sounds it was, from the locking of my doorknob to the swinging of deadbolt one then two, to the latching of my safety chain. But from inside, almost every night, I could still hear a knock and Mark’s voice, asking if everything with me was all right, given what he was seeing on the news. He couldn’t quite believe what was happening and didn’t know what to believe. Was all of it real? Or a hoax? Or the media? Things were changing so fast, from open to shut down. Broadway had closed—inconceivable—states of emergency declared, bans on other countries, a toilet paper and a hand sanitizer shortage, to mask or not to mask. So how was I doing in there all by my lonesome? And could I please let him know what I made of the craziness out there or at least tell him that I was okay?
I said everything in here, in my own apartment, was fine. I was alone but I felt safe. I had regained control of this, my domain.
By 6:00 a.m. each day, I left for work. On the walk there, I made eye contact with no one, looked ahead and blankly. I kept my jaw clenched and closed my ears to passing dialogue, any shouts directed at me of possible hate. Then once I was in the hospital, I could relax and greet people, because here too I felt safe.
The first time I saw Reese again, he was, as Madeline had warned, Zenned out, thus eerie to sit beside. He no longer made snide comments, jabs; no spontaneous airing of grievances, epiphanies, or throwing stress balls around people’s heads. Meditated for ten minutes in the afternoon. Spoke often about his girlfriend. Hey, Reese, I might’ve said, and he would reply if I knew that his girlfriend, who worked in fashion, was also severely allergic to shellfish. They had an incident two nights ago with some lobster-flavored risotto, and he almost, but didn’t, stabbed her with an EpiPen. She was recovered now. I said good to hear. Then he showed me the new picture of them on his desk, which matched the photo of them on his lock screen. A nice distraction, since ten minutes later I was back on my ICU floor and he on his. We led trainings for other doctors, to teach the cardiothoracic surgeons of difficult poetry, for example, how to operate vents during their redeployment. Overflow beds filled the atrium, and its café temporarily closed. The hospital intercom had been set to loop not just in our units but everywhere: Are you suffering from ARDS, sir, madam? Because if so, we can help.
The face shields were the most uncomfortable. When we took them off at the end of the day, there were deep red rings around our foreheads. Madeline would pass me an aloe wipe and we would sit for a minute in the changing room with the cool cotton draped across our faces. Deep breath in, out, the diaphragm is a muscle and breathing rate is one of the few things you can control. When we had to joke about something, we joked that we were sitting in a spa.
By the third week of service, our floors were full, and despite all the PPE, the exposure was simply too high. Reese got it, then Madeline, then me.
Felt like a hot anvil had been placed on my chest.
During the two weeks I was bolted in, on a regimented schedule of water and antivirals, trying to push the anvil off, I had fever dreams. One of an army of robot vacuums moving in parallel from one side of the room to the other, sweeping in unison, then turning in unison and sweeping back, much like a ballet. In those two weeks, I opened my door only once. I thought I’d heard a knock, but by the time I made it to the door from bed, there was no one on the other side of the peephole. I had already lost my sense of smell and taste, why not hearing and sight? I was delirious, and because hearing is the last sense to go, I thought I was also dead. If I was dead and unaware, then maybe here was my father at the door, coming to welcome me over to the other side. Morbid, yet I was unafraid. It was never the disease that I feared. A physical disease I could handle. Cells, pathology, pain—that was tangible stuff, knowable stuff, at least for me. But I was afraid, I supposed, of meeting my father again and having nothing to say. Tell me all about it, Joan, what have I missed? And I would be so overcome by his presence—that he would have more than two minutes to talk to me, that his car would be indefinitely parked—that I would be stumped. But when I opened the door, just a crack, I knew that I was still alive. There, on my welcome mat, were tins of Spam, packets of Chapagetti, a stack of my mail, and a full box of LaCroix tangerine.
The food was from the other tenants, and the doorman continued putting my mail outside my door.
I didn’t tell my mother about being sick, but in case of an emergency I had to tell Fang. I waited for him to say his piece. Instead he asked a few questions about how I was feeling, then told me to send him a daily text. About what? I asked. He said he didn’t care; just some proof every day that I was lucid and awake. We started off with a standard set: Hi, I’m up. Fever? Yeah. Temp? I told him. As that number started to go down, he sent a thumbs-up emoji. He sent two thumbs-up. He sent a fist bump.
One day, I found myself better and able, masked and gloved, to go downstairs and get the mail myself. As I was sifting through the pile, one piece stopped me, a trifold brochure in a familiar calming ocean blue.
West Side Hospital. Why choose us? Our dedicated doctors are among the country’s best, and we work around the clock. Day and night, we’re always ready to provide you with the highest level of medical care. Just ask one of our own.
I had to look twice. I showed the doorman from a distance, both of us peering out from the tops of our masks. Was this…?
Ms. Joanna, that’s you.
No, it couldn’t be.
Our very own important person, he said, and gave me a quick salute.
The cover showed an Asian woman with one hand gripping the ECMO’s cart handle and the other hand held up, as if asking, What’s going on here with this wonderful machine and all that it can do? She wasn’t facing the camera but a small group who’d gathered around her. I recognized my medical team, the intern, three residents, the fellow, the pharmacist, the head nurse, but I didn’t remember this day, because it had been like any other. The line above my head was about my commitment to the white coat and putting it on. Who had taken this casual, typical picture? Who had sent it to the director? My guess was one of the nurses and that once I was back on service, these same nurses would have strung the brochures up, like a garland, along the front of their bay, just to tease me and to welcome me back from my ordeal. Which wasn’t so terrible of an ordeal comparatively, I later told them, though I might’ve permanently lost my sense of taste and smell. And they passed me a packet of hot sauce. A challenge that some of them were doing, the portion that had been sick and recovered. How many packets could you take? Five? Seven? One nurse could take seven and previously had no tolerance for spice. All this to show that we were strong, made stronger, instead of admitting to what we really were, numb.
* * *
—
ENGLISH WORDS COULD TELL a story too. Pandemonium. Pandemonic. Pandemic. Or a demon who has come to pan you.