Words
This was my second sunrise in the ICU after the massive pulmonary embolism I experienced a little over a year ago. When I had COVID last year, it wasn’t supposed to be in the country. In hindsight there is a collective realization that it was already well within the population. It definitely wasn’t known at the time that this kind of blood clot situation was a thing related to COVID. Even now it’s such a strange feeling to almost be a statistic. I’m relatively young with no preexisting conditions. When I had COVID, it was mild. I didn’t have a fever, but it was hard to breathe for a lingering three weeks.
My how times change…the world changed, slowed down. For a year I’ve barely left the house, too anxious in a nondescript way, but that’s what trauma is. I knew I was struggling with my mental health, but when the frog is in the stew with the temperature gradually rising, it’s hard to notice. For the longest time my feelings were more focused on gratitude for surviving. I very nearly almost didn’t; that feeling is an odd, not quite unsettling apparition.
I had my first vaccination dose; quite a thing. My state had been botching the vaccination rollout to absurd proportions, so it didn’t feel as though the day would come for me. My friends and family were mostly all vaccinated before me either because they were in states that had their acts together, or they were teachers and various kinds of health/mental health professionals. As happy as I had been to see them all safe, it was hard to just…wait.
I knew abstractly in some kind of intellectual state of being that I was carrying the weight of it all. I’ve comforted so many people I know about the trauma of this experience. I get it. I believe it. But, I internalized it in a weird way.
My husband and I were scheduled to get our first dose, so the wait was more of a deadline. Between the preregistration (an additional week or so) and the time before the injection itself, my anxiety built. But, I’m also living a trauma, so a part of me isn’t allowing myself to feel what the experience was doing to me physically. Emotionally I knew I was a mess, but also feeling numb in a way. And, really with my pulmonary embolism cognitive recovery, my well lived disabilities, and just the stress of everything, it’s hard to notice an explicit difference. I knew I was miserable. I knew I felt trapped in it. I tried to not feel angry with myself…tried. I failed miserably on that front.
I worried about my first dose. I’m ridiculous about needles anyway. Most people I know had a hard time with the vaccinations. Not everyone, but many did. My mom did. I was anxious about all of it, but couldn’t describe what it was specifically that was making the anticipation so hard. The reality is that the situation was fertile ground for my particular brand of neurosis. If I wasn’t in such a pit of yuck, my jokes about it at the time would have been better…that’s probably the most tragic bit of the whole thing. I was entirely jokeless. I remained jokeless until my husband and I were walking through the parking garage and into the building. I was a fountain of comedy at that point. It was either that or succumb to the nausea of what the prospect of needles brings for me.
I expected to have some kind of reaction, nothing crazy or anything. I expected to feel icky on some level with a sore arm. None of that came to fruition. I’m totally fine. I feel it a little in my arm, but it’s mostly nothing. I’m probably screwed for the second dose, but now that I know that the injection itself is essentially a flu shot, I’ll be fine. I don’t do well with unexpected things, especially needle related unexpected things.
I don’t know how to encompass everything that this vaccination is to me. I don’t know that I ever considered putting the entire experience into words other than dallying with whatever a moment in time happens to be.
The car on the way home I was smiling. I don’t remember the last time I smiled like that…what a horrible thing to realize. I’ve laughed, certainly. I know that much, but apparently smiling as just a statement of existence didn’t…exist. And, thinking back to the past year I instinctively know it was hard to smile. I feel a little guilty about that. My bout with the pandemic over the last year isn’t really something I can complain about, comparatively speaking. I probably shouldn’t need to forgive myself for complaining, but a part of me knows that forgiveness needs to be a hefty part of this equation.
Post needle, I entered the house and the physical presence of the weight I instinctively knew I was carrying was gone. Even now with a day of space and reflection I could almost cry from that absence of the emotional drudge. And, then came the realization that normalcy…or some grade of it is coming soon.
The day before I attended a Department of Corrections orientation refresher for all of the established volunteers. There is no official start date yet, but things are moving. I’ll be teaching again soon, and what a experience that is. I’ve felt a piece of myself missing without my classes. I’ve kept occupied with lists upon lists of other things, but most of my work has been on hold. Walking in the house after my first dose I felt that a relatively normal life would resume, and there aren’t adequate words to describe that.
Sure, the masks will be around for a while, and probably some restrictions, but to not have to feel a bone fear that I struggled thinking about throughout the year… I can maybe see a friend…take my kids to a playground…I don’t know. Something small. Something that isn’t about feeling paralyzed. What words can be found for something like that?
