Days 168-174: Good news + Giving Back!

What a crazy week it has been...there are lots of positive updates that I am excited to share in the coming days and weeks, but first I want to address my absence from writing for the past seven days. In the wake of finding out definitively that I had COVID and my body had produced "substantial" antibodies, I have been diving into the process of registering as a convalescent plasma donor. This is so crucial right now to not only help one individual patient who needs an immunity boost, but also for many people at once in helping provide data to develop a vaccine. It is astounding to me that my immunocompromised state has, in this one case alone, given something I never thought I would be able to provide to someone else--an immunity boost. The fight is in us...and even though mine was a four month fight, it means someone else will be able to benefit. To me, that is everything.

Because of how hard my body fought, the ELISA machine (able to detect number of antibodies) has confirmed that I have a therapeutic level (or far above) number of antibodies in my system that can be extracted for patients. I wish that I had access to an exact number, but unfortunately that is not information that donors are able to get at this time and the only people who are getting a value of these numbers are the doctors looking at donors. I am hoping that by donating now I may also be allowed access to my numbers down the road at some point to plot the trajectory as the number of antibodies in my system slowly drops off (as any immune response does after resolving an illness). This is also incentivizing personally to keep donating to track the number of antibodies in my system over time. I am hoping to be able to donate several times.

More than this, I am over the moon excited that I have started my new job this week. Many of my friends and family know that I have felt called to help during this crisis in whatever ways I am able. In the beginning, it started on my first day of quarantine, 174 days ago, with a blog to create a safe space for community to talk, email, and connect. I am so happy that all of the questions and conversation that this blog has generated and the community culture we are continuing to build. As I personally still contracted the disease, it became imperative to find ways for me to lean on my community and launch some new content on not just education about COVID, but giving an account of what it was like to experience it first hand.

Now that I have recovered, I am beginning work as a contact tracer in my home state. While it is a position that requires me to work every day of the week some weeks, and hours can be long, I am so motivated by my team and the stories of successful outcomes for patients and contacts who have contracted COVID in our community. I was told by a colleague that my role is to be "a therapeutic detective with a sense of humor." I don't know that I have ever heard a job description that gets me more excited to wake up in the morning. Soft-spoken Sherlock Holmes reporting for duty to help you smile today.

What ways are you finding to give back in your community right now? I know that this continues to be a shifting landscape for all of us...at the end of the day, it helps me to remember that we are all affected in one way or another by this pandemic.

The health crisis.

The economic crisis.

The mental health crisis.

The cracks in our civil rights infrastructure that are laid bare as we see the disproportionate fallout from this virus.

AND.

The children going to school wearing masks or learning virtually.

The healthcare workers who continue to triage, treat, and somehow tolerate this awful situation.

The peaceful protestors and allies helping create a space for POC voices.

The investigators studying this disease and providing responsible timelines to creating a vaccine.

The plasma donors and pop-up test site workers.

We are in this together; the good, the bad, the beautiful. And I feel so eternally grateful some days to simply be a person on this planet. It is a privilege to be alive, a spirit inside this body working and playing alongside other people. We are here for a reason. Let's make it a good one.

Prepare, don't panic,

-Allison