Speaker 1: School of Humans. In this series, we've already talked about
Speaker 1: the roles that animals play in the search for new
Speaker 1: diseases and in vaccine development. This coronavirus SARS covi two
Speaker 1: most likely came from a bat originally and then maybe
Speaker 1: found its way to another animal on the way to humans.
Speaker 1: SARS one came from bats via Asian palm civets, while
Speaker 1: mirrors came from bats, jumped to camels then to us.
Speaker 1: HIV came from primates, and lots of human diseases are
Speaker 1: spread by mosquitoes, like malaria, Zeka, dengae, Westnile, and yellow fever.
Speaker 1: Some vaccines are grown in chicken eggs or even passed
Speaker 1: through blended animal organs. In eighteen eighty five, the modern
Speaker 1: era of immunization was brought in when Louis Pasteur injected
Speaker 1: spinal cord material from rabbits into a nine year old
Speaker 1: boy to protect him from getting rabies. Today, in the
Speaker 1: early stages of development, prospective vaccines are always tested on
Speaker 1: animals for safety, to make sure they won't kill or
Speaker 1: sicken the person who gets it, for immune response, to
Speaker 1: make sure the vaccine induces the right kind of antibodies
Speaker 1: and t cell responses from the body for dosage to
Speaker 1: see how much vaccine is needed to induce the right responses,
Speaker 1: and to tinker with the formula to see what kind
Speaker 1: of ingredients will make the vaccine lasts longer and in
Speaker 1: general work better. Both the Maderna and Fiser vaccines were
Speaker 1: tested in mice and Rhesus macaques at various points, although
Speaker 1: because of the urgency of the pandemic, some of these
Speaker 1: animal trials were happening alongside the human trials. The Oxford
Speaker 1: astrasenticive vaccine is based on a virus found in chimpanzee poop,
Speaker 1: and another vaccine in the works was based on a
Speaker 1: virus founded in guerrilla feces. Researchers in Belgium are using
Speaker 1: antibodies from llamas to create even more protection against coronavirus.
Speaker 1: Animals have also been affected by coronavirus. Cats and dogs
Speaker 1: have gotten the virus, so have gorillas and otters. Naughty
Speaker 1: of the Tiger at the Bronxoo got it. In New
Speaker 1: South Wales, Australia, fifteen dogs on their way to a
Speaker 1: shelter were killed by authorities to protect humans from spreading
Speaker 1: COVID during the handoff and in Denmark, seventeen million minks
Speaker 1: were cold when two hundred farms found coronavirus outbreaks among
Speaker 1: their animals. Almost as soon as this pandemic began, you
Speaker 1: started hearing stories about COVID pets, about how the loneliness
Speaker 1: of coronavirus created an opening of arms from humans to
Speaker 1: dogs and cats, especially about how we weren't just using
Speaker 1: animals to get us out of the pandemic, but how
Speaker 1: we were using them to get through it. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to an American living in Sweden
Speaker 1: who opened her arms to a new puppy, and she'll
Speaker 1: tell us how it didn't work out as planned, not
Speaker 1: even close. This story might make some people mad, but
Speaker 1: before you listen, I ask you to put yourself in
Speaker 1: the shoes of our storyteller. If you can't and you're
Speaker 1: so mad you have to shout at someone, send me
Speaker 1: an angry tweet at Sean Revive from my Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and School of Humans. I'm Sean Revive and this is
Speaker 1: long shot. My name is Marina. I live in Gothenburg, Sweden,
Speaker 1: which is the second largest and first best city in Sweden.
Speaker 1: But as you can probably tell, I am American, not Swedish.
Speaker 1: I should start off by telling you that Marina is
Speaker 1: a friend. My wife and I once stayed with her
Speaker 1: in Sweden over Christmas. We ate a ton of pickled fish,
Speaker 1: and because I'm like ten years old, we joked a
Speaker 1: lot about Swedish chef. Anyway, Marina has been living in
Speaker 1: Sweden's twenty sixteen. She loves Sweden for a long time.
Speaker 1: It was her dream to live there, and she's finally
Speaker 1: doing it. The first case of COVID nineteen in Sweden
Speaker 1: comes in January twenty twenty, and then there are no
Speaker 1: more cases until late February, and there is no confirmed
Speaker 1: community spread until March. But by April, the state epidemiologist
Speaker 1: of Sweden says that he believes between five and ten
Speaker 1: percent of Swedes are already carrying the virus. Marina works
Speaker 1: for a big Swedish tech company and eventually stops going
Speaker 1: to the office and starts working from home. Working from home,
Speaker 1: my daily life was like waking up, like sometimes I
Speaker 1: would get dressed, sometimes I'd just wear pajamas all day.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'd go take a walk, sometimes I wouldn't. Like
Speaker 1: I was having a really hard time sticking to any
Speaker 1: sort of schedule because the days were all the same
Speaker 1: and there was nothing to do. For years, Marina thought
Speaker 1: about getting a dog, and like a lot of people,
Speaker 1: coronavirus and the loneliness that comes with it is the
Speaker 1: turning point. I was just at my wits end, like
Speaker 1: so sick of just being by myself. So I decided, like,
Speaker 1: now is the time I'll get a dog. I can
Speaker 1: be at home and train the dog. It seemed like
Speaker 1: a good idea. She has a few reasons for wanting
Speaker 1: a dog. One companionship, someone to be around the house with,
Speaker 1: two giving her life some structured taking a dog and walks,
Speaker 1: giving the dog food. It would give me something to
Speaker 1: focus on that wasn't just me. Then also this idea
Speaker 1: of you know, I've lived in Sweden five years and
Speaker 1: it has been challenging to make friends here and have
Speaker 1: a community. And I thought that by getting a dog,
Speaker 1: I would be able to meet other dog owners and
Speaker 1: like it would open up my life in the human
Speaker 1: sense as well. But the problem is a lot of
Speaker 1: people in Sweden and millions of people across the globe,
Speaker 1: see the pandemic as a good reason to get a dog.
