Tales From Patient Zero

I’m pretty sure I am the reason the council president’s family is sick. I had a cold and wanted to stay home, but due to time pressure and lack of other assistance, I kept going over to her house when I should have stayed my ass home and rested. Either that, or her daughter’s job, since someone there tested positive for COVID, but I think it’s more likely it was me. And now I’m feeling better, and it’s tearing through her household. Just another tale from patient zero.

Last night, as we were there in her kitchen working on the reglamentos, I could hear her son coughing late into the night and felt bad because I know they have to know it’s pretty certain that I brought it into their home. I did try to stay home and keep my illness to myself, but it wasn’t meant to be. Every day brought a new crisis, and the council president was practically begging for my assistance even when it was clear that I was two feet away from being gravely ill. Then one day, as we were once again working in the evening, handling all these extra duties we’ve had to take on during this transition period, she started to sneeze and cough, and she and I both knew that I had made her sick. 

She was not mad at me about it. At least she didn’t act mad. I assume because I had stated I wanted to keep my ass in bed instead of gallivanting around the neighborhood, laboring over these ungrateful neighborhood issues, all while feverish. I can only assume I was also highly contagious. So she knew that any exposure was against my will. 

The courtesy for me would have been to wear a mask. But I could neither be fucked to wear one, nor to acquire one since it appeared that was something else that I had forgotten to bring with me from the things I left behind in the US. Not that I couldn’t find masks here in Guatemala, but it certainly wasn’t high on my list of things I wanted to spend my limited finances on. And maybe a little part of me felt this was a big ol’ middle finger to the community that was causing me to lose sleep and exacerbate my condition on their behalf. 

This experience does make me lament the norm of wearing a mask during COVID. Those pandemic years were the only years I didn’t get sick every year with some seasonal cold or flu or whatever was going around at the time. Now we are somewhat distanced from that pandemic scary period, and wearing masks has fallen out of acceptable fashion. Immediately, people assume you must be carrying something highly communicable if you’re masked. And it seems I have also succumbed to the peer pressure since I didn’t once consider masking up when I was forced out and about into the public while severely under the weather. 

So there I am, feeling like shit, and spreading my illness to those around me. I tried to keep it to myself, to no avail. Just the sheer amount of time I was spending in her house ensured that I was infecting her interior. It was only a matter of time before everyone got sick around me. And that’s how it went down. 

For several nights in a row, as we worked diligently on the bylaws and resolving other neighborhood issues, as my medicine wore off, I would sit there miserable, barely able to breathe as the congestion and mucus filled my airways. And having to blow my nose in public is gross, but it could not be avoided. So there I am coughing and hacking, sounding positively like the source of every contagion imaginable, and I am a little bit embarrassed to be in this situation. 

Part of me didn’t want to consider that the reason I hadn’t seen much of her son or her daughter was that I was gross. But part of me probably felt I was wearing out my welcome. My mind jumped to all kinds of conclusions, and I also just wanted to stay home and sleep. 

In retrospect, I realize now that they were avoiding me because I was bringing the contagion into their midst, but it didn’t matter. Life found a way… directly into their respiratory system. And considering how I felt like absolute shit for over a week, I can only surmise that they are also feeling like shit. And I feel a little bit bad about it, as I am now at the point in the illness cycle where I am feeling better. 

So there I sat last night listening to him coughing in the distance, wondering if, as he lay there unable to sleep peacefully, he was plotting my demise. I know I would have been if the roles were reversed. There’s not much else that I can do in this situation. The damage is already done.