What Happened to Me

Covid-19 took a month of my life. Now I will try to claw it back

The Cedars Sinai ER valet where I sat on a bench for 6 hours in the heat, twice, while waiting to be treated for complications caused by Covid-19. ((Photo by APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images)

Hi friends-

At some point I might write a longer post about the medical trauma I’ve endured over the past month, but I’m not ready to do that today. However, I couldn’t just return to my happy little newsletter without offering at least the Cliff’s Notes version of why I’ve been mostly AWOL since I first tested positive for Covid-19 on July 22. Basically, despite being double vaccinated, boosted, and taking Paxlovid three days into infection, my cardiologist (I have a cardiologist now because of this mess!) says I appear to have won the Covid lottery.

After ten days of feeling the horrible flu like symptoms everyone else with Covid gets, things started to improve, then got rapidly worse. I couldn’t stand up without vomiting. The world was spinning off its axis. I couldn’t look at computer screens, my phone, or a television without feeling like I was going to pass out. Sometimes my vision would go black for no reason at all. Walking unassisted was not possible. Being alone was not possible.

In the span of four days I went to urgent care, the ER, my ENT, and the ER again (because I vomited uncontrollably in my ENT’s office and he said I looked 110 years old and needed to be hospitalized immediately). I’ve been incredibly blessed with excellent health my whole life, and I’ve always been aware of how fortunate that makes me. I’ve lived five minutes from the Cedars ER for 11 years and I’ve never seen the inside of it as a patient.

Two different times last weekend I thought I was going to die, and sobbed while I held nurses hands. (I was never close to dying. They ruled out a stroke, a blood clot, and an aneurysm. My lungs showed no evidence of disease. My blood tests indicated I might live to be 100). Yet everything was spinning and I couldn’t stop vomiting. They thought it was vertigo (no). They put me on an antibiotic for a sinus infection (no). To stop the vomiting the second time I was in the ER, they gave me IV benadryl (good!) and IV reglan (so horrible I screamed and almost ripped the IV out and had to be held down).

Then they sent me home, and told me to hydrate, having found nothing wrong.

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I went to my primary care physician. He noticed that when I went from sitting to standing my blood pressure plummeted. He referred me to a cardiologist.

Finally, yesterday I received a diagnosis from that cardiologist of POTS like syndrome. Basically, Covid wreaked havoc on my autonomic nervous system—the part of all our bodies that is responsible for taste and smell. It’s also in charge of regulating heart rate. My little internal pacemaker apparently doesn’t work right now. When I stood up in the cardiologist’s office yesterday, my heart rate jumped from 80 (already high for me) to 128 (uh..what?). That’s just standing, not moving. I got dizzy again and held on to his hand.

So now, because of Covid-19, I’m on heart medication. It’s pretty terrifying. But here’s the good news: my doctor says this situation will “most definitely” resolve itself, since I did not have POTS pre-Covid. He seemed very confident, like, Michael Jordan Game 6 confident. I suffer from anxiety, so I am not as confident. Still, I have been feeling a little better and stronger each day. I started the medication yesterday. I go back in a week. Then I go back a few weeks after that. Then we see if the drug is working for me and I stay on it, or we up the dose. I have a free sample of it now (yay!) but I’ve been told it’s quite expensive to fill (ugh) so that’s a potential whole other nightmare. It’s called Corlanor and it’s primarily used for heart failure (which I most definitely do not have). But studies have shown it can provide tremendous relief for people with POTS . So I am holding on to that, and thanking my lucky stars because even though I am scared this could have been so much worse. I’m also supposed to drink 2 liters of salt water a day. (no joke).

Cedars Sinai billed my insurance company $22,050.83 for my first ER visit (LMAO). I am responsible for $1,782.10 (LMAO), and I’ve now apparently hit my yearly “in-network” deductible. But I know my insurance company will figure out a way to charge me just as much for my second ER visit, and probably my urgent care visit, and also the doctor visit, the physical therapy visit, and the cardiology visit this all took to get properly diagnosed.

I should have prefaced all this by saying that even though I’m in excellent health, I pay through the nose for a top tier health care plan so that I don’t go bankrupt if something like this happens to me. The American health care system is broken. We are the only first-world country that punishes sick and injured people with insurmountable debt because they have the misfortune of being sick and injured. My Medicare for All zealotry was already a 15/10 but it’s been pushed to a 5000/10 after this incident.

The disability community has been leading the way in fighting our elected officials for change, often sacrificing their own bodies to demand we evolve past our barbaric health care system and into a sane one where non-rich people can actually access the physical and mental health care they need to exist in the world. The least us able bodied people can do is join their righteous fight, while continuing to let them lead the way.

I’m sure some anti-vaxx wing nuts are going to seize on this post as evidence that the Covid vaccines don’t work. I have two things to say to that: 1. Unless you are an infectious disease expert, sit the fuck down. No one cares about your opinion. And 2. It’s possible that were I not vaccinated I would be dead or on a ventilator. I was sick for a month. But now I am able to sit upright and write this post. I am able to walk my dog. I am fortunate enough that I will be okay.

I had no adverse reactions to the vaccine shots, and I will happily take the next booster when it comes out. I stayed safe from Covid for 2.5 years. I was exposed to the virus at the 2022 All-Star game at Dodger Stadium. I was not wearing a mask because the event was outside. I will wear now wear a mask to all group settings—indoor our outdoor—until this is over. I hope you will continue to live full lives while also minimizing your risk of catching this disease as much as possible. If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

I got sicker than I've ever been in my life or ever hope to be again. And now I’m recovering, I hope. Here is an excellent recent study from the Washington State Department of Health showing that people of all age groups are orders of magnitude more likely to catch the virus, become hospitalized, or die from it, if they are not vaccinated. Please get vaccinated.

I will also note that the people who say the vaccines don’t work are the same people who say Covid is just “the flu” and we should not have shut down society to stop people from getting sick. (Even though we never fully committed to doing that). So if you’re going to use my case as a way to dunk on the scientific community, you are going to have to pick a lane. If you say “the vaccines don’t work because you got really sick!” you are acknowledging that this virus makes people really sick, and that perhaps we should be taking Herculean measures to stop its spread.

Anyway, if you are a paid subscriber to this newsletter, please accept my deepest gratitude. You are quite literally paying for my health care and my medical bills right now. This is my full-time gig. Some people have to choose between food and medicine. I understand my privilege that I will not be forced to make that choice. If you would like to support my road to recovery, the best way to do that is by taking out a paid subscription to this newsletter now. You will receive all my stories plus access to weekly 30-person creativity zooms with me, every private Sunday night baseball live chat, daily live chats during the MLB playoffs in October, plus you get to comment on all my posts. Come join the fun!

Thank you for your patience. I’ll be back shortly with a baseball post as I attempt to grapple with everything I missed (Tatis Jr. suspended for steroids! Yankees collapse! Dodgers sideline guy breaks his wrist and cracks six ribs on Bernie Brewer’s slide in Milwaukee!). Also, I’m recording a podcast with my pal Joe Posnanski later today.

It was scary not to write for two weeks. I was worried I’d lose you. But you’re still here. Thank you for having my back. Thank you. <3

One day at a time.

Love you guys.

Molly