Week Two: Recovering
I have had Covid once before, at the very beginning of the pandemic. During the second time that I had it, I found myself feeling very thankful that in the past two years we’ve been blessed with a vaccine that makes it much easier to bear. Still, for the seven days that I was in isolation, it was very hard to keep up good spirits. The first three days after I tested positive I had a fever and spent nearly 72 hours sleeping. My mind was groggy. All the food that I tried to eat all had the same rusty penny taste to it. I could barely stand up, even though most people who get Covid nowadays seem to feel nothing at all. This is all likely due to the fact that I have several auto-immune issues, which again, lead to me being thankful for vaccines that make sure that at least I don’t have to worry about going to the hospital.
After the third day, my fever broke and I started to feel a lot better. With feeling better, however, also came the most intense desire to test negative so that I could leave the house. Who wants to be sick in the summer right? Although I could not leave the house during the day, I would go on walks at midnight, traversing the streets and paths of the small town of Mars Hill when no one else was out. What a funny sight I must have made wearing my mask and pj’s wandering around under the cover of darkness.
During the time that I had to be inside though, I was still able to work. One of the fun things that I had the chance to do was connect with some of the authors that the interns were reading and ask them to come and speak to the literature groups over Zoom. This was a little bit of hard work, as most authors have a process that you have to go through where you fill out forms on their website and their agents sort through requests; which results in the turn-around time for a visit being scheduled up to two weeks or more. Our challenge was that we only had a little over a week left with the session one literature groups. In the end, I was successful with scheduling one author visit, the North Carolina-based author of the mystery “Dovey Coe” by Frances O’Roark Dowell.
I was able to connect with this author and successfully make arrangements for her to speak to the girls through thinking outside of the box. Instead of just filling out the form on their website, I also messaged them on Facebook which I found was the author’s personal page. Contacting a variety of authors also allowed me to practice using my skills in making connections across digital spaces, which is sometimes harder than doing it in person.
On Thursday, I finally tested negative and was able to leave the house and return to going out and about. How exciting! On Friday, I joined the PAGE team in the morning for an outdoor scavenger hunt with a local photographer. Since I had still not reached the 10-day quarantine line, I was only allowed to join the outdoor activities but it was still so much fun because it let me meet some of the girls in a more informal way and now they were used to my presence. It was very sweet because they had heard that I was sick and everyone made me feel welcome, even though I hadn’t been there all the first week.
Over the weekend my friend Lilly also came by to visit me! She just got back from Germany and we had lots of fun talking about studying abroad. We went on a hike and watched the sunset from the top of a mountain.
Finally, I wrapped the week up by going to church with one of the PAGE leaders, Ms. Debbie.
