Do I Have Coronavirus?

After my work stretch, I hunker down at home to monitor myself. I have a mild sore throat but convince myself it is psychosomatic. My plausible deniability of illness dies when I develop a cough and fatigue. Based on my symptoms, it is impossible to tell if I have the coronavirus or a common cold. I place myself on home quarantine. I don’t pursue coronavirus testing because there are hospitalized patients who need it much more than I do. I diligently monitor my temperature twice daily and it remains normal. My sore throat and fatigue go away, but my cough and some mild shortness of breath persists. I attribute it to my asthma, but the possibility of COVID-19 always lurks in the back of my mind. COVID-19 patients often don’t worsen until their second week of infection. Ordinarily, I would start using my steroid inhaler, but I hold off since steroids are thought to prolong viral replication. 

When I tire of staying in the house, I go outside to work in the yard. I get on a low ladder to pull down the English ivy climbing up and smothering a tree. The ivy strand I’m tugging on suddenly breaks and I fall hard onto my back. Like a slap in the face, the accident shocks me into a new state of mental clarity. As a hospitalist, I’m a precious resource to my community right now. I can’t knock myself out of commission for dumb reasons. I ban myself from climbing any more ladders. 

As my time in quarantine draws to a close, I put my legal and financial affairs in order and pack a just-in-case backpack. The emergency room doctor hospitalized at a nearby hospital with severe COVID-19 is about my age. I am still coughing so I check in with the head of Infection Control to see if I need to be tested before returning to work. He tells me no. As I start working, I realize that coughing is the new leprosy. Even though I wear a mask, I get tense looks from others who carefully keep their distance from me. I tell everyone I have cough variant asthma, but what they all want to know is if I have been tested for the coronavirus. I haven’t been.

When my hospital sets up a new dedicated Employee Health screening phone line, I call right away. The nurse tells me I don’t meet criteria for coronavirus testing even though I am working on the COVID-19 rule-out unit with patients who have tested positive. While I agree with her from a medical standpoint, I don’t from a social or psychological perspective. This is a particularly unpropitious time in history to be a Chinese American doctor who can’t stop coughing. A negative test will reassure my patients and coworkers I am not a risk to them. A positive test, which is a possibility because of known prolonged viral shedding of the coronavirus, will reassure me I’m likely on my way to developing serologic immunity. I don’t get a test. When I tell my colleague, he suggests I resort to lying, but I won’t do it. As I’ve watched how power, wealth, and privilege play out in access to testing, I refuse to manipulate the system. But my experience is pointed commentary on the abysmal failure of testing in the United States when a frontline symptomatic doctor taking care of COVID-19 patients in one of the epicenters of the pandemic can’t get a coronavirus test. During a meeting, the head of Infection Control bluntly states he hopes we know that all of us are going to get the coronavirus at some point, but hopefully it won’t take us out of commission all at once. I feel better hearing him acknowledge that because it confirms my own sense of reality.