In part 2 of our first episode, we share two more stories on the theme of Contact. (Scroll down for transcripts and photos.) In our first story, Tracey Segarra is laid off from her corporate job during the pandemic, but finds a new calling as a contact tracer.
In our last story of Contact, writer and performer Jennifer Joy begins developing symptoms of COVID-19 in early March.
Listen to Part 1 of this episode here.
Story Transcripts
Story 1: Tracey Segarra
So it's the middle of April of this year, April 15th to be exact. I'm sitting at my dining room table trying to figure out how to market an accounting firm in the middle of a pandemic, because that's been my job for the last 11 years, when I get a phone call. It's my boss and the HR director is also on the phone, so I have a feeling this is not good news.
Tracey’s dog, Murphy, helps out as she begins work as a contact tracer.
My boss says, “Tracey, you know, there's really not much marketing to be done in a pandemic and we're going to have to let you go.”
I try to argue. I try to say, “Well, you know, I've been trying so hard to figure out new ways to communicate,” and there is just silence on the other end of the phone. I just realized it's over. It's done. It's not going to happen.
And I barely am listening as the HR director starts talking about severance and COBRA and, oh, my God, I'm losing my health insurance. I can't believe I'm losing my health insurance. I am frustrated. I'm angry. I can't believe they're firing me on April 15th, tax day. After 11 years, this is it. This is just like in the middle of pandemic they're letting me go?
But part of me is also relieved because I have hated this job for at least five of the last 11 years and I want nothing more to do with corporate America, with marketing, with accounting.
A long time ago, a friend of mine and I who I became friends with was also in marketing for accounting firms. We were having lunch one day and she said, “You know, our job is basically to make rich white men richer.” And we both laugh at that, but it's the truth. And I don't want to do it anymore. I haven't wanted to do it for a long time.
So I spend the next few weeks baking bad brioche, Marie Kondo-ing my attic trying to figure out how to pay my mortgage and finally put my mortgage in forbearance because we can't afford it right now.
Then I start reading about this virus that's taken over all of our lives, and I'm fascinated by it. Then I start reading about contact tracing. The more I read about contact tracing, the more fascinated I am about it. I've never heard of it before and contact tracers are basically disease detectives. When outbreaks happen, contact tracers swoop in and they find the people who were infected and then they get lists of the people that they were in contact with and they help those people to isolate, to quarantine until they're no longer infectious.
And the more I read about it, the more it becomes clear that they're going to need an army of contact tracers to get this virus under control. And then I see that there are actually job openings for contact tracers. I think, well, before I can go back into corporate America and make all this money that I no longer have so that we can afford my house and all these other things, maybe in the meantime I can be a contact tracer.
So I apply and I get a call and they're interested in hiring me. They have me take this free six‑hour course that Johns Hopkins has made, this online course about contact tracing. You know, throughout college I just couldn't wait to get out of school. I swear after I graduated I was never going to go back to school for anything. It just wasn't something I was interested in. But as I start taking this course in contact tracing, I'm a sponge. I love it. I love every second of it.
Tracey on stage, pre-COVID. Tracey is a storyteller and story coach whose true stories have appeared on The Moth Radio Hour and the Story Collider and Risk! podcasts.
I finish the course. I ace the course and then I hear nothing for weeks. And I'm like, “Ugh, they probably have enough people. A lot of people applied. It's not going to happen.”
My severance is starting to run out and I'm like, “What the hell am I going to do?”
One day while I'm out walking the dog, I miss a phone call. And when I come back, it's the contact tracers and they want to hire me. It's the New York State Health Department. I am thrilled. I am like whooping and hollering. I'm just very excited about this job.
The first week is all about background checks and I-9 forms and training modules and learning timesheet apps and downloading all these things. When I was in corporate America, the one thing I hated more than anything was like expense reports and paperwork, so this is torture, but I do it.
And then I'm a contact tracer. I get a New York State Health Department email address. I meet my supervisor and online this team and we're all in Microsoft Teams. Most of the other contact traces are college students or kids just barely out of college, but I fall right into it.
The first week, I can't wait. I've done all this training I can't wait to just start calling people. And the first week there's nobody to call. Apparently, Cuomo and the rest of New York has done a pretty good job of flattening the curve and there aren't a lot of people to call in that first week.
But then the next week, Cuomo announces that all travelers from Europe and from states where there's wide community spread of COVID-19, when they come to New York they need to quarantine. So now I have tons of people to call. And so I start making my calls.
You know, most people are helpful and they're considerate and they understand why I'm doing this and I'm starting to feel good. I'm getting into the rhythm of the whole questionnaire that I need to go through and I think I got this down, until one call.
