I Have COVID-19, and I Won’t Be Ruled by Fear – Opinion

Monday night I was tested positive for COVID-19.

My sore throat awoke me the previous day. I was vaccinated, so I didn’t worry too much. A sinus infection had already set in by Monday morning and I cancelled my radio appearance. I visited a walk-in clinic to be tested. They did… a substandard job on the nose swab. I don’t feel as if I was tickled by the brain on this swab, but I did get it before. I was given nasal spray as well as cough syrup.

My hometown was reached on Monday night. My wife and mother-in law, who is a nurse, wanted me to check again. It came back positive. A shot of cortisone was given to me, which I then received a dose of azithromcycin. It was clear that I wasn’t suffering from a sinus infection.

Worst of all was when I called my family to tell them that I’d been positive. You must cancel your plans. We were supposed to drive to Texas to visit my wife’s family and see our newborn niece and nephew. Because they were born months premature, we couldn’t risk getting them sick. Because we have family members in our hometown that are old and have health problems, we didn’t want to expose anyone. We gathered my girls from my inlaws, and drove back to home.

It is their disappointment that hurts most.

This is not a sad story, I am sharing it because of hope. It is not a severe condition, which I’m grateful for. If the data and the news reports (not the panicking reports, but the straight data reports) are true, it’s likely I have one of the most recent variants. Perhaps even an omicron. My wife and my two daughters are here. This week we are planning holiday events. Today, it’s baking and gingerbread house decorating. My oldest son wants to return a black forest cake pound cake recipe she saw. Each night, we have a family movie night. The family will make a Christmas meal that is probably way too large for them.

And, of course, I have to still move the Elf on Shelf dolls each night.

If I have it, we’re working under the assumption my wife and kids have it. We remain quarantined. We are going to be well and can move forward. We’ll see family later and exchange presents then. Enjoy a delicious meal together. My mom absolutely knocks it out of the park for holiday meals, so there’s no way we can’t make that up. We’ll see the family we were worried about seeing this week. It will pass.

Because there are many people who fear being overruled by logic, I am saying all of this.

My profession is teaching. Every day, I meet hundreds of people. The virus can infect a large number of people without symptoms. The source of the virus and when it was acquired are unknown to me. But it doesn’t matter. Given my work, it was inevitable. It’s an inevitability for a lot of people out there. It is important to know how to react rationally and what your limits are while you have the virus.

This was something that I knew long ago. I understood that the vaccines weren’t perfect, but getting one was the best way to keep symptoms from becoming severe. I hadn’t gotten a booster yet but was considering it. Now, with natural immunity, I won’t need to.

This is why pieces like this from CNN’s Chris Cillizza are so frustrating. They don’t help anyone understand this isn’t some end-of-the-world event. It’s just fear-mongering.

I’m exhausted from the constant not knowing. Each new day feels like it brings a darkening prediction of what the future holds, and I’m tired. I’m a creature of routine. It is exciting to know what tomorrow will bring. It feels as if the world is constantly changing with the pandemic.

And I’m resigned to the fact that none of this is going away anytime soon. At this stage, the idea of Covid being in the rearview mirror by March seems quaint. I have watched the goalposts for the end of the pandemic moved so many times that I can’t even remember where they were a month ago.

Let’s be clear: My life isn’t a hardship. My writing is my livelihood. I’ve spent most of the past 20 months working from home. My family has good access to medical care and enough food.

For me, the past week has been the worst of the whole pandemic. The feeling was that we were at the end. But, then it felt like there was more.

This isn’t the type of reaction you have if you have been preparing yourself for the inevitability of catching COVID-19, or at least preparing for the inevitability that your life will be disrupted by it.

This is the type of reaction you have if you have been living in a bubble, thinking it’s all far away from you and it’s the hicks and rubes in red states who are hesitant to give up living life and focus on being afraid like the folks in the media and political bubbles in and around New York and Washington D.C., focused on case counts and not the actual reports on the ground from places like South Africa, which have been reporting since Omicron was named that it’s not anywhere close to being as dangerous as other variants or the original virus.

That hasn’t stopped our political leaders from straight-up overhyping and lying about the new variant. Fear is their weapon, and people in media such as Cillizza buy in. These people focus only on the number of cases and ignore that serious illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths have decreased with new versions, particularly when vaccines are involved.

Fear is something that I don’t like. I like taking precautions, I like being prepared, but I don’t like living in fear. It is far too easy to forget how much there are of life. It is my sincere prayer for people like these who live in fear and are unable to accept the reality that this virus will be around forever. It’s not a disease you can eradicate with vaccine mandates. It’s something you can control and prepare for.

Although I am sure that very few people reading this fear this virus, I do hope this helps. Enjoy your life.