How It's Going
Today, Saturday July 16th, I sit in an apartment in Bucharest, Romania--recovering from Covid. Despite being fully vaccinated and twice boosted, I finally caught this thing. I felt yesterday like I had turned a corner. My fever is gone, my symptoms have become slight. But I have had quite a tough week. I wouldn't say it was the sickest I have ever been in my life, but it was in the top three. When the pandemic began in the Spring of 2020, there was always the thought of whether one would eventually catch it. I never imagined I would make it all the way to July of 2022, only to have experienced this here and now.
Add in the fact that from our arrival on July 4th, half of the city of Bucharest has no hot water. And we are part of that half. Apparently the city has a centralized system of hot water that is then piped out to the various buildings. This probably made a lot of sense back in Communist days. Not so much today. I had gone a month once while on deployment on a base in Iraq with no hot water. So I initially decided this was no big deal. Days of COVID illness will weaken that acceptance of this state of affairs.
As a school teacher. I was a frontline worker. I was exposed to Covid potentially scores of times. We all have our own pandemic story. I have been telling my students since the beginning of it that they would one day tell their grandchildren about this. Here's my story.
How It Started
I guess I first heard about this disease of concern in China back in December of 2019. As the first stray case reached US shores, then NJ where I live, the particular virulence of it was becoming known. As the end of February turned into the beginning of March, it was becoming clear that significant measures were about to go into effect. It was already known that younger people generally contracted very mild or asymptomatic cases. But there was the growing concern that schools would be a place where the teachers would be catching it and incurring danger. We were told to begin planning for what all remote education would look like.
I can remember in days leading up to the announcement of all virtual, a few scattered students had begun to wear masks. You may recall that the CDC at that time was not recommending mask wear, focusing instead on promoting hand washing. The public high school where I teach Latin is about half second or even first generation Korean immigrants. I knew that Asian countries had long promoted mask wear during cold and flu season, so I had seen this before. But it was strange to see it in the second week of March.
We learned on Thursday night, March 12, that school would be all virtual starting on Monday. The next day, Friday, was a half day for the students, in which we met each class briefly to try to explain what virtual education was going to look like when we ourselves didn't really know. Before we saw the students, the principal called a short meeting of all the faculty into our school theater. I can remember him saying, "Whether this is your first year or you have taught for forty years, none of us has have seen what is about to happen.
As I met with each class in succession, I told them that I would be concentrating on pre-recorded content. I would be making video versions of my lesson that they would be watching on Youtube while our class met in Google Meet for questions and directions about online assessments. When I asked if there were any questions, one young lady raised her hand. She said, "This isn't a question. I just want to say I'm scared." I said, "I am too."
And so, Monday March 16 was the first day of all virtual school. Later that week, my governor issued an executive order closing churches on the upcoming Sunday. This affects me because, you see, in addition to being a public school teacher, I am an Eastern Orthodox priest. That Saturday, I performed a service on behalf of the dead with my wife and one parishion in attendance. I broke down more than once trying to get through those prayers because I knew that when I left I would be putting up signs on the doors announcing our closure by state order. Such a thing had never happened before.
How My Covid Infection Began
The school year 2021-2022 has ended. My wife and I are spending the month of July in her native Romania. I got permission from my bishop to be gone for three consecutive Sundays. The retired priest who still serves with me would conduct services in my absence. I served Divine Liturgy on Sunday July 3 and then we flew that evening. We will return on Friday July 29.
Our flight from Newark Airport to Frankfurt had us two seats away from a man who basically coughed non-stop for six hours. We had not had to show negative PCR tests to get on this plane, even though we had gotten them just in case. Nor did we need to show them in Frankfurt or when we arrived in Romania. As far as air travel is concerned, the pandemic has ended.
Our first few days were normal. I mean, except for the fact that we had no hot water. A nice hot shower at the end of the day would have been nice, but a cursory cleaning with cold water will have to do. I went bowling one day. And it was fun. We went out to eat with friends at our favorite pizzeria here.
