Coronavirus Realizations

My personal recollections of the coronavirus, and the need to hold loved ones even closer. #CSUS #HIST15H

May 5, 2020

Dillon Sowles

Dillon Sowles#CSUS #HIST15H

HIST15H

California State University Sacramento

text

Dillon Sowles

English Emotion

English Sports

English Home & Family Life

English Health & Wellness

English Pandemic Skeptics

English Business & Industry

doubt

cancellation

NBA

business

allergy

COVID-19

love

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05/05/2020

12/02/2020

11/16/2021

05/05/2020

When the Coronavirus panic started, I hadn't fully believed it was as bad as they said. If I'm being honest, I truly didn't care about it early on, but that changed quickly. I had purchased tickets to the Kings vs. Pelicans game that was supposed to occur at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and the game got cancelled because the referees may have had the virus from the Utah Jazz game. This was a bit of a wake up call, because I realized clearly it was a threat since a major organization had cancelled a game that made them a lot of money with a lot of hype around Zion Williamson. All I remember is after that game got cancelled, everything went downhill. It was discovered that multiple NBA players had it, and tons of other people too. This was enough to make me recognize it, but being the naive person I am, I still didn't fully believe it. I would still be working from this point forward because I am considered an essential worker. The restaurant I work at didn't take it very serious at first, and we stayed doing in store dining for a little bit. As soon as things got more serious, we switched to take out only. In the beginning, I noticed we were getting a lot of sympathy tips; $20, $50, even $100. This was nice, but the reason we were getting these tips is because we are a family owned business and these types of businesses don't usually survive from this kind of problem. Life became very repetitive, couple days off work, couple days at work. On days off, do yard work with the family, play video games, and do school. School became increasingly difficult because I am a math major, and mathematics weren't intended to be taught over zoom. Finally, the days began getting hotter, spring was here. I have a very bad pollen allergy, and spring is my least favorite time of year. Usually, pollen heavily effects me, it'll make me cough a lot, sneeze, runny nose, itchy eyes. These are definitely not the type of symptoms you want during this time because they can be confused with covid-19, especially in public when people see someone cough or sneeze and go crazy. One night, I couldn't sleep, which is very unusual for a heavy sleeper like myself. I was having breathing problems, and slight wheezing. I instantly thought I had coronavirus, I began panicking which is never a good thing in such a situation, and my breathing got worse, heart rate got faster. I laid in bed crying, typing out sincere and loving essays to each of my closest friends and family members in case I didn't wake up that night. However, I did wake up. Woo hoo! It was just allergies, I had forgotten to take my allergy pill that day, and I guess it had a very bad effect on my lungs. I have felt great since that, and I haven't had any Covid-19 symptoms. I would like to keep the list to myself, just based on the personal level of it, but the contents inside are enough to make each person cry even with me being alive still. I felt that those things I wrote made me value those people more, it made me value life more, and it made me value my well-being more because I definitely didn't enjoy the feeling of thinking I was going to die. That was a wake up call for me, not only to recognizing the severity of the situation we find ourselves in, but also to recognizing the significance of life and our loved ones. I think another we need to consider, is our future. In my future, I'm going to value my loved ones even more than before, I am going to hug them for a couple seconds longer, tell them I love them every time I leave or go to sleep. These are the things the pandemic has opened my eyes to, and I think others should recognize this too. In the future, we should also value each other more, consider each other's feelings more. My other two contributions were memes, which are all fun and games, but there are people that have lost loved ones to this pandemic, and coronavirus memes are the last thing they will laugh at. We should take caution in what we do or say to people about this, in the future, when everything is a little more normal. When those days come, it will feel like new freedom and we will want to go wild and do fun things, but we should enjoy the simple things in life that we couldn't enjoy during quarantine. Overall, the pandemic has definitely caused problems and taken people's lives, but we can see things from a positive perspective. For example, I got to spend valuable time with family that I wouldn't have been able to spend with them had I been going to school and work regularly. We can turn this into a positive somehow, but we must also recognize the consequences and what caused them, so if this ever happens again, we have a clear guideline on how to maintain it. #CSUS #HIST15H

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