Photo via Getty Images
It has been six months since my experience with COVID-19. Even though I am as physically fit as I have been in years, I still cannot climb stairs of any meaningful length without feeling noticeably winded. I get random chest pains, a sense of rawness, as though I’m an old man who has spent a lifetime smoking. I still do not feel like my sense of smell is back 100%. I often have to put my face directly over pots to smell what I am cooking, and then stay mindful to avoid getting scalded by the steam. At this point I have given up on hoping my nose will ever be as reliable or sensitive as it once was.
Eric Fleenor (Photo courtesy Michael Way)
A loved one with whom I spent Christmas just lost his fight with the coronavirus in October. His name was Eric Fleenor. He had been fighting for his life since late July and became confined to a hospital bed in August, on assisted ventilation and, at the very end, dialysis. Eric had been a worker as long as anyone could remember. He enjoyed learning things. He enjoyed making things. He enjoyed being self-reliant. After starting out at age 9 as a paperboy, studying architecture, becoming a master scuba diver, working as a deep-dive underwater welder and thriving as a meticulous builder for Whiting-Turner Construction, Eric had just retired earlier this year. Finally the worker was going to rest.
I sat across from Eric at Christmas dinner in 2019. It feels like just yesterday that he was telling us all how excited he was about this new phase of life as we passed plates of smoked pork ribs and brisket around the table. He had just bought himself a new bright yellow Corvette not long after lockdown had started. Finally the worker was going to play.
Eric took so many precautions against the coronavirus, and still it found its way to him. One moment of opportunity was all it needed, and suddenly he was fighting. As one of his loved ones, a part of every one of my days for the last several weeks has been spent mentally fighting with him, pulling for him. Even if he survived, he was going to have a long, difficult and expensive recovery. But COVID-19 was determined to deny Eric his opportunity to make a go at that recovery. And it was determined to deny the rest of us Eric, a chance to know him better and to see what he did with the next phase of his life.
The oldest of five children, Eric set the standard for the rest of his siblings. He was a rock for his household, even as a child. He was a rock for his friends, many of whom were lifelong and career-long compatriots. And he was a rock for his own child, a daughter he raised by himself, a woman my brother will marry next year.
Amid all the pain of loss, a haunting question looms over what should be an unequivocally joyous occasion: When the time comes, who will walk my soon-to-be sister-in-law down the aisle?
There are more than 230,000 stories like Eric’s, like his family’s, like mine. Over 230,000 needlessly empty chairs haunting otherwise joyous occasions. And the tally is not yet finished. One moment of opportunity is all the coronavirus needs, and America has seemed determined to be a land of opportunity.
There are two things I wish more of the public understood and took seriously about COVID-19.
First, while liquid respiratory droplets descend to horizontal surfaces quickly, coronavirus aerosol pathogens appear to float and linger, much like cigarette smoke. The way cigarette smoke fills up a room and hangs around is very similar to how aerosols work. Wearing a cloth face covering is like a reversed cigarette filter for your mouth and nose; it is not going to stop everything from getting out, but it’s going to decrease the health risks significantly.
Second, there is a large range of ways COVID-19 can affect you should you be infected. We know we’ve lost more than 230,000 souls in the United States already, but one thing we don’t talk about enough is just how painful and agonizing a death those souls experienced along the way. It is internally grisly. Basically, your body slowly suffocates you to death, and your immune system can get so riled up trying to defend the lungs that it starts attacking whatever is handy, including other organs and systems in your body. Your body becomes a weapon against itself. The agony can last for days, as it did for me, or, as it did for my loved one, months. And while you’re incapacitated in a hospital bed, your skin has to contend with bed sores while your muscles atrophy into uselessness.
Please do what you can to keep COVID-19 from becoming a part of your and your loved ones’ lives. Please reconsider the impulse to gamble and roll the dice, thinking, “We’re probably fine." You’re fine right up until you’re not. And then life is awful, and awfully scary, for you and for all those who care about you, even peripherally. I wouldn’t wish the coronavirus on an enemy, much less someone with whom I’ve broken bread or shared a laugh. Please do what you can.
Take my word for it, you do not want this smoke.
Michael Way is a writer, photographer and architectural project manager. Born in Washington, D.C., he is a Richmond resident who enjoys writing about domestic policy, civic dynamics and the roles unequal power structures play in racial and sexual oppression.
