I keep trying to write about wine and keep coming back to this damned, invasive coronavirus. COVID 19. We are fairly certain we already had it. My husband, SM, came down with a cough in very early December when we were in Hong Kong and Macau. In the usual manner of things our 4yo eventually fell ill. I spent the night in a hotel in Thailand with her sitting upright in my lap so she could sleep, and I could monitor her breathing and fever. After having her cough in my face for a couple of days I developed my own fever.
Back in the early 90s I was sophomore in college. I missed out on getting the flu shot at our annual military base visit because, since I was over 18, I had extra paperwork to complete to maintain my military ID. That semester I had classes from 9 to 9 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One Thursday afternoon I started to feel weird. Not bad, but weird. My skin was sensitive. I just felt off. By the time I trudged to my car at nine o’clock that night every step was leaden. That walk is etched into my memory as one of the longest in my life. I don’t remember the drive home but by the time I got there I had a fever of over 104F (40C), my entire body ached, especially my head which seemed to be entirely filled with mucus. I had a few miserable days but was a healthy teenager and it was over fairly quickly.
Then, in the early aughts, SM and I were in a movie theater in New Jersey. I don’t remember what movie we were watching. Once again, my skin became ultra-sensitive and I started to feel weird. When I got home and checked my temperature it was over 104. This time, however, the skin sensitivity and weird feeling were the extent of my symptoms. Instead of taking something I just went to bed and let my body burn off whatever was trying to invade. The next morning, I woke up feeling fine.
This time I had the skin sensitivity and weird feeling but for the first time in my memory I actually felt hot with a fever. That night SM had gone out and LB was asleep, but I could not get comfortable. Tossing, turning, and sweating by the next morning my clothes were soaked and the sheets damp. But the fever had also broken and didn’t come back. For LB and myself symptoms were fairly brief. Symptoms lasted longest for SM, his cough plagued him for weeks. But he never developed a fever.
At that time, we’d been traveling for roughly five months and paying little attention to the news. In and out of Hong Kong we were checked for fever and we noticed a few facemasks in both China and Thailand but having lived in Asia we recognized that such was not uncommon in the region. It wasn’t until the end of December that China confirmed the new virus and Wuhan is nowhere near Hong Kong. Thailand, of course, is even farther away.
By the time things started to really heat up in the media over what was happening we were already home and prepping for Mardi Gras season. I worried for friends but having been through epidemics while living in Asia I was also aware of how the media, especially Western media, overhypes such things out of Asia. Then, it seemed like all of the sudden, we were realizing that maybe things were being underhyped.
On the 14th we decided to cancel our housewarming. We thought that perhaps we were being over cautious. It turns out we weren’t being nearly cautious enough. It is now March 20th. Louisiana has declared a public health emergency. Schools, gyms, and libraries are closed, restaurants are take-out only, and everyone is encouraged to engage in social distancing.
Our former homes of Denmark and Korea are on lockdown.
Stalking friends on Facebook is how I know they are alright. Some are not.
This sort of reminds me of those first few months in Copenhagen when it was just me and LB all day. This time, at least, the days are warm and often sunny, I actually know people, and we’re all kind of in this together. What this is, however, is more than a little scary.