Day 5: Got the Plague (Fri March 20, 2020)
So I call my family doctors office in the morning to be re-assessed. They told me I could just go into the test centre if things got worse, that I didn’t have to call back. But I feel I should get their advice first before I go. Things have not gotten a lot worse, but they persisted and been bad enough for me to suspect that something is wrong, more than just a common cold.
The doctor I spoke with was not my doctor, but someone I had seen before at my family practice, when I was dealing with a month and a half of strep throat last spring. He tells me he thinks I should go into emergency to have a chest X-ray done in case it’s pneumonia.
I do have a history of this. I get bronchitis every year, and a couple of years ago while working crazy hours on a Hallmark movie in Hamilton where everyone got bronchitis, it got into my lungs and became pneumonia.
He told me to call ahead to the hospital, because I have symptoms of COVID-19, and ask for the procedure. I called Mt. Sinai and they triage on the way in. If you have symptoms they may have you go through COVID screening, instead of going straight through to emergency, they will decide on my way in.
I prepare to leave my house for the first time since falling ill and go to the hospital. I take a shower, put on clean clothes, I put on a mask, and I put on latex gloves. My temperature was 37.7 when I left. I was sweating buckets, but it was windy and cold so I became chilled as I walked down University Ave.
When I got to the hospital they asked me to take off my gloves and use the hand sanitizer so I did. Then I had to go through the COVID screening first, because I have symptoms. They rushed me to the test centre which was getting ready to close for the day. There were no other people waiting to be screened when I got there.
They brought me into a ventilated makeshift hallway built on to the side of the hospital, to be pre-screened. There were chairs six feet apart down the hallway, but no one else in there but me. A nurse took my history and story, when I got sick, what the symptoms were etc.
By the time they took my temperature my fever had gone down to 37.4. I told them that was down from what I had gotten at home and that it was still a fever for me. Anything above 37 is pretty unusual for me unless something is wrong or I’ve just done vigorous exercise. My normal body temperature is pretty low. One of the nurses agreed, she said “I know somethings wrong when I have a temperature of 37 or more.”
They put me in a curtained makeshift room with two chairs, six feet apart across from one another, and asked me to sit and I waited for a doctor to come. The doctor who eventually comes is a very young resident. She’s younger than me. She goes through my case with me again. However, unlike the nurses, her tone is strange, as if she thinks I’m some sort of monster for coming here, even though I tell her that my family doctor told me to come and be seen at emergency.
Then she tells me I do not meet the criteria for COVID-19 testing, because I’m young, I will not die from this, there are not enough test kits to test everyone, and I’m not in healthcare or working with the elderly. I tell her that my doctor told me that I most likely wouldn’t meet the criteria for testing, however he didn’t say what those criteria were or why. I said I had come because he wanted me to be seen by emergency in case it might be pneumonia.
Then she tells me that my symptoms are consistent with a mild to moderate case of COVID-19, that some people don’t even notice their symptoms and I most likely have it. I tell her that I know it’s possible I have it, and I wish that I could be tested because I’m concerned that my new roommate, who is set to come April 1st, is elderly and I don’t want to risk passing it on to her if this is COVID-19.
She tells me again that I cannot be tested, because they do not have enough test kits to test everyone who has it, and most cases are mild and just require self-isolation at home. I said, yes but what about my roommate? And what if it’s pneumonia? Then she says, I am to assume given my symptoms and the fact that we know there are community sources of infection, that this is COVID-19 and act accordingly.
Wow! I’m shocked.
She says, I have to behave moving forward as if I have tested positive for COVID-19, although they will not test me. I need to self-isolate at home and not leave my house at all. She says I should not have a roommate, if I can help it, and definitely not an elderly person. She says that I should not leave my bedroom without a mask on, while my current roommates are there.
She tells me all of this, as if I should know this already, although she is the first person to tell me not only that there is a good chance that this is COVID-19, but that I most likely have it, in her medical opinion. Until now everyone else I have spoken with has said there was a very low risk. I haven’t traveled. I haven’t been exposed to someone with a confirmed case. I probably just have another bug.
