When the plane touched down in Chicago, I sighed with relief. After meticulous planning, we were returning from a two-week trip to Lima, Peru. We hadn’t seen my partner’s sister — soon to turn 91 years old — for five years and felt that with thorough precautions, we could keep ourselves and our loved ones safe while in Peru during the pandemic.
That sigh of relief soon turned to alarm as we deplaned and saw virtually no one masked or practicing social distancing in the terminal. It was as if the pandemic was over, and any precautions had long been forgotten. I felt I had entered the Twilight Zone.
I have a rare autoimmune disease that affects my lungs. I do not live my life in a bubble, but I try to do what I can to avoid health challenges. Powerful immune suppressants that treat the autoimmune disorder dampened my immune response, and I did not mount an immune response to the COVID-19 vaccines. To prepare for the trip to Peru, after quite a bit of bureaucratic wrangling, I received the Evusheld pre-exposure treatment.
