After four years of dodging a tiny globular germ bullet, on a Friday afternoon in August at the Pont Aven Museum, there it was, lurking in the exhibition of The Women Behind the Nabis. Covid. I somehow knew we’d meet there, on that packed, rainy-day excursion, for at every turn I spied the single mask-wearing art lover out of the corner of my eye. It should be me wearing that mask, I thought, as I was followed by a gentleman cougher from room to room. We left the exhibit, and with that, my Covid-filled fantasies left me, at least for a day.
By Saturday, with nothing further from my mind than Covid, I experienced an odd sensation of my legs wanting to buckle underneath me. I felt unusual, but I shrugged it off, as I did the migraine-grade headache that had kept me awake the night before. By Sunday, I laid lifeless under a tree as the rest of the family wandered along the coastal path, unable to finish my usually très délicieux salad. And by Monday, I was breathless walking the few steps up to the Creperie in Doëlan. Something was amiss.
Tuesday, though…Tuesday was D-day. While saying goodbye to relatives who had spent the week with us, I had no other options but to lie down on the couch with bodily pains that I could only interpret as organs going into failure. I might just die here, I thought, without emotion, but simply as truth. I asked my husband to go to the local pharmacy for cough syrup and pain relief, but he returned with a hand full of Covid tests.. Within minutes, the famous double -barrel line appeared and reality set in. I have Covid. I’m in France. Now what?
I had heard of Paxlovid, and impulsively decided that I needed to get my hands on this medication. We lined up the necessary doctor’s appointment to obtain a prescription via tele-call from the local pharmacy. To get there, I would need to get dressed, out of bed, down the stairs, and into the car. I didn’t know how that would be possible, given my state, but the years of experience with late night, early morning and mid-day emergency trips to the A&E meant I was primed to somehow, point myself in the direction of medical help., and hope for the best.
Without knowing much about Paxlovid, and without the tele-call doctor knowing much about transplant patients, he agreed to the prescription. The next day, and 1000 euros poorer, we had the golden medicine in hand. Only after reading the inserted precautions, did we learn that several of the medications that keep me alive post-transplant were on the DO NOT TAKE - TOXIC list. A googling frenzy and multiple calls to the transplant coordinator back in London ensued, and finally we had a plan. Water. Lots and lots of water.
For the next five days, I quarantined in a room. I experienced dizziness, fatigue and extreme organ pain in my torso and back and had a mild fever, cough and sore throat. I was thirsty beyond quenching, but I never lost my taste or smell. More than the symptoms, though, was this acute sense of every minute sensation in my body. It was a body-based shift in perception that I have rarely experienced, as if the lens of adaptive seeing had been lifted, and I was simple body mass, relating to myself without the distorted lens of a coloured perception. I was at once, the object and the seer, only the object in no way felt like my body.
Two weeks after the museum visit, I re-emerged into the river of life. I noticed my sensations were similar to my experience post-transplant -- as if I had a sensory reset, arriving in a foreign land with new tastes, smells and colours. This epipany didn’t last terribly long; as my vitality came back, so did my daily responsibilities and habits. I eased back into old routines, and have now fully landed into an integrated post-Covid version of myself.
Bayo Akomolafe (philosopher, writer, activist) has spoken about the concept of Becoming - the idea that with all our experiences and interactions we are on a continuum of becoming ourself in each minute, forever evolving into a present-moment version of self. None of us are who we were yesterday or who we might be tomorrow, and every experience counts, whether we register it as important, or not.
While the doctors tell me I’m not quite ‘back to baseline’ post-Covid, I realise there is another possibility for a benchmark of health; one based on intuition, being in touch with emotions, and the embodied sense of self, rather than only the numbers and measurements. Illness, again, has re-established my joy and gratitude for being alive. Those moments of seeing myself clearly during Covid have contributed to a growing acceptance of myself as I am today, rather than any past or future version. In all the pain, fatigue and fogginess, Covid has offered me the gift of accepting whatever mind and body that I have here right now.*
*I am aware that there are people who suffer terribly with Long Covid. I in no way mean to diminish anyone else's experience of this illness or any other, but only to share my experience with Covid as a post-transplant patient.
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