Then the senior doctor she is the resident for, walks me over to Emergency to have a chest X-ray, to see if it is pneumonia or some kind of bacterial respiratory infection, something that I would need antibiotics for. If it’s pneumonia then they will give me antibiotics, if not I go home and continue isolating and monitoring my symptoms. Either way, given my symptoms, we still have to assume that it’s COVID-19 and I need to continue my isolation for 14 days, or longer if I continue to be sick longer. At this point, we cannot say how long I might be sick for.
I wait for hours in a hallway at emergency as they prepare to give me my x-ray. There is another man there who has symptoms of COVID-19, he’s coughing a lot, but he refuses to sit down in the chair they asked him to sit in. He refuses to wear the mask they gave him. He just keeps wandering up and down the hallway coughing everywhere. Everyone waiting is looking at each other like, is this guy nuts?!
Eventually a nurse walks by with no mask or protective gear on, covering her face with her sleeve, and see’s what he is doing. She yells at him, once she can get a safe distance away from him. She says what everyone’s thinking. You are putting everyone at risk! You are coughing everywhere! You probably have this virus and you could infect everyone who works here!
He still refuses to put it on and yells back at her. This poor woman! Risking her life and dealing with idiots like this guy. Eventually, security comes and they all tell him he will put on his mask and go sit down where he was told to, or he will go home and he will not be seen. He finally complies. There is a collective sigh or relief.
Finally they bring me to an empty room with plastic sheeting covering all the walls and cupboards. They give me a robe to change my top. Then when ready, two techs with protective gear, wheel in this portable x-ray machine and do my x-ray. It’s all pretty quick. Then another resident comes in to give me my results, standing six feet away, with his protective gear on. Their protocols are impressive. They are a well oiled machine.
After the x-ray, we know that it’s not pneumonia, so it’s almost certainly COVID-19. I cannot be tested, and I most likely have the plague that’s killing people all around the world.
He gives me a bunch of paperwork about social distancing, and about why I have not been tested for COVID-19, although I almost certainly have it. And he tells me that I must be symptom free for 48 hrs without any medication, before I can be considered recovered from this. I may never know if it was COVID-19 or not. And I must assume that it is. There is no information in this paperwork about how to care for myself.
Tomorrow I need to have a conversation with my new roommate who is elderly, and who is supposed to move in on the 1st of April. It’s not safe for her to move in with me right now, and even by April 1st, I may still be sick. She may choose to find somewhere else to stay, either for a couple of weeks, while I get better, or just find a new place altogether. And, I want her to make that choice with all the possible information. I don’t know how she will feel, but that conversation will have to happen, very soon.
In the case that she doesn’t want to move in on April 1st, I could be on the line for my entire rent, and I can’t afford that right now. I am at max on my credit card and I have $50 left in my bank account. I can’t afford anything right now. I can’t find a new roommate in my current state. I need to self isolate.
I get home from the hospital late at night and find my current roommate and her boyfriend on the couch watching TV. I tell them the information. They are pretty chill about everything. But there is no way they haven’t both been exposed to this, they are sitting on the couch I was on hours before I left for the hospital.
And her boyfriend takes the TTC daily to go to work at Bombardier, near Downsview Station. So he is potentially spreading my plague around town already. He says Bombardier likely has a couple of people sick with this virus too, and they have no plans to inform their workers or shut down production as far as he can see. No plans to shut down, even though it’s aviation, and clearly not essential manufacturing right now, with all flights grounded other than what’s deemed essential.
It’s all a bit of a shit show out there, so at this point I’m telling everyone I know: do stay inside, and do not take public transit if you can help it, and do not be in contact with any humans at all right now. Wear masks and gloves when doing your shopping, the homemade ones people are talking about sound wonderful, go for it!
I have a friend who’s going to start making them at home. If you have a sewing machine, make them, use them, send some to your friends. We should all be wearing them whenever we leave the house. I protect you, you protect me. Many people who are positive for COVID-19 have no symptoms and they are still contagious!
But most importantly, a lot more people have this than they are saying. The numbers, they mean nothing! Wrap your head around that.