The person on the other end of the line is an essential worker and he wants nothing to do with me. He wants nothing to do with contact tracing or quarantine. He is just annoyed. In fact, his tone is getting more and more angry. I remember what I learned in the course about de‑escalating and having empathy and I'm doing my best and it's not working.
And then I remember what I learned as a mother of twins when my twins were toddlers. I read this book and it said to lend them your calm. And so I lend this guy my calm and it works. Is he really going to quarantine? Is he happier with Cuomo or contact tracing after the call? Probably not. But at least I de-escalate the situation.
You know, I have so many different kinds of calls. It's like the spectrum of human existence. I talk to mothers who worry they'll get sick after their teenagers contracted the virus at a party. I talked to sole providers who worry about who'll feed my family if I take two weeks off from work. It can be very emotional and draining work but, for the first time ever in my life, I feel like the work I'm doing every day is making a difference. It's helping. And I feel this rush of joy and pride that I don't think I've ever felt before.
Some people can't wait to get me off the phone but others really are happy that I'm calling and I feel like they need an ear. They need somebody to talk to. I remember this one mother I talked to, she says, “You know, I know it's not your job to listen to my tale of woe,” but then she starts talking to me about how right before the pandemic her mother was sick with cancer and died right before we all went into quarantine. And then when we went into quarantine her husband, who was a doctor, got sick with COVID. And now, one of her children is sick and they all need to quarantine and it's just too much.
And I have to spend like 40 minutes on the phone with her because I have to get all this information about her and about her my minor children and I just try to give her as much empathy as I can. At the end of the phone call she says to me, she goes, “Thank you for being so kind.”
And I start to tear up because I realize how important it is right now to be kind and to get that kind of kindness. Like we all need that. We're all going through this horrible, horrible thing together.
I think about how I parachute into people's lives. It's such a strange job. And I ask them the most intimate details about their lives. You know, do they have psychiatric problems, drug problems? Do they smoke? Are they obese? And mostly, people trust me and they respond and they answer my questions.
Then after I talk to them, I parachute out. My job is just to help them get through the quarantine, to understand what it means. I'm not there to get emotionally involved. I need to keep a certain distance.
And in July, I make a phone call and for a new contact. I say, “Hi, this is Tracey. I'm calling from the health department in the contact tracing call center,” and the person on the under other end of the line says, “Well, hello, Tracey!”
Nobody has ever been as thrilled to talk to me as a contact tracer as this man Tyrone. And within a few minutes, I learn that Tyrone is a Vietnam vet, that he's been married for 40 years and that he loves Chinese food.
So I start going through the interview with him and he's having a ball and I'm having a ball. This is just like the best phone call that I've made in my entire time in contact racing so far. When I get to the part of the interview where I need to ask him if he has any psychological issues or anything like that, he pauses. And I think, “Oh, wow, maybe he's got PTSD from Vietnam or something else.”
Then after he takes a breath he says, “Well, Tracey, my wife would probably say I'd have to say yes to that question,” and he laughs. It's just I'm just having the best time talking to him and I look forward.
Most people when I talk to them, they opt to have text messages sent to them every day because we follow everybody during quarantine, but not Tyrone. Tyrone is old school. He wants to hear from me every day. And let me tell you, it's the highlight of my day to call Tyrone. So each day I get to know a little bit more about him, about his wife, about his life.
One day, I decide to out-Tyrone Tyrone, and so when he picks up the phone I say, “Tyrone, it's Tracey! How are you today?”
And Tyrone says, “Well, not so good today, Tracey,” he goes. “I'm feeling pretty nauseous. But don't you worry. I'm sure it's just the Chinese food I had last night.”
And I go, “Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, Tyrone.” And we continue with the interview. I end the call and I'm like, “Well, I hope you feel better and I look forward to talking with you tomorrow,” and we hang up.
The next day, I call Tyrone as usual, same time, and his wife answers. I say, “Is Tyrone there?”
And she says, “Oh, no. We had to rush Tyrone to the hospital last night. He was so sick. He was throwing up. And you know men. It was so hard for me to even get him to go in that ambulance, but finally he went. You know, he's pretty sick.”
And I say, “Well, I'm so sorry,” and we end the phone call. After I hang up, I feel horrible. I'm like, “Oh, no. Nausea could be one symptom of COVID and maybe he has it and maybe I should have alerted the health department right away.” And I feel terrible but there's nothing that I can do. He's now hospitalized so I can't call him.
