Coronation Street
A blow-by-blow chronicle of my encounter with COVID-19
Dear readers, you know the story of the guy who thought nothing could touch him, and he was safe in his little corner of the world? Well, that’s me.
Since COVID-19 reached Japan, I mostly teleworked and kept to myself. I rarely went to central Tokyo or Yokohama, did all my interviews on Zoom, only made a couple of work-related trips (to places in Japan that were less dangerous than Tokyo, anyway) and cultivated a new attitude towards my immediate surroundings.
Then the Olympic Games started, the number of infections shot to new highs, and the virus began to creep into the quasi-countryside where I had taken refuge. COVID-19’s Delta strain was said to be more dangerous, more easily transmittable than previous versions, but I still felt safe.
That is, until the day Hisako, my wife, came down with a fever. Her doctor suggested she did a PCR test, and the test, to our surprise, came back positive. Here’s where the story begins.
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On August 25th, the quiet residential street where I live (pictured above) became my personal Coronation Street. As in Corona(virus), the way COVID-19 is commonly called in Japan.
This is NOT my Coronation Street
This is it.
My street is a typical, suburban alley full of prefab wooden houses, two-story apaato (wooden condos), light poles and the inevitable spiderweb of electric wires that city planners were too lazy to bury under the street.
My street has nothing of the quaint cuteness of the more famous Coronation Street of British television fame.
On August 25th, the quiet residential street where I live became my personal Coronation Street. As in Corona(virus), the way COVID-19 is commonly called in Japan.
August 25th
Back to my story, the doctor called to confirm Hisako had been infected, and told the rest of the family (the three clueless boys in the house) to do a test as well.
So out we went
and we marched on
in single file
Luca leading the way
pushing forward
(he had to be back home soon because of his job)
Toni nimbly following
hot on his heels
and I trying to keep up with their
hurried pace
trudging up and down stairs
through waves of commuters
and shoppers
my hazy mind
increasingly covered in a
feverish fog.
August 26th
The doctor called again to confirm that Toni was positive. Again, everybody started scratching their heads when the doctor added that Luca and I were negative.
How is that possible?
Could it be a miracle?
Then the doc proceeded to burst our little bubble of hope:
- A positive test result means that it's likely that you have an infection with SARS-CoV-2.
- A negative test result means you probably didn't have an infection with SARS-CoV-2 at the time your specimen was collected. However, it's possible to have COVID-19 but not have the virus detected by the test. For example, this may happen if you recently became infected but you don’t have symptoms yet. In other words, a negative test doesn’t mean you are safe for any length of time.
A negative test result means you probably didn't have an infection with SARS-CoV-2 at the time your specimen was collected. In other words, a negative test doesn’t mean you are safe for any length of time.
So the doc suggested Luca and I did a second test on the 27th.
Anyway, I already wasn’t feeling very well. I managed somehow to do a Zoom private lesson and immediately crumbled on my bed.
August 27th
Fridays are garbage disposal days in my neighborhood, so I took all the food waste and other burnable trash and dumped it at the gathering point a couple hundred meters from my house.
This is actually NOT our garbage disposal corner, but you get the idea. The net is there to protect the garbage from the local scavenging crows.
Help was on its way. Our doctor had immediately contacted the health center and explained our situation, so they called Hisako, then Toni, and established the routine that would regulate their life from now on: daily calls from the health center to check on their temperatures and general symptoms. They even sent a pulse oximeter, a small probe that you apply to your finger to monitor the oxygen saturation of your blood. If the number goes down to 93 or so, you are supposed to be hospitalized because there’s something wrong with your breathing.
My in-laws did some shopping for us and left a couple of boxes full of groceries outside our door.
Luca and I visited the doctor again. As on the 25th, instead on entering the clinic through the front door, we had to go to the rear of the building, where a couple of nurses in full anti-virus regalia stuck a couple of swabs (similar to extra long Q-tips) into our nostrils.
By this time, the act of walking or even just standing had become increasingly hard. My short trip home from the clinic took at least 15 minutes instead of the usual five, and it felt like walking through molasses with my head stuck into a plastic bubble filled with smoke.
Still, my situation was better than Hisako’s, and I spent that night and my leftover strength massaging her back.
August 28th
Saturday is when we throw out paper waste, plastic bottles and tin cans. Garbage disposal is one of my house chores, so out I went again dragging a bag full of bottles and a few cardboard boxes.
Did my neighbors notice my unseasonal long-sleeved sweatshirt and polo shirt combo? They certainly looked highly suspicious.
As promised, the prefectural office sent Hisako her first survival package (eventually we all would get two each). It contained:
- 2 boxes containing 10 packets each of pre-cooked rice (you just put it into the microwave and it’s ready in a few seconds). After we recovered and made our first trip to the supermarket near our house, we noticed that they were sold for 500 yen or more than 4 bucks each.
- 2 packs of instant curry (beef and onion)
- 2 bags of instant seaweed miso soup (containing 12 packs each)
- 5 assorted sweet rolls
- 1 box with 50 green tea bags
- 3 small cans of vegetable juice
- 2 boxes of tissues
- 3 rolls of toilet paper
It felt like Xmas and birthday packaged into a big party - until we realized that all this stuff was paid with our taxes.
In the afternoon, our doctor called to confirm that Luca and I had joined the “plague list.” As a consolation prize, he gave us several pills of the Japanese version of either paracetamol or ibuprofen to keep our temperatures down.
