KEY WORDS: OPTICAL FIBER CONFERENCE, COVID19, PANDEMIC, SYMPTOMS, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO), EBOLA

It was a long direct flight home on March 13, a Friday; I felt trapped, wondering when it would be over. It was the first time in a long time that I felt sick on a plane. Coincidentally, the last time was during the Ebola scare in 2014. Although that time, it was a just an early morning flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida back to Syracuse Airport (and then back to Ithaca, New York) and I had eaten earlier than usual and my stomach made me pay for my decision.

This was different, however. I was in San Diego, California attending the Optical Fiber Conference (OFC) and looking for job opportunities. The day before my flight, I had just returned from Albuquerque, New Mexico, having finished interviewing for a position with the Space Dynamics Laboratory. The conference had its guidelines regarding physical contact and social distancing, but even then, I surely didn’t take it as seriously as I do now. I was surprised to see that the attendance for the conference was a shocking—or maybe not so shocking in hindsight—one-fifth of what it usually is. More food for us, I thought. But conference food, which is usually pretty good, was not going to cure us of the something that at the time had already infected over 200 in people in the United States and over 80,000 in China. Few conference attendees had masks on and all the paper presentations were moved online.

A couple of days later, after meeting some German students at the conference party — I spoke some German to them during the event — I went home feeling very fatigued. In addition, I was feeling indigestion and had to take TUMS. This symptom was probably not related, but I did experience flu-like symptoms. I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t feel like moving around a lot. My nose was running and I sneezed quite a bit, but had no dry cough. I still felt fine, walking around without a mask and touching surfaces with my bare hands.

Then the worst news hit. It was March 12 and I woke up, still feeling fatigued and then—in typical millennial fashion—I checked my phone and then Facebook. I believe it was a German article in Der Spiegel, saying that the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared the SARS-coronavirus to be a pandemic. I still hadn’t returned home! I was still feeling very tired, but luckily for me it was the last day of the conference. In addition to my sneezing and runny nose, I lost my sense of smell and taste. At the time I had not seen those sensory incapacitations recorded as possible symptoms, so that was actually a source of relief even though I still felt terrible. The day passed and then I read that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, his wife, had both tested positive for COVID-19 while shooting for the new film Elvis in Queensland, Australia. That’s when it occurred to me, THIS IS SERIOUS. At this point, I couldn’t wait to bid San Diego adieu and head home.

During the last day of the conference I barely had any appetite; I went on a short run in the morning just to wake myself up. After a meager breakfast, I moseyed around the various exhibitions and start-ups to see what they had, but I wasn’t really interested. When I got back to the hotel I was beat and slept on a couch for a good two and a half hours before I requested the shuttle to come pick me up from the hotel.

My return flight was in the night. I went through the usual procedures at the airport, driver’s license, boarding pass, security check. The only thing I ate was a banana. Upon boarding, I saw a few people with face masks, including the woman next to whom I sat. Who knows if I might have saved her life because – since my seat television wasn’t functioning – I was granted the opportunity to move to a different seat. She then had the whole aisle to herself. I moved a few seats forward across the aisle, plugged in my earbuds and tried watching Bombshell. I was sweating like crazy and sneezing and still couldn’t taste or smell. All I wanted to do was sleep.

The plane landed some five hours later, thankfully ahead of schedule. I got out of the plane and used the eye-mask given to me as a mask for my nose and mouth. Desperate times, desperate measures. My drive home was peaceful, and I was surprised to see so many cars on the road at 5 a.m. I got home and my mother greeted me; I groggily told her that I wasn’t feeling well, climbed the stairs, and went to sleep. Later that afternoon I took some Vitamin C supplements and some more TUMS for my stomach. A week later my symptoms were gone. Now, three months later, I am feeling fine.

Whether what I had was COVID-19 or not, I have learned to be more careful and have developed a newly formed appreciation of the importance of social distancing.