WELLNESS
Duality, COVID-19, and 2022: Being a Caregiver and a Patient
SAEM PULSE | JULY-AUGUST 2022
By Al’ai Alvarez, MD, on behalf of the SAEM Wellness Committee
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A year into the pandemic we saw a glimmer of hope thanks to unprecedented scientific breakthroughs in vaccine development. Concurrently, vaccine misinformation spread like wildfire, adding to the increasing death toll from COVID-19. Within a short year, the virus mutated several times, and what was deadly at the start of 2020 evolved into something milder but more highly contagious. We saw recordbreaking numbers of new cases, and many of us saw our roles, our own lived experiences, and perspectives change. 2022 has been a year of duality. While so many of us have been vigilant about this virus (we washed our hands, masked up, socially distanced ourselves) transmission rates are nevertheless significantly higher with Omicron. Consequently, we have found ourselves in roles we have tried to avoid:
• as caregivers receiving care • mourning during times of celebrations • angry at someone we love and care for deeply because of misinformation and decisions about how to handle this pandemic • hopeful and scared for the future On December 19, 2021, a few days before a much-anticipated vacation with my family, I started feeling myalgia after a day of hiking with colleagues to celebrate the closing of 2021. I did not think much of it. I thought maybe I was no longer fit to do that much hiking — another consequence of the sedentary virtual meetings the pandemic brought. By nightfall, I was shivering, my head was pounding, and I felt congested. I’d heard about Omicron, but as an emergency physician, I looked back and convinced myself that I could not
possibly have become infected. After all, I did everything right, including getting triple vaccinated. Maybe it was rhabdomyolysis, I told myself. But why the chills? I isolated myself starting on day one of the symptoms. By day two, I still could not compel myself to be tested. I felt partly ashamed, as if getting a positive test would mean I, too, am now like “them.” But wait! How could that be? After all, I had been “good” (as if “being good” had any bearing on contracting COVID-19). I set my sights on a shortterm goal: vacation in three days. The relief that thought brought was fleeting. My mind started racing. I could get my family sick! And what about everyone on the plane? I woke up early on day three to drop off my PCR test. I’d taken two tests to be sure: one by mail and another dropped off at the
