Today, 12 months ago, I tested + for #covid_19. I was “lucky” to get a PCR (& a +) since tests weren’t widely available, my symptoms were very severe but less-so on the respiratory side (despite #pneumonia), & I was denied my 1st test on 3/12 by a sexist, ageist doc who gaslit me into believing that even if I had #covid my age (32) & health meant that I’d be “fine”.
Shortly after my symptoms escalated (as y’all know) & I was gaslit by yet another doc on 3/17 who, despite knowing that I was a high-risk patient (I vape #medicinals for bad insomnia), further questioned with “Are you sure you want this test? An elderly patient might need it more.” #guilt
So I share this reel not to be sad (I’m still alive!) but as a way to say that while the days are sunnier & nights longer, #sarscov2 doesn’t care. It banks on these moments. On the moments of our letting our guard down & loosening restrictions before the masses have been vaccinated & the cases grind to a halt. Of our feeling the warm sun of spring on our skin & thinking that masks & distancing don’t apply. (They do. More so now.) #variants
Covid waits for this. It eats it up because it’s smarter than us. It doesn’t have emotions or needs. It just wants to survive. & evolve. & to do what it’s done to me over the course of these past 12 months to millions more.
& it doesn’t care if you’re healthy or ill, old or young, skinny or fat, rich or poor: it does what we’re supposed to be doing as a collective & only caring about its brothers & sisters (variants old & new) evolving & thriving & living their fullest lives in our fragile, temporary bodies, made of love & needs & wants. It feeds off of our weakness, & our weakness being an inability to adapt & an inability to care for another as we’re meant to. To see ourselves as a family, which we are. As one.
I know this virus intimately. I felt it change & grow within me for longer than even a mother does at 12 months of this experience. It’s shown me things that have humbled me & have made me realize just how small we are.
& I hope you see my fight & realize that this is as real as it gets.
#longcovid is a prison & I don’t want any more cell mates.