Germaphobia
I was a germaphobe before it was cool. I have been on immunosuppressant medication for a very long time, due to Crohn’s Disease. It usually takes me a few days more to get over colds and things than a normal person. Let me delve into a little bit of why I take that for Crohn’s, pretty much in a nutshell, I have an overactive immune system that fights the good bacteria in my digestive tract. I take medicine that blocks some of my immune system to lessen the war it’s causing to its own body. I like to say I have a superman immune system in a normal body and they don’t interact well together.
I never really paid much attention to my lowered immune system until about 11 years ago. I had gotten a chigger bite on my ankle, and I took all the right precautions that any normal person would do, but I guess at some point I scratched it and didn’t know it. The bite started to get better, then I woke up one day and it was really itchy, by that evening it was swelling. The next day I woke up and had chills and wasn’t sure what was happening so I took some Tylenol and took a nap. I woke up that afternoon with red lines running up my leg so I went to the emergency room. Turns out I had staph infection, they put me in the hospital for a week and intravenous antibiotics four times a day. It was at this point my germaphobia blossomed and turned into a burning anxiety.
Every year I get the flu shot, I was told by my doctor that it could easily put me in the hospital if not kill me. So during the flu months I go into this cocoon, where if someone has been sick or is sick I just won’t go or be around them. I can fake it till I make it for a little while. If I end up in the situation of being around someone that has the flu, or around someone that’s been exposed to the flu, I feel like I’m in a nuclear warzone and it literally will shut me down. I have to get out of that situation as fast as possible, the anxiety that I feel in those situations is so unbearable.
Now, fast forward to today and the era of the Coronavirus that causes COVID-19. I do share funny memes but, that doesn’t mean that I don’t think this is a serious deal. Especially for the elderly and those that are immunocompromised. Last Saturday I started getting sick, felt like a brick hit me, I thought I was getting the flu because I had been exposed the previous week. That night I got a fever and I felt worse and worse, Monday morning was the sickest I have ever felt in my entire life. Went to the doctor and they tested for flu and strep, both negative, since I hadn’t been out of country, they weren’t testing for COVID-19. They sent me home with some antibiotics. Well after 3 more days my fever went away, and I felt a lot better. Now, I don’t know if I had COVID-19 or not I guess I never will, but like I said it was the sickest I have ever been. A lot has changed in the last week so I bet if I had been sick this week they would have tested me. Or I guess if I was an athlete or rich they would have tested me. Sometimes I feel less than, because a stupid virus can make me so anxious. I am 38 years old in the prime of my life and here I am with this phobia that I always try to hide from, but it always comes out.
Hope that you didn’t get too bored with my thoughts
David