Health and wellness
When COVID came calling
M COVID-19.
Writer weathers increasingly harrowing symptoms in “mild” case
y name is Kaitlin Lembo. I am 25 years old. I fought
It started with a cough. Nothing too aggressive; if I took too deep of a breath, I hacked a bit. A feather did a little dance in my throat. I had three positive coronavirus cases in my home when I started showing symptoms. I lasted 10 days before I got it; I was the last to contract it. Wearing masks in my house and disinfecting everything daily was no match for the coronavirus. Soon, my body began to deteriorate from the inside. Aches
ripped me apart from invisible seams. Food became a vehicle with which my body would expel in every way it could. Water turned my stomach into stormy seas. The softness of my bed, my only refuge; head buried in a pillow and legs tucked to by my chest yielded the only comfort I would have for two weeks.
warm. Imagine my fear when I couldn’t get the air conditioner cool enough. The walls close in way too quickly when you’re confined within them. Your mind begins to play tricks on you. My car laughs at me from right outside the door, mocking how I can’t leave. I can’t go to the doctor. I can’t even leave the property. In a haze, I kept asking myself why people were driving by the house all day. Can’t anyone see what’s going on? How is the world still spinning when I can’t even hold my head up? How are people feeling well when I can’t remember what well even
Kaitlin Lembo
Each day, something changed for the worst. My normal temperature is 98.1 degrees. Imagine my fear when the thermometer hit 100.7. Imagine my fear when I started hallucinating from being so
feels like? My sheets were their own form of wavebed and I supplied the moisture. I was doing laundry like a professional athlete, except the sweat wasn’t coming from my latest triathlon. I’m sweating out COVID-19. I’m puking out a pandemic. I’m oozing what has killed 2020 for so many people. It’s now on my doorstep, holding on to my chest like a cat. I can feel its nails, but I can’t get them off. There’s nowhere to grab except my soaked shirt. My stubby, bitten nails are sore and broken from clutching my headboard. Somewhere along the way, I’ve
DON’T PLAY WITH FIRE. IF YOU SMOKED, GET SCANNED.
G e t S a v e d B y T h e S c a n . o rg 18 Family Now — October 2020
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