Text & Image

How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

I get seasonal allergies every spring: juniper and elm. Sneezing, coughing, itchiness -- it's awful. Last spring I got the usual symptoms, but mixed in was this fear that perhaps it was not just a cold, not just hay fever, but ... [scary music] ... the Coronavirus! Aaaaah! Of all the symptoms that indicated you'd caught Covid-19, the one I fixated on was the loss of smell and taste. I put a container of strongly scented vanilla hand lotion next to my bed. If I woke up and felt particularly anxious that perhaps I had been exposed to Covid-19, I would open the container and take a cautious sniff. I have a small collection of perfume, too, but since I was working from home, I didn't always put any on. The levels in the bottles stayed the same for months.