Please stop asking me where I got COVID

This First Person column is written by Melinda Maldonado who is recovering from long COVID. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

When my dog looked at me with pleading eyes and a whine, I reluctantly grabbed her leash and made it downstairs. I knew I was too exhausted to walk Estelle long enough to tire her out but a grassy fenced area in my condo complex caught my eye on that cold February day. I looked at my dog and we agreed: to hell with it. 

Soon it was my dog leaping into the air and me expending zero energy in one spot in an endless loop of fetch. It was glorious until a neighbour hollered at me to get out. 

That's when I started oversharing with strangers: "I had COVID and I'm really struggling with fatigue right now." 

My neighbour was more interested in bylaw enforcement than sympathy, but that didn't deter me from giving it a go with others. Since then, I've had a lot of practice because three months after a breakthrough COVID infection that left me bedridden for weeks, I'm still managing debilitating fatigue. 

Today, everyone knows someone who has been "omicroned" but there is still so much stigma associated with it. Contact tracing is no longer being done, but when I got COVID, everyone wanted to know how I got it. 

Before blurting things out to neighbours, I self-flagellated my way through a self-audit of where I'd been. Since December, my husband and I hunkered down after a public health call spooked us with news of a possible exposure. We isolated as much as condo-dwellers can with a dog, which means frequent elevator rides. 

My audit results: no moral slip-ups. Shame is so 2020. I texted friends a photo of the two lines I'd achieved on a rapid antigen test: "FML."

But the proof that stigma is alive is in how we talk about it. My social feeds have been full of COVID stories and most include one detail: vaccination status. It's OK to announce you had it if you're fully vaccinated. It's OK to post photos of in-person gatherings if you confirm that everyone did rapid tests. Flouting public health guidelines? Not me.

I get it. Mentioning that I'm triple-vaccinated in the same breath as revealing I had COVID feels important. Obviously, go get vaccinated as vaccines can help reduce the risk of getting long COVID.

But I'm telling you that getting COVID wasn't my personal failure to prevent it. I didn't throw caution to the wind, cavorting with the unmasked at raucous parties. 

Stigma crops up in the way people rationalize away potential cases of COVID, which have been harder to confirm since Ontario changed the rules about who qualifies for a PCR test. Cough and runny nose? Allergies, a sinus infection or as one cousin said, "I still maintain it was a winter cold!"

But that stigma has also changed my mindset to be more vocal about my needs. 

A few weeks ago, I had a bad day. Physical, mental or emotional exertion drains energy, and I had spent my day's rations on cognitive load at work. I was trying to stand up from sitting on the floor when my arms gave out. I looked at my husband and burst into tears. "It's like being in prison," he said. "Eventually you'll get out."