How could I not be scared?
An essay by the WNBA’s Stef Dolson
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I woke up and felt like a completely different person.
My body ached, my skin — just lying in bed with a cover on felt painful. I rolled out of bed and tried to stand, but I could barely walk.
I remember thinking, Damn, I’m out of shape.
I had done a pretty intense workout the day before, but still. I’d never felt like that after a workout.
Maybe it’s the flu.
I’ve actually never had the flu, so I didn’t even know what the flu felt like, but I had to explain this away. I kept blowing it off. Stefanie, you’re fine.
I couldn’t be sick. I couldn’t have the virus.
I had stayed up till 3 a.m. the night before reading about all of these cases, just everything. Trying to stay informed, but also kind of scaring myself.
Lying on my aching back in my all-blue childhood bedroom in upstate New York, I looked around at my dusty little plaques and trophies and kid drawings, and I started to cry. Nah, I gotta be real. I started to bawl like a kid.
It wasn’t me I was worried about. It was my mom — she always gets bronchitis at certain times during the year, so my family and I considered her to be pretty at-risk. If she got it, she could be in real danger.
That thought made me panic.
What if I have it? What if I give it to my family? What if I give it to my mom??
I cried in my bed that morning till I was all cried out. I mean, how could I not be scared?
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/stef-dolson-wnba-covid-19
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