By\u00a0BRIAN BLUMAUGUST <\/p>\n\n\n\n
COVID-19<\/a> is back. It seems like everyone I know has been exposed or infected this summer. That includes me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My latest bout with COVID stemmed from the same source as last time: not an unmasked ride on public transportation or a crowded party, but my kids. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our daughter, Merav, was at our house with our seven-month-old granddaughter, Roni, when Merav started to spike a fever. She hoped it was just dehydration \u2013 it had been unbearably hot for weeks \u2013 but just to be safe, she took one of our home COVID tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few hours later, so was Roni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Merav was bummed but not panicked. These days, she said with an air of confident nonchalance, COVID is just like a bad flu or cold. There are no rules anymore on quarantine or distancing. Most people don\u2019t even bother to test at home. Israel has shut down the once ubiquitous PCR drive-through testing stations<\/p>\n\n\n\n The story is very different for people with PTCD \u2013 post-traumatic COVID disorder. That\u2019s not a real diagnosis in the DSM-5 [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition], but a strong correlation between PTSD<\/a> and COVID has been documented, although it mainly refers to people who either were hospitalized with or are suffering from long COVID (with which an estimated 17.6 million Americans are now living, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cStudies show that the experience of being hospitalized [with COVID] \u2013 being confused and frightened and feeling like you\u2019re drowning \u2013 is traumatizing,\u201d explains Cedars-Sinai psychiatrist Dr. Itai Danovitch. Up to a third of such patients develop PTSD. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To put that in perspective, while over 90% of people experience a major traumatic event at some point during their lifetime, Danovitch notes, most walk away unscathed. Others, however, carry emotional scars for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not just for serious cases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When I contracted COVID for the first time two years ago, it was relatively mild. But I am still triggered by even the slightest possible exposure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s not surprising. When COVID first burst onto the scene, no one knew much about the disease other than it was felling tens of thousands a week worldwide, eventually infecting 700 million people and killing seven million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In those early days, there were no vaccines and few effective treatments. OG COVID was also more virulent than today\u2019s super-contagious but relatively benign omicron subvariants. The rolling lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 further exacerbated the collective freak-out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then there\u2019s the cancer factor: The patients who have the most life-threatening COVID outcomes remain the elderly and the immuno-compromised. While I don\u2019t yet fit the first category, I am very much in the second due to chemo and other treatments I\u2019ve had over the years. Put it all together and, voil\u00e0, it\u2019s PTCD for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure if I\u2019d use the word \u2018trauma,\u2019\u201d a friend shares with me. However, after someone she was close with who was undergoing cancer treatment caught COVID and died, \u201cI\u2019m definitely taking it more seriously than before,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another friend has essentially been bedridden with long COVID, suffering from kidney and heart problems. \u201cCOVID is not a cold. It\u2019s not a flu. It\u2019s a vascular\/neurological illness similar to HIV. It\u2019s insane to me that anyone would be nonchalant about getting or spreading COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n An old college buddy concurred. \u201cIt affects every organ in your body in a way that makes you susceptible to more serious things like diabetes. The more you get COVID, the greater the risks for your body.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe still don\u2019t know all of the things that COVID does, how it does it, and why,\u201d notes Lara Jirmanus, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. Not taking COVID seriously represents a kind of \u201chubris that almost assumes we can see the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I WAS fortunate that this time around, my COVID was mostly mild again. I barely had a cough and had no fever. My nose was stuffy, and I had a nasty headache.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which led to the next challenge for my PTCD: getting out of COVID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a dozen or so days, I was starting to feel better \u2013 not perfect, but improved. So, I took a second home COVID test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My wife, Jody, and I were invited to the wedding of the son of some of our closest friends the next night. I certainly didn\u2019t want to be responsible for a super-spreader event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mother of the groom happens to be a doctor. So I asked her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI doubt you\u2019re contagious after all this time,\u201d she said, adding that the event will be outside, which should mitigate some of my concerns. \u201cPlease come. We couldn\u2019t have a wedding without you guys there!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Merav and Roni are fine now. Merav\u2019s husband, Gabe, and our two-and-a-half-year-old grandson, Ilai, never got sick \u2013 or if they did, they were among the estimated one-third of people who catch COVID and are asymptomatic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another possibility: The journal Nature reported<\/em> in June 2024 that some people may never catch COVID due to high levels of activity in a gene called HLA-DQA2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for me, at the three-week mark, I was still testing positive. My doctor told me to start with the antiviral Paxlovid<\/a>, which had helped me last time. Even though Paxlovid is not supposed to be used after the first five days of symptoms, my hematologist said there\u2019s anecdotal evidence it can work even when administered later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can handle this,\u201d Jody reassured me, repeating the mantra I\u2019ve been working on lately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Paxlovid worked, thankfully; another five days and I was finally feeling fine. The entire experience was more annoyance than aggravation. Looking at it objectively and in hindsight, I can say it was far from traumatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No, I\u2019m not about to throw caution entirely to the wind. But at the same time, I\u2019m trying my hardest to not let PTCD lock me down again. \uf03c<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow to recover from COVID<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n