By this time, Hisako was out for good, the boys almost looked like they were not even sick, and I was quickly tumbling down the COVID-19 spiral staircase.
By this time, Hisako was out for good, the boys almost looked like they were not even sick, and I was quickly tumbling down the COVID-19 spiral staircase.
August 29th
By Sunday, the four of us were lying on our beds in different states of misery.
- Hisako had fever, fatigue, muscle aches, loss of taste.
- Luca and Toni had fever and headache.
- And yours truly had fever, cough, shortness of breath, and a runny nose. My fever was quickly reaching new highs, between high-38 and low-39 degrees Celsius (about 101.3 - 102.56 degrees Fahrenheit).
Night and day gradually reversed roles as I would lie in a semi-comatose state during the day, while at night I could hardly sleep, my brain on a full-on state of alert, seemingly going through a jumble of disjointedly assorted thought.
On a side note, I read here that Coronation Street (the long-running Brit soap opera) was severely impacted by the pandemic. In my Coronation Street (that, like most Japanese streets, has no name) life kept plodding along with no particular changes or extraordinary occurrences. Of course, nobody knew about our ordeal. Japan is one of those places where people who incur certain misfortunes (e.g. Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors, Minamata Disease victims, and people infected with some kind of virus) are often ostracized as if they were partly to blame and treated like persona non grata even after they have recovered.
Hisako’s coworker, for instance, kept bitching about how careless my wife had been until she was told by the other people in the office to shut up.
August 30th
By Monday, I was out for good and had cancelled all my lessons. I only kept doing a couple of Zoom lessons after gulping down paracetamol to keep my fever under control.
Hisako got her second package, all frozen food:
- 2 packs of pasta: meat sauce and pescatora (tomato and fish sauce) that tasted quite good.
- 1 pack each of some kind of Japanese food (to be put on top of a bowl of rice) that I never got to try and to this day don’t know what was inside. But Hisako and the boys seemed to like it.
- several packs of a boxed lunch (a sort of Japanese version of a TV dinner) with five different kinds of food including some meat and several kinds of vegetables. Once it was warmed up in the microwave, they all turned into a mushy pulp. I was the only one who tried it and immediately regretted it. It was disgusting and felt slimy in the mouth. For some reason, they kept sending loads of this crap that each time we quickly extracted from the box and dumped into the trash bin.
The TV dinner-like boxed lunches were a collection of mushy, slimy, disgusting food that we quickly dumped into the trash bin.
August 31th
Happiness is a bed soaked in sweat. That’s what I started thinking after I got hooked on paracetamol. Every time my temperature got too high, I would pop one of those pills into my mouth and lie down waiting. After a while, I would start perspiring and gradually felt better. Once or twice, I fell asleep and when I came back to my senses I was literally soaked in sweat. I carefully peeled off my clothes, got a new change and fall asleep again. I know it’s gross, but at the time it felt great.
Happiness is a bed soaked in sweat.
Our friends kept helping us by buying food and other necessities. On this day, Hisako, who was feeling better and had replaced me on garbage disposal duty, opened the door and found a huge bag full of groceries in front of our house.
September 1st
By September, Hisako felt much better, her temperature was down to normal, and was almost ready to resume her normal routine. Luca and Toni had only had mild symptoms all along. So I was left on the sick list.
My little friend, the pulse oximeter.
My routine had long been established: check my temperature and stick my finger into the pulse oximeter several times a day, take one of two paracetamols a day when I got too hot.
There was something wrong with the oxygen saturation of my blood: ideally, it should have been 96-97 or higher but I typically only managed 94-95. That was a bad sign though I actually didn’t feel so bad and could breathe easily.
I later found out that hypoperfusion of the extremity (having cold hands and especially cold fingers, which I have) can cause low readings. Movement (such as shivering) will also negatively affect the way the oximeter works.
One day I suddenly started shivering so violently that the oximeter shut down and Hisako, who didn’t know about this kind of malfunctioning, freaked out. She immediately called the emergency room but they explained what was going on and we didn’t have to worry.
One day I suddenly started shivering so violently that the oximeter shut down and Hisako freaked out.
September 2nd
The upside of being sick was that for a few days I forgot about work and house chores, enjoyed being pampered by Hisako, and got to watch a few movies and especially listen to a lot of music.
I was on a British folk/acoustic music trip, and listened to a lot of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn of Pentangle fame. This is one of my favorite Jansch tunes.
And this is from Renbourn.
Epilogue
In the end, I was sick for nearly two weeks. In early September the oximeter began to go up to 95 then 96 and 97, and by September 9th I was good to go. All in all, it was like experiencing a particularly long bout of flu, which sucked, of course, but at least didn’t leave any nasty side-effects.
I was supposed to get vaccinated in early September, but of course I had to cancel that after I got infected. I’ll get my first shot on the 23rd.
How about you? Have you or people close to you had any close encounters with the virus? Please leave your stories and comments.
As usual, if you like this story, please share it widely.
And I hope you will subscribe to Tokyo Calling. There’s more to come. And no, not all my stories are so depressing. Catch you later. In the meantime, be good and stay safe.
Enjoying your writing, Gianni. Glad you and your family mended. 🙂 I had read a post by a mathematician that ultimately everyone would get their visit from covid. We had our skirmish with omicron, stayed home, used hydroxychloroquine, and it moved on after about a week. I think covid is tired of fighting. Thanks for your post.
Sorry to hear this, I missed this post! Hope you are all doing well!