This past weekend was one of the strangest in a very strange year. On Friday night, I wrote how I was suffering from shortness of breath, how even riding downhill from work put me out of breath in ways I had not encountered before. This was nothing. On Saturday morning, we went to the local DIY store because Flucha needed some parts to build kites, never mind it’s nearly winter and the fall storms have long given way to a near-complete stillness of the air.
I packed the kids into the trailer, hooked it up to my bicycle, and we set off. The going was painful. The way to the store is nearly flare. There’s a tiny incline going up to the bridge and then a minimal gradient up to the store. I got out of breath as soon as I got on the bike. This was very different from going up a pass in the Alps. There, as it gets steeper and the ride longer, you breathe harder and more frequently. Your lung shovels air by the bucket. On Saturday, my lung didn’t do much. On the bridge, I had to stop and rest, I couldn’t go on. My lungs didn’t provide enough oxygen for even this little bit of exercise. I was still not worried at this point. Things would have to improve eventually.
On Sunday, they didn’t. I was very tired throughout the day, spending most of the time on the sofa, reading the Economist Christmas double issue I had bought at the mall the day before. In the afternoon, the sun came out. We took the children to the playground. Just watching, it was a bit too cold for me and a bit too passive. I took off for a walk through town.
On this walk, I had to stop twice because I was too out of breath to continue. Once was after climbing the stairs from the lower level of the train station to the bus terminal. They have some fine benches there to rest. Then, on the last stretch back home with nothing more than an almost imperceptible gradient to slow my progress, I had to stop again. That’s when the thought of corona entered my mind.
Sherlock Holmes said that, “when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. It’s unlikely that I have corona. Besides the acute shortness of breath, I have no symptoms. I’m not coughing, I have no fever, and an apple tastes like an apple. I’ve also not been in prolonged close contact with anyone outside my immediate family. But there’s nothing else that might explain the shortness of breath. The operation last week can’t have caused it. The liquid outside the lung can’t possibly have trebled in volume in a few days with nothing to trigger it and gone from not noticeable to making my physical activity impossible. I must have Covid-19.
On Monday morning, I informed my oncologist about this development. He didn’t take chances. “Present yourself at the emergency department. I’ll preregister you. We’ll need to check out your lung, and we’ll get a CT faster with an emergency.” In the hospital, I spent the first hour together with a number of others, getting ready to get another Covid test.
The pandemic is very far from under control in Switzerland, but at least my hospital gives the impression of situation normal. Nurses aren’t running around, doctors aren’t frantic, people aren’t shouting. Everything is almost eerily calm. There is no indication of stress, though for everyone employed at the hospital, stress must be a daily company that’s only getting worse. These people, whether you see them or not, are true heroes.
A doctor came and took a nasal swab for the corona test. This time I knew what to expect and was rather relaxed. Now on a bed and not in an uncomfortable chair anymore, I’m even more relaxed. An answer to the mystery of my lost breathing is still pending.
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