There’s a well-understood phenomenon that comes along with bariatric surgery called “dumping syndrome.” When a person who’s undergone bariatric surgery eats too many carbs, their body can respond with vomiting, diarrhea, extreme fatigue, rapid heartbeat, flushing, sweating, light-headedness, loss of concentration, and unconsciousness. It sounds dire, but it’s not life-threatening and usually just signals that you should knock it off, for crying out loud.

But then, along comes COVID-19, and all bets are off. Stress is at an all-time high as people are told to stay home, grocery store shelves are empty, infection rates and death tolls rise, and the truth about our poorly-managed healthcare system is revealed. Being unable to leave the house while simultaneously being bombarded with terrible news is a perfect recipe for stress eating, and stress eating is very often carb-rich. Snacks, baked goods, comfort foods – they’re mostly carbs, and therefore off limits for the bariatric patient. And yet, like everyone else, I’m only human and I only have so many outlets for relieving stress when I can’t leave the house.

Couple this with the fact that it’s spring. Here, it’s been raining for days, which means a lot of mold, to which I’m allergic. And when it dries out, everything is in bloom and spewing pollen into the air, to which I’m allergic. My nose is running like a marathoner and I’m sneezing constantly, and even though these aren’t symptoms of COVID-19, I’ve gotten death stares from people at the grocery store.

Which brings me to the point where I’m sitting on the toilet in some pretty acute distress, my forehead beaded with sweat, worried that the next time I sneeze I’m going to spew from both ends in a way that will involve a whole lot of cleaning up. And because it’s March 17, 2020, my mind does not go immediately to the tamale and beans I had for dinner last night. It goes to coronavirus. And the fact that my daughter, who was staying with us for the past few days and has only just gone home, has a compromised immune system.

It took me way too long to connect my symptoms to dumping syndrome, and once I made the connection, I immediately felt better. But it’s scary that this is what life looks like right now. Every time my nose itches or I feel a little warm (so, add climate change into this mix) or I have a tickle in my throat, I worry that I’m a plague victim, and a danger to the people I love most.

Like everyone else, I don’t know how long this is going to last, or what the world will look like once it’s over, but I do know that the only way to get through this thing will be to take great care of myself and the people around me. I hope you all can do the same, and that if you’re in a tight spot, there will be people there for you.