Members edition | what it’s like to catch covid over and over

Then, this past June, I was watching the news and suddenly had a sneezing fit, the kind my kids make fun of because of how loud it is. I took a Zyrtec, sprayed Flonase in my nostrils and

wrote it off as seasonal allergies. But the next morning, I woke up with that now all-too-familiar scratchy feeling in my throat. The dreaded two little red lines on that plastic test strip

confirmed my fears. There’s a new variant out there, and — like President Biden — I was just one of many Americans to be hit by the recent uptick in cases. The timing was pretty bad

(although when is a good time to get COVID?), because I was scheduled for a platelet transfusion the following day. If you have an upper respiratory infection, you’re not allowed into

infusion centers, because so many of the patients are immunocompromised due to chemotherapy. They certainly don’t need anyone putting them further into harm’s way. Fortunately, I was able to

get my transfusion at the ER, where germs are not an obstacle. Once again, my COVID symptoms were mild and resolved quickly. So I guess you could say I’m getting good at having COVID. When

the history of the 2020s is written, there will be countless stories like mine — people who survived the pandemic but whose lives were severely impacted by it. The disease has altered my

health, my work life, my ability to plan for the future. It has also heightened my sense of the fragility of life. Even still, I know that it could have gone worse for me, as it has for so

many others. And especially now that I’m in my 60s, I know that there are plenty of other health challenges lurking out there — more raindrops to dodge. While I have no desire to catch COVID

again, I am no longer scared of it. I will do my best to stay well, and that’s all I can do. _AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience,

and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP._