How Contracting COVID Probably Added Years to My Life

Facing my fears in a time of uncertainty

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit in March 2020, I was terrified just like everyone else. There was so much misinformation, uncertainty, and fear-mongering. It also wasn’t a good sign for the country that the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, became the most recognized name and face in the United States.

But the biggest reason for my fear was simple.

I hated doctors and avoided them my entire life.

I didn’t even have a Primary Care Physician. I hated the smells, the sounds, the needles, the poking, the prodding, and the endless questions about my medical history and my family’s medical history. Deep down, I always thought that if something was wrong with me, I didn’t want to know and preferred to drop dead rather than deal with seeing a doctor.

My parents never took my brothers and me to the doctor unless it was for something serious. We didn’t receive annual check-ups, and I realized not experiencing those as a child definitely impacted my comfort as an adult. I became an expert at convincing myself that if I didn’t go and didn’t know, then it wasn’t real. I handled my health reactively instead of proactively and lived by the moniker “That won’t happen to me.”

My family’s health history was not good. Both of my grandfathers died of massive heart attacks in their early 60s. My one grandma had her first heart bypass surgery in 1990 at age 57 after watching her husband drop dead in their bedroom a few months earlier. She struggled with heart issues until the day she died in 2019. She lived to age 85, but her quality of life wasn’t good for the last 20+ years. She spent her final years confined to her recliner playing Scrabble on her Kindle.

My other grandma died of Alzheimer's at 86. When she was finally put into a nursing home because she required 24-hour care, the last thing she said to my dad was “I hate you,” because he couldn’t take her with him out of the facility. She died the next day.

Some of my earliest memories are of being dragged to the Children’s Hospital for my brother’s ear issues when we were kids. Even though the visits were for him, I imagined the doctors would secretly find something wrong with me and rush me into emergency surgery. The hospital reeked of sickness. It creeped me out, and it made me perpetually scared and nervous as a kid. Subsequently, I became a hypochondriac as an adult, but one who refused to see a doctor. I preferred to play the dangerous game of self-diagnosing through WebMD. I think I’ve diagnosed myself with every disease at least once.

When I was 18, I was a pizza delivery driver. There was a facility called Bel-Aire Rehabilitation Center in the town where I worked. It wasn’t a rehab facility; it was where people went to die, and I used to deliver pizzas there. The smell of death penetrated my nostrils as soon as the sliding glass doors opened. I hated seeing an order pop up for them on our delivery screen and would even ask other drivers to deliver their orders, but they hated going there too.

One time, I was chased by a woman in a wheelchair who was in her late 80s. She screamed at me “Take me with you,” as she wheeled as fast as she could toward me in the elevator. She had no idea who I was, yet she knew she would never see daylight again. Little did my dad know that his mother would do the same thing to him years later.

At age 41, I have never had blood drawn, and I haven’t had a physical since I was 14 when it was a requirement to be on the wrestling team. Good thing the wrestling physical didn’t involve blood work. I wouldn’t have joined the team if it did. The thought of having a needle inserted into my arm and drawing blood made me nauseous.

I know this is insane, but I always imagined going through life without any major health issues. I hope to go to bed at age 95 after a long, healthy life, then never wake up. I’ve been lucky my entire life up to this point to be healthy and not need doctors. No broken bones. No surgeries. No serious illnesses. I rarely got sick, and when I did, I’d suck it up until it passed. I’ve always been afraid of dying, but more afraid of going to the doctor. My good luck was about to change when my wife’s friends stayed with us for a visit.

Bill and Robert’s visit started with a simple question, and upon hearing it, I was livid. An uncanny feeling overcame me because I could sense what was about to unfold.

“Do you have a thermometer? Bill asked my wife as he walked out of our guest bedroom and into the kitchen.

“Yes, there’s one in the medicine cabinet of the hall bathroom,” my wife replied.

“Robert’s been covered in sweat all night and his forehead felt burning up. I think he’s running a fever.”

“Here’s a Covid test for him to take,” my wife said handing over the Abbott box.

“I don’t think it’s Covid,” Bill said. “He’s just worn out from the flight.”

And just like that, I knew we were fucked. My wife’s friends, Robert and Bill, were visiting us from Florida for five days. Their plane had landed only 6 hours earlier at 2:30 AM on Friday morning. “Worn out from the flight?” I thought. “Who gets worn out from a 2-hour flight?” Robert was sick before he stepped on that airplane and there was no convincing me otherwise.

While listening to the interaction between Bill and my wife regarding the thermometer, I thought “Oh shit, Robert is going to get us all sick. Do I need to go stay with my parents until they leave? How can I keep from getting sick when I’m being held hostage in my own home?”

After some deliberating, I decided to stay home. I figured if my wife was going to get sick, then the probability was that she would pass it to me whether I left or stayed home, so I rolled the dice, hoped for the best, and stayed home.

Bill and Robert stayed with us in our guest room from Friday until Tuesday afternoon. Bill started showing symptoms late Monday. We went bowling that evening, and he told my wife that he felt like he was “hit by a bus.” He blamed it on the swimming workout that he and my wife did on Saturday, but I knew better. The COVID monster had infected him too.

