When it starts to feel like a chicken-and-egg logic bomb, I decide that I have done enough job searching for the day. Instead, I open up Instagram and see college friends giving thumbs-up on planes, cashing in on cheap vacation deals. Another friend has posted a picture of her aunt, who died yesterday of Covid, with a long tribute. A celebrity I follow is doing a fundraiser for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. My former neighbor posts a teary video about postponing her wedding when they were totally going to do it in a safe way. It’s like there are two different realities unfolding at the same time.
I do not post often on Facebook, but I have an account. When I open it, there are dozens of notifications from acquaintances: Sending healing thoughts! I’m praying for you, Diana. You got this.
Frowning, I click onto the post that inspired these comments. Finn must have logged in to my account, because he’s written a short paragraph explaining that I have been hospitalized with Covid and put on a ventilator.
I tamp down the annoyance at the thought of him logging in as me.
The comments are supportive, effusive, heartfelt. Some are political, claiming that the virus is a hoax and I have the flu. Other friends attack that poster on my behalf. All this while I was unconscious.
On a whim, I type Covid-19 survivors into the search tab, and a string of articles comes up, as well as a list of support groups. Most are private, but I dive into one that is not and start reading through the timeline.
Has anyone else found their taste has changed? I used to love spicy, and now not so much. Plus, everything smells like bacon.
Sleep is impossible—getting migraines every night.
Am I the only one losing hair? I had long, thick curls and now my hair’s super thin; how long will this last?
Hang in there, someone else has responded. Mine’s stopped falling out!
Try zinc.
Try vitamin D.
Tested positive 3/11, tested positive again on day 10, still testing positive a month later—is it safe for me to be around people?
Question for the ones who have had Covid-19: have y’all been getting nosebleeds on just one side?
Can I get this virus again if I’ve already had it?
My doctor won’t believe me when I say that I didn’t have heart palpitations before …
I am getting more and more freaked out. What if leaving the hospital is only just the start? What if I have long-term effects that haven’t even shown up yet?
And if I don’t get them, is that something else to feel guilty about?
I am about to close my laptop, crawl back into bed, and give up when I see another post: Anyone else who was on a vent have weird dreams/nightmares?
I fall into this rabbit hole and start reading.
I was bike riding around town with my husband. Now, we don’t bike ride, we’re large people. We went to a crowded diner and he went inside to put our names down for a table. He was gone for a while. Finally I went in and started looking around. I asked the greeter if she’d seen him. She said no and I went back outside and one of the bikes was gone. When they took me off the vent I found out he had passed while I was under. I didn’t even know until two weeks later.
I was in a hospital that was Broadway-themed, but in a bad way, like being trapped in It’s a Small World at Disney, you know? Every hour everything stopped and there was a big musical revue. It was so crowded that I couldn’t even be in the room to watch it. The only way to get anyone’s attention was by hitting a buzzer, and if you did, the song changed to one of shame, because you weren’t supposed to stop the performance.
I was in space trying to contact people to get help before I ran out of oxygen.
I was at an electronic dance festival and I was some kind of creature in a tank of water, and the people who came to the festival kept feeding me through tubes while I floated.
I was in a videogame and I knew that I had to beat the other players if I wanted to survive.
I was sitting at my childhood kitchen table and my mother was making pancakes. I could smell them so distinctly and when she brought them over with maple syrup I could taste that, too. When my plate was empty she put her hand on my shoulder and she told me I had to stay at the table because I wasn’t finished. My mom’s been dead for 32 years.
I can’t remember anything clearly but it was SO REAL. Not like a dream with jump cuts, or how you’re supposed to wake up the minute before you die. I could feel and smell and see ALL of it. And I died. A whole bunch of times over and over.
I was being kidnapped by the hospital staff. I knew they were Nazis and I didn’t know why no one else could see that. When I woke up for real, they had tied my hands down because I kept trying to hit the nurses.
I was being held captive.
I was in a room that was crawling with bugs and someone told me that this was how you got Covid, and I shouldn’t go near the bugs. But they were already covering me.
My brother and I were in a freight car and we had monitors on us that showed our heart rates going lower and lower because we didn’t have enough air. There was all this garbage in there with us and I found a Christmas card and wrote HELP on it and told my brother to hold it through the slats in the car’s wooden side.
I was tied to a pole and I knew I was going to be sold as a sex slave.
I was in the basement of NYU (I’ve never even been to New York City, so don’t ask me why) and someone was trying to give me medicine and I knew it was poison.
I was locked in a basement and tied down and I couldn’t get out.