My wife did not tell me when she began feeling a little tickle in her throat from time to time on Wednesday. She did not tell me when on Friday she felt a slight rattle from time to time in her lungs. Because then it went away--for a while. On Sunday morning I got up earlier than she to go to the local Romanian Orthodox parish to celebrate Divine Liturgy with the other priests. She was going to sleep in a bit more and come later. At different points in the service I looked out in the congregation to see if she had arrived. When she never did, I came to the conclusion that she must have woken up not feeling well.
I had no idea how much.
When finally the service ended, I came back to our apartment, just four blocks away. She was on the phone with someone when I came in and started taking off my cassock. On the dining room table was a rapid test--reading positive. I picked it up and said, "What is this?"
"I have Covid," she said.
She had woken up that morning feeling considerably ill and had taken the one home rapid test we had brought with us.
I actually did say, and I'm a priest, and it was a Sunday, "Are you f&*ing serious?"
She got off the phone and told me everything leading up to this moment.
Talk about throwing figurative and literal cold water on our vacation!
It immediately occurred to me. She has been contagious for days. This apartment is tiny. I have undoubtedly been exposed. I just have to hope that four shots of Moderna keep me from getting it.
I went to the pharmacy and bought several more home tests, realizing we could be needing them in this apartment in the coming days. The rest of that day I felt fine. I was wrapping my brain around not catching it. She was going to recover. My 96 year old mother-in-law also living here with us is also somehow not going to catch it. I did remember that during the Divine Liturgy, my voice had felt like it was weakening. I didn't think anything of that at the moment. As I went to sleep that night, I felt fine. No symptoms.
How Virtual School Went for the Rest of that Year
You have perhaps heard otherwise, but my report is that the students were great. We all need to remember that their world was turned upside down overnight. And they were kids. They showed up to the Google Meet on time. And when they didn't and reported that the reason they were late was because their internet was down or their computer was rebooting--I believed them.
We were originally told this would be "Two Weeks to Flatten the Curve." But as days and weeks dragged on, we began to suspect that this would continue to the end of the school year. But at least the next school year would be normal, right?
I did my best to provide them the same content they would have gotten in the classroom, but in pre-recorded format. And this meant for me dozens of hours of recording hours every weekend for the upcoming week. As the strict quarantine was dragging on, I was informed from teachers around the world that they were using my videos to supplement their instruction. And I did not mind in the least. For the work I was putting into this, I am happy more people benefitted than just my students at Leonia High School.
The school year 2019-2020 ground to a close. We had somehow continued instruction in the midst of the madness. One encounter in a Google Meet one day has stuck with me. A young man told me after class that he and his mom had only two days left of food in their apartment and would need to go shopping to reprovision. And he asked my advice on whether they should shop together to get it done more quickly--but therefore both potentially get exposed--or just one of them go shopping--and therefore restrict the potential infection to just one of them. I felt it was not my place to give advice on something that was theoretically a life and death decision. My thought, however, particularly in light of what happened in the apartment I currently live it, is that one person infected will mean the other catches it anyway, so go together to get it done fast. That is what they opted for. The next day I would hear from the bleary-eyed boy the account of how they went shopping at 2AM and provisioned the house, successfully avoiding any real proximity to others. And, again, my heart is broken that he would have these very real concerns.
How This Week Continued for Me
I woke up at 1AM early Monday morning and got up for a bit. I went to the kitchen so that I would not awaken my wife with the light of my phone as I read some news. (In this tiny apartment, there is basically just a kitchen, a living room with our hide-a-bed, a bathroom, and my mother-in-law's bedroom.) As I read news and caught up on correspondence with some people back in the US, I realized my nose was running. And I knew immediately--it was starting. I went back to bed but barely slept. As the night dragged on, I felt my running nose become fully stuffed. I slept in fits and starts and woke to realize I had a touch of lung congestion. When I finally got out of bed, I was unambiguously sick. And a rapid test confirmed the obvious. I was positive for COVID.
Conflicted emotions met me--anxiety, even fear, certainly. I know people who died from this. But also relief. I had avoided this for so long--worried that it would eventually catch me. And it finally has. Now I just have to recover from it.