The next day, my wife took them to the airport in the afternoon, ending their five-day trip. I was hopeful we were in the clear from catching it, but I had a feeling that wasn’t going to be the case.

The next day on Wednesday morning, my wife and I both woke up with fevers of over 101 degrees. Chills. Body aches. Headaches. Coughing. Brain fog. Runny noses. The whole enchilada. Immediate rage flowed through me. I should’ve trusted my instincts, but it was too late. Bill and Robert got us sick.

For the next two weeks, we battled every symptom of the virus. We took Tylenol, Advil, Aleve, aspirin, and Alka Seltzer, but nothing worked. It was easily the sickest that we had been in the past ten years.

My wife was fully healed after about two weeks. I wished I could’ve said the same. I was fever-free and feeling much better, but a new terrifying symptom made its first appearance.

During a routine walk in my neighborhood, I noticed my heart rate was 40 beats per minute (BPM) higher than it normally was at the same point on previous walks. I was light-headed, short of breath, and had to stop. This never happened to me before getting sick. After sitting for a long time on the side of the road in my neighbor’s yard, I caught my breath and made it home. I sent my wife a series of text messages about it. She suggested I do the one thing I had avoided all these years.

The heart racing and palpitations continued for seven weeks after my initial fever. I couldn’t walk to the end of my street at a 30-minute mile pace on flat ground without my heart rate jumping to 160+ BPM. The slightest physical exertion caused my heart rate to skyrocket. I couldn’t cut the grass, so I bought a new $699 self-propelled mower so my wife could cut it. I was convinced my heart was going to explode and I was going to die, yet I continued to resist making a doctor’s appointment. There were other things I tried first.

My wife didn’t think my Apple Watch was accurate, so she spent $75 on a Polar heart monitor. Heart spikes continued. The next thing I could think of was God.

I prayed like I never prayed before. I dug into my nightstand and grabbed my copy of Life Principles Daily Bible by Dr. Charles Stanley. I thought God was punishing me for being a bad Christian and ignoring His word all these years. The only way I was going to pull through this without seeing a doctor was God Himself, so I poured into the Word daily. Praying daily. Begging daily. Pleading daily for healing and forgiveness.

At the end of eight weeks, I finally surrendered and made a doctor’s appointment. I knew they were going to have to do blood work, but the fear of my heart issues outweighed the fear of the needle. It was the push I needed to get out of my comfort zone to seek help.

I got through the doctor’s appointment and even the blood draw relatively well. My wife was there to support me. I squeezed the living shit out of her thumb as I felt the prick in my right arm. I asked the nurse every 5 seconds when it was going to be over. She had the worst bedside manner and simply said, “When I’m done.” It seemed like she had that needle in my arm for 15 minutes, but after she was done, I left thinking “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” They ended up taking five vials for various tests. The doctor referred me out to have an echocardiogram and wear a heart monitor for 14 days to ensure my heart was okay.

Later that afternoon, the first “oh shit” moment happened. My blood results came in, and my cholesterol was very, very high. How could that be? I was 5'8" and 159 pounds. I guess it made sense with my family history, but damn that was a sobering moment. I thought I was doing everything to stay healthy including exercising, avoiding alcohol, eating well, and getting quality sleep each night. The doctor wanted to put me on a statin for the cholesterol. I hated taking medication.

The results of the echocardiogram came back normal which was a comforting sign.

The results of the heart monitor were not as good. I was diagnosed with a first-degree AV block that required a follow-up visit to see a cardiologist. “What the hell is an AV block?” I thought. Immediately after hanging up the phone with the nurse, I once again consulted WebMD and researched AV blocks.

According to WebMD, “AV heart blocks occur when the electrical signals that control the heart’s rhythm are delayed or prevented from reaching the ventricles. There are three grades of AV block, with increasing severity of the block.”

Although a first-degree AV block doesn’t appear to be serious, I’m not thrilled about the prospect of regularly seeing a cardiologist and more tests.

It’s amazing how one question “Do you have a thermometer?” had the transcendent power to curve, morph, and transform from infuriating, red-hot anger to the blessing it actually was. I believe the series of events that led to me finally accepting that going to the doctor was the only solution ultimately will add years to my life. There’s no way if Bill and Robert didn’t get us sick that I would have ever made an appointment to see the doctor and get my cholesterol fixed and my heart checked out by a cardiologist.

Sometimes the calls to action from our bodies force us to conjure up the courage to face our fears and allow us the opportunity to experience the chance for a better, stronger, and healthier future. It was all made possible because I decided, finally, that it was okay to be afraid, so long as I didn’t allow that fear to rob me of the precious years ahead in my life.

I don’t know what the future holds for my health, but I believe that I knew I needed something like this to happen in order for me to take my health seriously. I hope and pray that I don’t go down like my grandfathers did in their early 60s, but if I do, it won’t be because I neglected my health any longer.

If you’re anything like me, don’t be afraid. Please get checked out.

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