COVID REDUX: The Second Time Around

by Marissa Piesman

Back in March of 2020, I was doing what I usually did after I retired: running around Manhattan—movies, museums, pedicures, eye doctor, a wedding, Trader Joe’s—you get the idea.  I woke up on Monday morning, March 12th, and went down to our co-op’s gym. It was locked up. By the end of the day, I was locked up as well, with a horrible cough and a fever. I also had a severe case of dysentery which was only cured by consulting a homeopath. I stayed in bed for two weeks, but much of my brain had been sanded down. I forgot the names of friends, relatives, movie stars, U.S. presidents, state capitals and on and on. I had what ultimately became known as long-haul Covid. The worst was my inability to read. I read the same sentence over and over again. I had to read children’s books for the first month:

*Alice in Wonderland

*Through the Looking Glass

*Flowers for Algernon

*Kirk Douglas’s autobiography

After that I was off and running, at least when it came to literacy. But the collective terror, based on reality, never subsided. This country has seen more than a million dead.

My memory never fully recovered. I had a terrible time remembering proper nouns, especially names. This has not remedied itself. I will give you an example of how screwy my brain has gotten. I read William Hurt’s obituary in the New York Times in March. When I put the paper down, I realized that I could not remember the name of the deceased, even though I had seen him in so many films. I did, however, remember the exact date of his birth, which was included in the obit—March 20, 1950.

Anyway, I have been stumbling through life for the past two years, devoid of grace notes. I finally started to feel like I was getting on the up and up, when guess what! Another bout of Covid. I think I got it in the New Orleans airline terminal. Almost no one was wearing a mask. I waited for more than two years to fly somewhere and then my wings were clipped. I am back in isolation, in our den, on a blow-up mattress wearing a KN95.

I felt fine when I got back from New Orleans, but my dutiful neighbor, who is a physical therapist, tested me and my husband. He tested negative. I did not. I got tested three times and the results remained positive. I coughed a bit when I got home and felt somewhat congested and dizzy when I woke up the next morning. Otherwise, I felt quite normal. My doctor put me on a regimen of paxlovid which helped a lot. I understand that this medication is not yet widely available, and I was extremely lucky to score.

This time around is so much different. In March of 2020, my cough made me feel like I was starring in The Exorcist. I was in bed for weeks. Not only could I not read a book, but I could not even spell a word.  For two months, I kept putting a K in front of any word that began with an N. Over the past two years, I have noticed that I still occasionally stick in an inappropriate K where it doesn’t belong. And it took me more than two years to have a normal relationship with my toilet. But so much progress has been made—the vaccinations, the boosters, home testing, antivirals, N95 masks and drive-up drugs. In retrospect, what I went through the first time was so stressful. I had no idea whether I was ever going to be able to read another book.

A friend offered to hypnotize me. He had done so for a speech I was giving to the New York State Bar Association and his hypnosis had proved extremely helpful. I was able to deliver the speech in a calm state of mind. He was happy to hypnotize me once again to help my anomia. He put me in a fugue state and kept repeating that I would be able to access my amygdala going forward. His study was based on the research of Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist who integrated transcendental meditation into his practice. That night, I woke up at about 4:00 a.m. I had a doctor’s appointment coming up. I tried to remember the name of my internist. It eluded me, but I felt myself smiling. I told myself to relax and breathe. Almost immediately a W popped into my head. I was finding this amusing, as if I was playing a parlor game. It’s a monosyllabic name, I told myself; you have only to come up with a few letters. “Weg,” I shouted silently. “That’s it.” And his first name, I told myself, was the kind of name that his Jewish refugee parents would choose. And then an A popped into my head. It wasn’t Alan; it was something more unusual. Not a baby boomer name. Not Aaron; something nerdier. Ah yes! Arnold. A terrible name.

I smiled even more broadly. This was like being on Jeopardy, but without any prize money. Although no cash was allotted for remembering Arnold Weg’s name, I felt like I had hit the jackpot. The trick of conquering my anomia was my newfound ability to treat this like a game. Almost immediately, my panic subsided. And in most cases going forward, I could manage to summon up the deeply embedded proper noun. I found myself increasingly fluent. Simple; all I had to do was pretend that I was on a game show.