Comparing Stories

Today, I delivered food to a COVID + woman, in her second month battling the disease.  She met me at the passenger side window of my car, while I remained in the driver's seat.  Walking was a part of her rehab, she said, and didn't need me to drop the bag to her door.  If my illness were a 5, hers was a 7 (I leave 8, 9 and 10 for those hospitalized, in comas, on ventilators, at death’s door).  

She went to work that morning where her temperature was taken as a requirement of her job.  It was normal.  During the day, she had a headache which wasn't bad enough to be concerned.  She also experienced some breathing issues, but because she is an asthmatic, she didn’t give it much thought.  As she was driving home after her shift, the sneaky COVID-19 which dropped its clues here and there pounced and hit her hard - the labored breathing, the chills and the weakness.  She decided to go to the emergency room.  As she neared the hospital, the car continuously swerved and she felt for sure she was going to pass out.  It was the grace of God, she says, that took her safely to the ER.  She was not hospitalized, but during her illness, she lost the use of her legs and had to use a walker.

We compared our stories, some were similar.  One was about her mucous and my poop.   Mucinex, as recommended by her doctor, to help with her mucous build-up, was no match for COVID, as COVID warred with the Mucinex in her throat and nostrils.  She prayed that God would not let her go out like that, alone and in agony.  Relief came and the mucous released itself in amounts, colors and a consistency that were unimaginable:  black and tar like, with red splotches weaving through it. 

My poop story began with me cooking and eating a plate of beans, carefully prepared by me.  Kidney beans and I are no friends, it makes me gassy, but I love it.  It’s cultural.  We make rice and peas, the peas being the beans, red peas soup and stewed peas with pigtails.  My stewed peas on that day had no meat, just coconut cream and seasoning.  I soaked the beans overnight like I always do to remove the gas, changing the water twice and I used ginger for added insurance.  It was delicious and more so because this was the second day after my 15 day confinement and my appetite had returned.  Before I finished the beans, something started battling in my stomach, twisting and moving and pulling and gnawing away.  I was in agony.  It wasn’t gas; I know gas pain.  For some people, the gas goes down and gives relief with the passing of gas.  Mine goes up and out, moving out toward my stomach and bloating me up and up to my rib cage, shoulder blades and throat.  I took a Gas X anyway, which gave me no relief.  It lasted a day and a half.  The toilet called and what came out of me is indescribable; toxins which looked like they were threaded with the virus, in mounds and mounds of poop which took three flushes to go down. 

I described what happened to me as demonic and the woman said that’s exactly how she described her experience to a friend.