“Where am I isolating?” I repeated, extremely confused. “Why? I’m just at home. What do you mean?”
It was Friday morning, three days after I got swabbed for COVID-19, and I had just answered a call from an unknown number. On the other end of the line was my contact tracer, Mica, who threw the question at me so nonchalantly, I figured she probably does this on a daily basis. “You can’t stay at home,” she answered, unfazed. “You’re positive for COVID.”
Though it was still a complete shock to hear it laid out like that, it confirmed what I was beginning to suspect at that point. For the past five days, the first thing I would do in the mornings is try to take a sniff out of one of my Anapanasati essential oil bottles and make myself some Berocca in an effort to convince myself I could smell or taste something. But close to a week in, and no amount of Berocca or Vitamin C seemed to work somehow. If I hadn’t gotten swabbed, I would have been extremely worried about it by then.
