Kelli Gets COVID

Well, after two and a half years of avoiding it, my family and I all came down with COVID. Ugh. My kiddos were the vectors, and even though they are too young to be vaccinated, they of course bounced back at superhuman speed (what a relief that was!). But, as someone that has struggled with health anxiety, this has been… an interesting week. Let’s just say that as soon as my daughter saw her twin sister’s positive COVID test (the first man down in our family), she burst into tears. And I felt that. It’s been a long two years. The data tells us that the latest COVID variant is far less severe than previous variants, especially for the young and those that have been vaccinated and boosted, but a part of my nervous system is still caught in the early days of COVID… the days when COVID was new and we didn’t know much about it, other than that it was more fatal than the flu and we didn’t know how to treat it. The pre-vaccine days. Like my daughter, I teared up when I saw my positive COVID test because there was an element of fear and anxiety, despite the data, because my nervous system has not yet forgotten the last two years, especially being in the clinical setting as a nurse during the height of the pandemic. It’s still fresh. Our nervous systems don’t evolve or switch gears overnight. It takes time and support to feel safe in our skin when we’ve been through the trauma of a global pandemic.

So, that’s what I did. I supported myself in ways that made my nervous system feel safe, and while that didn’t eliminate all the fear and anxiety, the experience wasn’t as bad as I know it could have been (a ball of distraught panic rocking back and forth crying for a week). Spoiler alert: It wasn’t the most recent data and facts, no matter how promising they were, that made me feel safe. No, it was when I reached out to my husband (who fared annoyingly well, thank goodness), and asked him to keep an eye on me for concerning symptoms because that made me feel like someone else was keeping an eye on me and taking care of me when I couldn’t fully take care of myself. It also gave me a little distance from being my own nurse and compulsively visiting the CDC site for “red flag” symptoms. I also watched all the Sandra Bullock romcoms. I don’t know why they made me feel safe… something about that Sandy, I guess. I slept. I stretched my constricted body with low intensity yoga moves. I connected with friends and let them help, virtually, apart from dropping some meals off. I let Andy (my husband) give me extra back rubs because massaging is my first, second, and third love language. And nothing calms my heart rate faster. It’s almost been a week, and while I’m not 100% healthy yet, I’m leaning into trusting my body as I feel a little better each day, and if I can walk away with a little trust in my body, then I consider the experience a success.

Anyway, Erica and I chat about our COVID experiences in Episode 242 of my podcast. So, if you want to hear more, tune in!