What I really could have used, what really would have made me feel at least temporarily better would be a long hot shower. You know, the kind where you slowly increase the temperature to a point you could never have tolerated when you first stepped in. But instead I continued to clean myself as quickly as possible with what might as well have been ice water. Oh, and now I have COVID.
The Following School Year
The academic year 2020-2021 would be what is called "Hybrid." Students had the right to stay either fully virtual or to come in the building under some strict COVID protocols and receive the lesson in the classroom with the teacher. We had one Hybrid class in the morning. We were then given a lunch break which allowed teachers to get home and then there was an afternoon all virtual session. But the reality was, since the vast majority of students chose to be all virtual, the lesson had to be designed around the ones at home. For me this meant continuing to spend dozens of hours every weekend making a video version of the lessons I used to give in the classroom and now assigning them as the lesson for both virtual and hybrid student alike.
In January, 2021 I got the vaccine the very first second I qualified for it. You may recall those early days. The vaccine was almost impossible to get--until three weeks later when they couldn't find enough people to take the vaccine they took out of the deep freeze every morning.
One day that Spring, as I had launched the lesson to the students, I said to one of the three in the classroom, "Since the lesson is all virtual, the only value added I really give you is that you get to hear me say 'Good Morning' to you in person."
He said, "That's the reason I come in the building."
And that about sums up the academic year 2020-2021.
The Long Week Continues
As Monday dragged on, I had the aforementioned symptoms, but I didn't really feel very sick. And I had no fever. If this was COVID, it wasn't so bad. But at about 7 that evening, I said to my wife, "You know, suddenly I am feeling worse than I have all day." Everything I had been experiencing became worse. And I was having trouble concentrating through a descending fog on my brain. I took my temperature--101.5. Within the span of one hour, I was downright miserable. And so was my wife by now. We were wearing masks hoping still desperately to keep my 96 year old mother-in-law from catching this. She has a level of dementia that would make it impossible to explain to her what was going on and thus get her to wear a mask as well. But so far she exhibited no symptoms.
Even more so than yesterday, a hot shower would have helped this misery. There is a rumor swirling in Bucharest that the hot water turns back on tomorrow.
The Summer of 2021
For a brief period of time, COVID numbers were low everywhere. We were able to come here to Romania, albeit showing negative PCR tests at every step of the way up to and including inside Bucharest airport. We had a nice stay, saw all our friends for dinner at least once. Back home, I fished daily at the river that forms the northern edge of my property. Perhaps this nightmarish pandemic has come to an end. And anyone who had not caught it during the first deadly wave, could begin to hope that they had escaped it altogether. Churches had been allowed to reopen by now, and even though we wore masks inside the sanctuary, we otherwise had a normal church service. Most of the clergy I know did not themselves wear a mask when they performed the services. I knew, however, that the indoor mask mandate didn't have a clergy exemption, and I also felt I needed to model good behavior, so, with the exception of lowering my mask to receive Communion, I wore one continually.
A New School Year Begins
The announcement came that in the upcoming school year, the virtual option would no longer be available without explicit permission from the State Board of Education. School would be in-person, but wearing masks. I am not going to go into some of the deeper issues we began to encounter, such as the challenges of the significant learning loss that had occurred since March of 2020. We all did our best to move on from where we had left off. In my case, being the only Latin teacher at the school, my job was a bit easier than most. I knew what my students had studied and I could tell how well they knew it, so as to address gaps in their knowledge.
The Mother-In-Law Takes Ill
I slept poorly Monday night. As Tuesday wore on, my symptoms did not abate. My fever would fluctuate between 99.5 and 101.5. The woman who is the caregiver for my mother-in-law during the year lives a few blocks away. She dropped off some supplies for us at the front door, such as Tylenol, a pot of soup, more home tests, and wine. That's right, I didn't stop drinking wine just because I was miserably ill with COVID.
We noticed my mother-in-law wiping her nose from time to time. Attempts by my wife to ask her how she was feeling were inconclusive of whether she was coming down with anything. My wife attempted to administer a nose swab test, but my mother-in-law, not understanding the reason for this, become very resistant such that it would be impossible to perform the test. Since the test had been opened, I administered it on myself. Still a solid positive test line--not surprising since I was now more miserable even than the night before.
