What it means to be sick in 2020

The morning had started like any other. An early chill had set into the apartment overnight without the crack of windows being present. The rise of the lower units’ heat had dissipated as they had lowered it down to rest easy through the night themselves. Looking through the broken blinds of the third floor bedroom I can see the gray clouds overhead as they are releasing their damp contents onto the world below.

I pressed up from the old mattress and felt the autumn cold at my skin. I shiver at the contact and think immediately to my young son who is still fast asleep in his pack n play. I creep quietly to see if he is cold but he's bundled up warmer than my wife and I have been; his fingers still in his mouth for soothing himself on occasion. I smile thinking how content he is in the moment.

I move quickly to finish my routine before heading to work. The release of the overnight pee and the thought of having a shower but knowing I don't have time. A dry tickle is in the back of my throat and without warning I cough against it. I brush it from my mind as I feel the tickle has gone and dress myself, collect my computer, then slink out of the slumbering unit that still holds my wife and son.

After a couple of hours at work and moving equipment around outside in the downpour of rain I'm able to sit for a moment and catch my breath in the barely warm office of the building I work in. I think back on old articles and stories from the nineties about how companies used to keep their offices cold to "improve performance" from their employees. It's only partly the case here though; the building itself is outdated and still holds phone systems from the eighties. Peeling wallpaper and cracked stone on the floor tells the employees that its time is past due. The building itself wants to cease existing but the owners are doing the bare minimum to keep it alive. It feels like the kind of place that you're sent to just to see the end of your working days.

As I type and inventory the products coming in I can feel the strange dampness of sweat on my body and a growing chill that is in my bones. The muscles and fibers of my body are sore and aching and I start to ponder the reality of being ill. This then turns into a fear that I may have in fact contracted Covid-19. I slowly cease my duties of daily work and I research the nearest locations to get tested so I can at least get some peace of mind.

Now let's flash forward to near a week after this to a point where I've already received the negative results and I've been working in "quarantined" conditions. I have a small single occupancy office in the corner of the small building and for the most part I don't need to have interactions with my coworkers. A lot of the work I do can have correspondence using the company messaging system we all use.

I wear a mask and wash my hands constantly but not to prevent the spread of a common cold but because even though I've been cleared from it, the fear of Covid is still strong amongst my peers. As people breeze past my office I hear them mumble and groan about how I shouldn't be here. Perhaps they are right but while I may not feel great I am still able to work so that's what I intend to do.

Going out into the world to do anything yields the same results and backlash from strangers far and wide. Even though I'm wearing a mask and taking all the expected precautions it's like being a marked carrier. It feels like being a leper amongst the colonies; squinted eyes and guarded parents retreat from you as a muffled and fading cough is pressed into the sleeve of your coat.

"Jesus Christ! Just stay home!" I hear from a lone young woman.

I reach out to take a carton of milk for my son since he is still on bottles for the most part and the woman shrieks at me for practically existing.

"Oh my god! Are you serious right now!?" she yells.

The woman drops her basket of items and storms out of the store while yelling about how I'm getting everyone sick just by being there. A moment later I'm met by two employees of the grocery store I visit almost weekly. I thought it was meant to be some kind of apology for her behavior or something but instead it was a targeted inquiry about my own health.

People would walk past me in the corner of the store as these two gentlemen asked me why she might have been acting like that. I explained I had a slight cough but that I had covered it into my sleeve in the elbow and with my mask still covering my face. They then call into the "security office" to see if I had been wearing my mask for the entire duration of my visit to the store. I eventually had to show my medical paper that showed the negative result from Covid like I was some young kid that was out past curfew.

They let me continue on in my shopping as they had deemed that I hadn't violated any of their store policies and so I quickly finished collecting the items of the small list and made my way out as fast as possible; the entire time feeling the nervous scratch of unseen eyes being laid upon me. I haven't returned to the store since this time as I now feel like they have my face on the wall like you see in those "crime watch" settings with a short sentence written under my screenshot that says something like "potential carrier" or something to that effect.

It's been a little over a week and I still have the remnants of this darling head cold. The fog of pressure in my head means I can't really form the full thoughts I tend to have and that dry tickle at the back of my throat still generates a small cough. An occasional sweat comes and goes like the chill in my body that seems to appear every once in a while. So to make the point clear and short I'll say this little bit:

Flu and Cold season is going to make lepers of us all.

With no vaccine hope on the horizon and people still fearing the spread of this virus I can warn that my experiences will likely become common as we head into the colder winter months. It doesn't matter if you have a paper that says you are clear from the virus or not. People react to what they see and notice. If that cough was a singular spout or your voice becomes noticeably different amongst your peers you should expect their actions and perceptions about you to change drastically.