And I go on with my days and I call all the other people I need to call, but in the back of my mind every day I'm thinking about Tyrone and I'm wondering how he's doing. I know I need to call at some point because I need to close out the file but I'm afraid to call because what if he's really sick? What if he's got COVID? What if something really terrible happens? I'm not sure if I want to know.
But one day about two weeks later, I just can't help myself. I need to call. I'm going to need to call to close this out anyway and I just call him. And Tyrone answers on the first ring.
And I say, “Tyrone, it's Tracey. How are you?’
And he says, “Tracey, it is so good to hear from you. Oh, I had such a time in the hospital. I needed an operation.”
I'm like, “Well, did you have…”
And he's like, “No, it wasn't COVID. Something totally different and I'm fine. I'm home and I'm on the mend.”
And I say, “Tyrone, you don't know how happy I am to hear that,” and I breathe such a huge sigh of relief when we end our phone call.
It's only been five months since I got fired from my corporate job that I depended on for so many years and, at the time, I was so panicked and afraid it would be so long before I got a comparable job at the same level, at the same salary. But now, I've been working as a contact tracer all this time. I make $27 an hour, which isn't bad but it's nowhere near what I was making in corporate America. The only health insurance I have is catastrophic and there's no ladder to climb here except the one that maybe helps the world get past this public health emergency.
You know, I never in all my life had any interest in service work. I was much too concerned about security and family and making money. But then I look at my life right now. I mean, I'm a contact tracer. I signed up to be a poll worker for the election in November. I'm giving blood for the third time in a pandemic next week. I'm applying to be a supervisor for contact tracing. And I look in the mirror some days and I'm like, “Who am I? Like who am I?’
I was always really proud and impressed by people who thought helping others was their life's work and I always thought it was a great thing to do for other people. But now at 57, almost 58 years old, I realize it's actually the right work for me.
As I'm ending the call with Tyrone that day, I'm really sad that I won't talk to him again. I'll probably never meet him. And I tell him a little bit. I let him in on the fact that it took me a while to call him because I was so worried. And I say to him, I say, “Tyrone, you were the highlight of my day every day when we talked and I'm so happy I got to know you.”
“Bless you,” he says, “Bless you, Tracey.” He goes, “I've got you. I got you in my heart.”
And I start to tear up again because this is the kind of work I was definitely meant to do, and he will always be in mine.
Story 2: Jennifer Joy
I really want to tell you about the time I got sick. It's Wednesday, March 11th. I'm at home in my Brooklyn apartment. I don't feel well. Nausea so intense I can't even drink water. And mild and uncertain fever that edges up to 101 before dropping down again. Stomach flu?
Thursday night, March 12th, it's really late. I wake up parched. I make my way unsteadily to the kitchen. I get a glass of water. I turn to go back to bed and I have a split second flash that I'm going to pass out.
When I come to, I don't know where I am. I feel around on the floor trying to find the bed. Then I remember passing out. Huh? No head injury? Lucky.
Jennifer Joy has toured all over the US with her troupe, The SciArt6, and with her science-inspired solo shows. Find out more on her website.
Then I lose control of my bowels. “That's not right,” I think. I raise my head to try to get up and I pass out a second time. When I come to again, it's not quite over. I am so glad I live alone. Even by myself, I feel extremely embarrassed by this.
I managed to get everything cleaned up. No one can see my humiliation but I feel it.
Friday, March 13th, being sick is lonely. I call my aunt Leanne. She's a nurse. I tell her what happened the previous night. I say it's obviously not COVID. I'm not coughing and, anyway, I don't have any immune system problems. I'm young. I go to the gym all the time. I eat right.
She doesn't express an opinion just tells me to get to urgent care.
Urgent care sends me to the ER, but I'm not that sick. But maybe there is something wrong with me based on last night, right?
I wait for hours in the ER exam room. I'm so tired. I lie on the examining table on my side trying to sleep. At one point I feel a very small, almost unnoticeable tightness in my chest. Is this the COVID shortness of breath? No. It's so nothing.
But when the next person comes in, I blurt out, “Maybe I do have some shortness of breath,” and boom. In come the long swabs to insert into my nose for the COVID test. In comes a portable chest x-ray machine.
The COVID test is positive. The chest x-ray shows suspicious spots on my right lung. I'm admitted to the hospital. But I figure my being admitted is some kind of mistake. I'm not that sick. I'm too tired and too ill to say this to anyone but I know the truth. I'm not that sick.
I get a room by myself in the surgery wing, which is now the COVID-19 wing. I hear a woman in the next room cough ferociously.
