Embarrassed at the Hospital: A COVID-19 Recovery Story

Set the scene this way: As a scientist by training, and a person with “risk factors” of age, recovery from breast cancer treatment, and a couple of other “body flaws” that do add up, I have been SO careful during the pandemic.

I’m lucky to live in northern Vermont, where factors like low population density and culturally supported interdependence have kept the infection rate low, as well as the death toll. I live mostly alone; I have one nearby relative who, with his wife, did some of my grocery shopping and has been my “household” — that is, these two people are the only ones who’ve been closer than 6 feet from me since March 4. I shop twice a month in mask and gloves, racing through a compact store where the staff is also protective. Work’s been online and at a solo desk for years, and Zoom meetings don’t bother me. I’ve kept as safe as a person in a community could be!

But the eye exam that was scheduled for March, that I postponed til June, finally came along. I go to a major teaching hospital about an hour away, for testing like that — keeping all the complicated stuff in one facility. And Vermont has mostly “reopened.” I needed to go get this done.

Why was I so scared? As I waited to have my temperature scanned at the hospital entrance, surrounded by strangers also entering, wearing all forms…