The last place you want to be during a pandemic is the hospital. But that’s exactly where I found myself March 16, my 37th birthday – alone in the emergency room after experiencing symptoms …
The last place you want to be during a pandemic is the hospital. But that’s exactly where I found myself March 16, my 37th birthday – alone in the emergency room after experiencing symptoms of what I feared was a miscarriage. COVID-19 protocol forced my husband to wait in the parking lot while medical staff isolated me from sick patients. In between tests, I could hear coughing in the distance, and while I had no clue whether those patients were fighting the virus, the mere thought of it terrified me.
Thankfully, I was sent home early the next morning. False alarm. While I made it out, many never did.
Seven days later, a good friend of mine — a man not much older than I am, who appeared to be the picture of health – died of COVID-19 after spending days fighting for his life on a ventilator. His death was followed by those of a steady stream of other friends and professional associates, most of them young and Black, their bright futures snuffed out by a mysterious virus. Then I started to hear from Black friends who’d lost loved ones, one after another.