[Stopping for a moment, I'm hearing a murmuring of voices upstairs. Is the mic picking that up? Oh, no this is not you. It's upstairs from me, so good. Okay, good.]
The nurse tucks me into bed. She inserts an IV into my left arm and hangs two bags of fluid on the stand. She leaves. Something beeps down the hall. I'm all alone.
The next morning, a doctor comes in. She listens to my symptoms. She then says no one knows what to do for me. She leaves.
The woman next door coughs and moans loudly. I try not to listen. I sleep. The next day, another doctor comes in just inside the door, like he's afraid or something. How am I? Feverish, nauseous, weak. He shrugs and says he doesn't know what to do. He turns and leaves quickly.
I'm not scared and I'm not mad. I channel my not scared-not mad into a phone call with my sister. I tell her the doctors have no idea what to do. Can natural medicine help? Vitamins or something?
I'm so tired. My fever goes up again. I buzz for a nurse. They're so busy they don't come for hours. My body starts to ache. Finally, a nurse arrives with Tylenol and leaves just as swiftly. I'm all alone. But, whatever. I'm not that sick.
On the third day, the woman next door is no longer coughing loudly, or coughing at all, or even there anymore.
My sister has determined that Vitamins D3, C and Zinc will help. Before her care package can arrive, a nurse rolls in with Vitamins D3, C and Zinc. I am so surprised. I feel momentarily in control. But then it just seems weird. Western medicine doesn't believe in Vitamins. How desperate are they?
Days pass. Fever. Tylenol. Sleep. Nausea. Hunger and pain. Pain. Pain, acting like it's my only friend, practically a lover embracing my body. I'm starting to have a hard time breathing. And there's this cough. It's scary, but I'm too sick to be scared.
Instead I post on Facebook. 150 people send me heart and thumbs-up emojis. That makes me feel better.
More days pass. I'm getting worse. Unbeknownst to me, family and friends go from worry to alarm. Apparently, my increasing difficulty breathing and therefore talking makes it sound like I'm on my deathbed. But I'm not that sick.
I have a kind of series on Facebook now. COVID pro tips. Things like if you're being admitted to the hospital, be ready to use your winter coat as a bed spread. There's a shortage of blankets.
Day 10 of my illness. Today, my fever will not come down. The nurses are putting ice packs around my skinny body. Pain in my shoulder, my back, my head. Hot. Tired. Hazy.
A tall, male doctor steps into the room. He is very doctorly. “We'd like to try the malaria medication on you, the hydroxychloroquine.”
There is no one in this room but me and these strangers. I notice the grim lines around the nurse's eyes and the doctor’s desperate desire that I trust him. There's no thinking, no choosing.
“Okay,” I whisper.
There are days now of even more intense pain. It erases everything else. My denial, my loneliness. My life has shrunk to singular moments. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.
And under the pain is a flow, a river carrying me along and I can't fight what's happening to me. Resisting only increases my suffering. There is only letting go. There is only surrender. There is only trust.
And after days of pain and fever, I see a door. Walking through it would end this, all of this. But the river has other plans for me. The door is locked from the other side.
The hydroxychloroquine and zinc seem to work. My fevers finally stop and no heart attack. But it is far from over. Taking a deep breath makes me choke and cough. I can't say I love you to my friends and family without stopping twice to catch my breath. A chest x-ray shows that while the larger spots on my right lung are gone, now my entire lungs are covered with lots and lots of smaller spots. No one knows what this means.
I struggle to breathe, but I breathe. I am on oxygen but not a ventilator. Tiny improvements accrue.
On March 25th, I become aware that a disaster is unfolding in my city. My brief forays onto Facebook are filled with terrifying images and statistics from New York City hospitals. I need to get out of here. I'm not that sick.
But the doctors are unimpressed by my oxygen saturation. Well, so am I. Sliding out of bed to walk a couple steps leaves me gasping and sweating but triage. Surely someone else needs my room.
On the morning of March 27th, I tell a nurse Leslie that I was able to sleep without oxygen. He's dubious. He checks my oxygen saturation several times. He frowns at the low levels. But a young doctor suddenly doesn't care. He eagerly fills out the paperwork for my discharge.
Changing my clothes leaves me wheezing and trembling and weak. Leslie sits me down. He kindly tells me that I've been very sick. I have.
I'm loaded onto a gurney to be driven home in an ambulance. There are so many people in the hallways. I'm elated. I want to hug everyone.
We roll through the sliding doors of the hospital entrance to find that spring has arrived. The sky is so blue. It must be 67 degrees. And suddenly I realize I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive. The clean, sweet breeze in my hair. I'm alive. I lived.