Patient Spotlight: People don't understand how severe it can be

Body Type contributor Delia Rogers interviewed Jaime Hattori on her experience with COVID-19.

Delia Rogers: When did you get COVID, and what was that experience like for you?

Jaime Hattori:  Yeah! So I moved into my apartment in LA right before labor day. One of my housemates, A, started feeling sick and got a COVID test. M (another one of my housemates) and I decided to get tested too, which is when I started to feel funky. 

I ended up laying down on my bed and taking a nap, which I do not do, and I woke up three hours later wondering why I felt like I needed it. Then I did three hours of yoga, because my body started feeling really weird. I was paranoid, thinking I just needed to move.

That night, I woke up at 3am because my body hurt so bad. I was crying because my body was just aching and I thought, “This is not good.” I texted A and M and told them I didn’t have my results back, but that I was definitely positive because I was feeling horrible.

I called my parents and girlfriend to tell them I had COVID. Then I finally ate a little bit, took a ton of pain meds and went back to sleep. The next morning I felt awful. 

For the next week or so, it was really awful. It felt shocking, because I never got the flu—I don't typically get sick, especially for long periods of time. So I expected that if I ever got COVID, I wouldn't love it, but it wouldn't be the worst. The first day I was just super tired and achy. I had a fever, so I was in bed all day, and had a very mucousy cough. 

The next day I had a lot of trouble breathing, which sucked and was really scary. Thankfully that passed the next day, which was a relief. But it felt very odd. It wasn't like descriptions of other people’s experiences I’ve seen, where it's like someone's sitting on your chest. It felt like I was getting 60% air and then 40%. It was so bizarre. I watched a lot of Netflix—it helped a lot if I just didn't think about it, because the more I thought about it, the more anxious I got. I had zero appetite the entire time.

By the third or fourth day, I couldn't taste or smell anything. But I didn't notice for a while because I wasn’t eating or smelling anything. But when I brushed my teeth I noticed I couldn’t taste my toothpaste—it was just a texture in my mouth, which was very bizarre. I ended up eating an entire jalapeno just to see if I could, and I could feel the spice on my tongue and in my throat, but I could not taste it. It was so weird. Luckily my smell and my taste eventually fully came back, thank goodness.

By the 14th day I was basically 100% again. But I spent most of that time laying in bed. My girlfriend would drop stuff off for me, and it was frustrating to look out the window while talking to her and see so many people without masks on. That was really frustrating. 

Artwork by Delia Rogers

DR: I’m sure that must have been. How has it been to see your peers and how they're handling COVID, especially after having it? Do you feel like people at UCLA, or even LA in general, are taking it seriously enough?

JH: I know a couple of people who've gotten it, and their symptoms have been probably 20% of what I felt, which I thought was so bizarre. Many people aren’t afraid of getting COVID because they hear it sucks but ultimately isn’t that bad. I don’t want everyone to feel as bad as I did, but I think there is a lack of understanding of how severe it can be with college students. 

I guess LA in general is bad most of the time. People just don't wear masks, especially walking around the apartments. It's very rare that I see someone walking on the street and wearing a mask, which is annoying.

DR: Totally. Do you think that having COVID has changed how you think about or view COVID?

JH: Definitely. I am beyond terrified of getting it again. And now that I'm beyond my three months of antibodies I know that there's no guarantee around reinfection anymore. That really stresses me out, because I do not at all want to get it again. It's also been hard for me to change my perspective from when I felt like I was immune with antibodies.

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Jaime Hattori is a UCLA student in her final year of studying Communications and Digital Humanities. She is originally from Sacramento, CA.

Delia Rogers is a fourth year undergraduate student at The New School studying Global Studies with a minor in Race & Ethnicity Studies and Gender Studies. She is interested in the ways in which race, class, and gender intersect with wellness.