Day 10, I thought I turned a COVID corner. Day 40, I realized I was in COVID denial.

Day 10. “My COVID Story” was published.

Day 40. My symptoms linger.

Somewhere between day 15 and 20, I realized I was in denial about my illness. It’s worse than I was willing to admit.

Denial is a coping mechanism. It provides space to adjust to how bad things really are. We minimize and dismiss reality when in denial.

Denial is powerful, persuasive. No one wants things to be as bad as they are. Denial comforts us when things around us are threatening or simply not as we had hoped.

A lung cancer diagnosis is never good. Five years at best. The chemo doctor updated me on my father’s status. Things were not as my dad presented them to me. He literally could not hear the state of his condition. He was in denial.

My father reeled when he finally heard his diagnosis, but he was no longer paralyzed by denial. He could deal with his circumstances and live his remaining days boldly in the face of cancer.

“I have COVID. It’s a mild case.” On day 10, I refused to see how sick I was. I could breathe. I was fine. I was really tired, but not hospitalized. Day 14, I was not better. I was in denial as I held to my claim “I have a mild case.”

Week three of my recovery, I finally look well. I’m just now running some light errands. I am no longer in denial.

People tell me how good I look and suggest I must be fine.

I tell them about my lingering symptoms. How just the other day, I could not make change for a dollar. I could not do it. My brain blanks, fogs, and refuses to work for me. While I talk, I have to look away and focus on the words slipping away from me as I speak.

I see the surprise and shock. My story exposes reality. COVID-19 is worse than we thought it was.

It’s not just live or die. COVID is also “live with.”

As the pandemic continues, more and more COVID-19 long haulers surface. They are not contagious, but their symptoms linger and persist beyond 30 days.

Fatigue. A week ago, a fifteen-minute conversation tired me. I talk for a living.

My first day with my husband back at work I ran a short errand. I was done for the day.

Do too much and your symptoms flare up and force you back to bed. Day 32.

The headaches impose on you. With each word spoken or heard, your head pounds. Advil can’t touch it.

And did I mention the cognitive issues?

We compare it to the flu. I get it. The flu is familiar. Denial is powerful. No one wants COVID to be as bad as it is.

COVID-19 is unlike any illness or recovery we have ever known. It’s a virus that appears to do nothing to some and everything to others. It lies low with no symptoms and then reveals itself in shocking ways. People suffer from respiratory, cardiac, neurological, vascular, and digestive issues. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, mini strokes, blood clots, dangerous resting heart rates, insufficient oxygen levels, loss of smell, impacted cognitive abilities, and more.

COVID-19 is worse than we thought it was.

Each of us has to come to this reality on our own.

I came to it sick in bed. Probably the same place President Donald Trump did.

When we deal with our own denial over this pandemic, we can live together boldly in the face of it.

May we be kind to one another. Stop pointing fingers at “the other.”

One day, the coronavirus pandemic will be history.

Today, it is our opportunity to live well together. Better than we ever have.

Ellen Martin is a life coach and the author of A Life Shared: Meaningful Conversations with Our Kids. With a M.A.C.E. and M.Div., she lives outside Wilmore with her husband and their five sons.