The first time I got Covid two years ago, I was shocked. This time, I woke up and immediately knew. What a specific throat tickle.
When other people get sick, I morbidly want to know their first symptoms. I read once that my Broadway crush Krysta Rodriguez found dried blood in her bra during a rehearsal and that led to her finding out she had breast cancer. I think of her a lot. (Also, good news, she’s in remission and performing and married and has the best haircuts.)
Blood is usually a bad sign, right? In movies, it’s always that first red cough into a snow white handkerchief that signals that character’s untimely demise. Nicole Kidman’s tuberculosis is my favorite character in Moulin Rouge.
Don’t even get me started on the part at the end when she cough-whispers, “Tell our story, Christian.” Iconic. Give her cough a retroactive Oscar already.
What I’m trying to tell you is that I knew I had Covid when I woke up. The sore throat. The wet cotton brain.
I went to my bathroom and took a test from my small fortune of tests. At one point, I signed up to get them for free and I received packs of four in the mail for months. The swab, the plastic test thing, the vial of clear liquid — a mini science kit we all know well at this point.
When I stuck the swab up my nose, I remembered the first time I got tested in a parking lot. The person taking my booger sample was so gentle that my nose started tickling to the point where I had no choice but to giggle. That person, in a hazmat suit, looked so tired. They said I was their favorite patient of the day. So in my bathroom, three years and two states later, I make an effort to be gentle and tickly. I can still make myself laugh.
When I pull the swab out, it’s bloody, and my laughter stops abruptly.
That second line is immediate, so I fill a big jar with water and go back to bed. I’m alone in the way that I’ve been alone lately: my dad calls me on his way home from work; my boyfriend facetimes me from Japan; Mister lays on the chair in my room, but won’t come on the bed. There’s a family group chat, and emails I could answer, and two of my best friends aren’t far away. When I get a little scared — how can Covid not make someone scared? — I imagine the spare keys I bought them. One is in the shape of a tiny sword and the other one is covered in tiny kitten pictures. A perfect representation of the sliding scale of strength and comfort in our friendship.
My body aches, I sleep, then I get so achy I can’t sleep. My head hurts, I sneeze. Pretty standard (and merciful) of Covid, I think.
But the weirdest symptom, so overpowering that it’s cracking me up, is that I want to cut all my hair off.
In an effort to save money, I haven’t been getting my hair done, and now my hair has grown down to my elbows. In my Covid pillow fort, I put the mass in a ponytail and it hurts. I tuck it under my head and it’s hot. I braid it and it knots. The thought of washing it, turning it into a glob of cold wetness on my head, blowdrying it … sounds impossible. I’m so exhausted I have to sit down on the kitchen floor to pour soup into a jar for lunch.
Time is especially weird in a Covid brain. I swear I sat down to write ten minutes ago but I’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half.
I love you. Wash your hands. Enjoy a hot drink.
Far away hugs,
Christina
P.S. I googled Mucinex fan fiction (it made so much sense at the time) and found this headline:
Is this true? Is the Mucinex guy hot? I mean besides the fact that he’s literally a booger? To his credit, he is a homeowner and I’m sure his bossy, gruff demeanor is a turn on for some. But … enough to make him a sex symbol?
P.P.S. A new development. I just found out Mr. Mucinex is voiced by Jason Mantzoukas. In case that sways your vote.
I hope you are better VERY soon! Hot and Sour Soup really helped me. And idiotic television.