Life Lessons
I recently made the sad discovery that, despite my (wishful) theorizing to the contrary, I am NOT immune to COVID, and I caught the virus for the first time since the pandemic started more than four years ago. As the daughter of an infectious disease specialist, germs and other “bugs” have been a big focus my entire life, so naturally I’ve followed the news regarding the pandemic very closely. I am well aware that, despite all our yearnings, COVID is still with us. (Click here to read a New York Times article on the latest variant.) Nevertheless, on a recent trip, I didn’t wear a mask. Not once. Not in the airport. Not on the plane. Not even on the crowded London Underground although I still regularly wear one on the New York City subway.
I keep asking myself why not. Part of it is that, like everyone else, I’m tired of dealing with masks, the whole hassle of taking them on and off and positioning them so my glasses don’t fog up. But another part of it was no doubt social pressure. I saw only a handful of people wearing masks at any point during the entire week we were away. Hard as it is to admit, even at my age, breaking from the pack feels a little awkward. And with COVID precautions, you don’t just feel like the wallflower at the middle school dance; sometimes you feel like a flat Earther who’s wearing an aluminum foil cap and spouting predictions about the approaching end times. Even when you know you’re right.
Given my age, I qualify for Paxlovid, the antiviral medication that has been developed to treat COVID in people at risk of developing more serious disease. Even so, after testing positive, I still hesitated to reach out to my regular doctor. Should I bother her on the weekend? Was I really sick enough to need the medicine? Wasn’t this just going to be like a mild cold as everyone said?
Very quickly, I realized that, for me, it wasn’t like a mild cold and at the urging of my husband and brother, set up a virtual appointment with urgent care. Which turned out to be both convenient and shocking. Because after I explained the purpose of the visit was to obtain a prescription for Paxlovid and after the doctor confirmed I was a good candidate for the treatment, he proceeded to:
ask me where I got COVID (as if anyone actually ever knows exactly where they caught an airborne virus);
tell me that he had it a couple of weeks ago (convinced that he caught it at a wedding although he treats sick patients every day);
express surprise that I felt so awful (since “most people” don’t get that sick);
dismiss the need for Paxlovid (again, because “most people” don’t get that sick); and
tell me that he would “never” take Paxlovid, just like he’d never take Tamiflu, the antiviral medication that helps prevent more serious illness in people with the flu.
WHAT?
If I’d been less convinced I wanted the prescription or less certain about my understanding of both COVID and the medication, that doctor could easily have dissuaded me from taking it. And instead of feeling much better within 36 hours of taking my first dose, I would have spent a lot longer fighting a horrible headache, raw sore throat and crushing fatigue, as well as heavy congestion and a deep cough.
Thankfully, I have clear memories of my father—who graduated from medical school in 1963, the same year the first antiviral drug was approved by the FDA, and who spent his entire professional life helping people fight infectious pathogens like HIV and Legionnaire’s disease—encouraging me to take Tamiflu. Because the flu is a serious illness that still kills thousands of people every year. And because, no matter what the odds, you never know if you could be one of those people.
Although we lost my father too soon to cancer, I’ve often felt grateful that he didn’t survive to live through the COVID pandemic. To see his colleagues dismissed and demonized for giving their best medical opinions in an unprecedented medical crisis. To have their expertise mocked and ignored. To stand by silently while even other doctors denigrated important, if not truly miraculous, medical treatments and spread misinformation that threatened the public’s health.
For a little while there, I lost track of my father’s voice in my head and didn’t have the wherewithal to buck the crowd. But like all of life’s lessons, I’ve learned this one the hard way, and next time I get on a plane, you can be sure that I’ll be the one still wearing a mask.