The hot water did not come on. The new rumor is that it comes back on this Saturday. That is too many days away for people suffering with COVID!
The School Year 2021-2022
As this most recent school year continued, normalcy was returning. The mask mandate eventually was lifted. People were free, of course, to continue wearing one. I made the decision that this thing has to end some time, and so I stopped mask wear. But it was not unusual for me to be the only person in the classroom not wearing one. State policy continued to be, however, that a student out with COVID had the right to join class via a Google Meet or Zoom. So every morning I had to survey my attendance to see who had quarantine status and remember to open up a Meet for them. In my case, helping those students stay caught up was fairly easy, since I was also able to email them the link to the video version of today's lesson, made at some point in the previous year and a half.
During the Omicron surge midyear, there were times when I had multiple students in quarantine status in every single class. And it goes without saying that on countless occasions I was aware of having had close contact with a student one day and learn the next that they were now symptomatic and quarantined--meaning they were undoubtedly contagious that previous day. I was potentially exposed to COVID every class period, indeed, I was exposed while passing through a congested hall between classes. Somehow, however, I had made it this far and never caught it. Many of my colleagues did catch it, and every school day also seemed to include covering as a substitute in a classroom for a quarantined teacher.
As this school year came to end, we had already booked our tickets for Romania. Which brings me back to the start of this story.
Wednesday
My mother-in-law's symptoms grew stronger. My wife very much wanted some way to test her, just to know definitively if she was indeed positive. It occured to me that we could theoretically administer a test on her without actually putting a swab up her nose--if we could get something from inside that nose. As she was sitting at the dining room table blowing her nose, I opened up a test kit. What I am about to describe is a bit disgusting, but my wife really wanted to know her mother's status. I took the kleenex and found areas of it wet with her mucus. I put them directly into the vial that comes with the kit, containing the reactive fluid. The mucus stained kleenex soaked up the reactive fluid. I then squeezed three drops of the resulting combination onto the test bar. The result was positive. My wife was obviously not happy to learn her mother had COVID, but she was relieved to have the knowledge.
Our symptoms seemed to come and go in waves. At times we almost thought we were improving, only to have other times when we were right back into misery.
Thursday
My mother-in-law got sicker and spent nearly the entire day in her bed sleeping. We let her, figuring she was doing what her body was telling her was needed in this moment. I felt definitively better in the morning, but a part of me was still worrying that maybe I had just become accustomed to feeling sick. My wife felt likewise.
Still no hot water. Really hoping this Saturday rumor is true this time.
Friday
I woke up feeling so much better that it made me realize I had still been somewhat sick on Thursday. We both had turned a corner on this thing. And we realized by the end of the day that my mother-in-law was no longer sneezing or coughing either. Rapid tests we took show still a strong positive line for my wife--mine is visibly lighter than the control. This is understood to mean that my viral load is diminishing. We won't test again until Sunday night.
Saturday-Today
Last Sunday feels like a month ago. Even though I feel so much better, we are not out of the woods entirely. My mother-in-law was wiping her nose again this morning. And she is coughing and sneezing more today than she was yesterday. My wife continues to have a persistent cough and has had blood in her phlegm. She feels it is just acute bronchitis. Until this clears, I worry it could be something worse.
As I think back on the week, I naturally think back also on the entire pandemic. I remember actual fear the first day I went back into the school building in September 2020. But the fear of being near people was not sustainable. We all let our guard down out of necessity. The potential of catching COVID went from being a considerable concern to being a hypothetical worry. By the end of the school year 2021-2022, I guess I had come to a place where I really didn't imagine I would catch it. Afterall, I never had.
Then, wonder of wonders. The hot water has been turned back on. A long hot shower will make me feel almost human again.
My knowledge of this historical event now includes direct experience of the illness itself. I am still a long ways off from knowing if I will yet exhibit lingering symptoms of what is termed Long COVID. My hope and prayer for any one who has still not caught it is that they continue to somehow avoid it. It was horrible. And may this all somehow, some day--truly end.