Speaker 1: So it was impossible to get a dog for love
Speaker 1: or money, Like, no matter how much you were willing
Speaker 1: to pay, there were just like no dogs available. A
Speaker 1: friend tells her that he got his dog via a
Speaker 1: site called blockett. It's like a Swedish Craigslist. You can
Speaker 1: buy and sell stuff on there. You can also find
Speaker 1: a pet from individual owners. So that wasn't my first choice,
Speaker 1: but I decided to go with it because it seemed
Speaker 1: like the only way I could get a dog here.
Speaker 1: So I had to message a bunch of people. Like
Speaker 1: none of the dogs worked out. They were just like
Speaker 1: being snapped up really quickly. There's a really hot dog market.
Speaker 1: So finally, when I found this super cute little black
Speaker 1: and white French bulldog puppy, I was so excited. I
Speaker 1: messaged the woman, gave her my whole spiel, and it
Speaker 1: was like interviewing for an apartment, Like I had to
Speaker 1: sell her on choosing me as the dog owner. I
Speaker 1: sort of leaned on being American because Swedish people kind
Speaker 1: of like Americans by default, So I was like, I
Speaker 1: live here and I live alone, and I just would
Speaker 1: really love a dog. I think it would really help
Speaker 1: me like integrate into Swedish society. Marina's sales pitch works
Speaker 1: and she gets the dog. But the dog is two
Speaker 1: hours away and she doesn't have a car or a
Speaker 1: driver's license. So I asked a friend of mine, a
Speaker 1: Swedish friend, to drive me there to pick up the dog.
Speaker 1: So she agreed and we rented a car, went down there,
Speaker 1: little road trip. She meets the dog in person. He's adorable.
Speaker 1: He's a bit freaked out, obviously because a stranger is
Speaker 1: taking him, but he seemed okay. He was fine in
Speaker 1: the car, so he picked him up. I paid for him,
Speaker 1: got all his dog paperwork, etc. It seemed fine, like
Speaker 1: the woman seemed normal, and I took him home. Finally,
Speaker 1: she has a dog, a companion during these shitty times.
Speaker 1: But the shitty times aren't over. So Marina is home
Speaker 1: in her apartment, no longer alone, but with her new puppy.
Speaker 1: Before she even gets him, she does what she calls
Speaker 1: a name storm, basically a brainstorming for a name with
Speaker 1: ranking based on various criteria. She comes up with Roscoe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he's a French bulldog, like really cute little pointy
Speaker 1: bat ears black and white for a little black nose,
Speaker 1: and these like little puppy paws that are a bit
Speaker 1: like out of proportion with his body, so they felt
Speaker 1: kind of like big for him. But he was quite
Speaker 1: thin when I got him, so I was like trying
Speaker 1: to fatten him up a little bit. But very sweet
Speaker 1: with like the most quintessential like puppy eyes. You know,
Speaker 1: he would look up at you and be like the cutest.
Speaker 1: Marina quickly figures out that Roscoe might need more attention
Speaker 1: than an average puppy. When she picked him up. The
Speaker 1: owner told Marina that Roscoe was already housebroken. He is not,
Speaker 1: so he immediately just started peeing everywhere and being a puppy.
Speaker 1: And at first I thought like, oh, it's because he's
Speaker 1: like freaked out. He's in this new environment. He's not
Speaker 1: used to me like I thought it was just how
Speaker 1: puppies were, not having hot a dog before. The next
Speaker 1: few days are chaos day and night. All day and night,
Speaker 1: Marina is on dog duty. He wouldn't sleep through the night.
Speaker 1: He wanted to play all the time. He wanted to
Speaker 1: chew on everything, like things that sound like so obvious
Speaker 1: to experience dog owners. I was going through it for
Speaker 1: the first time, both because of the lack of sleep
Speaker 1: because of his weird hours, but also just like taking
Speaker 1: him out to pee a hundred times a day, and
Speaker 1: he was peeing way more than was normal, but I
Speaker 1: just didn't realize it at first, but he was so
Speaker 1: so cute and he started like bonding with me, and
Speaker 1: we were getting along as well as can be given
Speaker 1: just how much work he was. By the fourth day
Speaker 1: with Roscoe, Marina is exhausted, abnormally exhausted, and at first
Speaker 1: she thinks it's just a lack of sleep from taking
Speaker 1: care of the new puppy at all hours. So by Wednesday,
Speaker 1: I was feeling like really run down and just tired,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was just because of this like
Speaker 1: change in my life with the dog and not being
Speaker 1: prepared to have a puppy. But that I get a
Speaker 1: call from my friend Sarah, the one that I went
Speaker 1: to pick him up with, and she said that she
Speaker 1: had tested positive for COVID and that I had been exposed.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, fuck, I'm gonna have to get a test.
Speaker 1: She's able to get a test the next day at
Speaker 1: a clinic down the street. But then I came home
Speaker 1: and I'm like, now, what, Like I may or may
Speaker 1: not have COVID, I have this dog. I still have
Speaker 1: to take the dog outside. It's cruel to like not
Speaker 1: take him on walks. So I spent that first day
Speaker 1: just like furiously contacting doctors and like anyone that I
Speaker 1: thought might have an answer to this, Like am I
Speaker 1: allowed to go outside? Can I leave my apartment? And
Speaker 1: if I can't, what the hell am I going to do?
Speaker 1: You're probably thinking, Wait, isn't Sweden at this point world
Speaker 1: famous for its lack of a lockdown for its nationwide
Speaker 1: experiment in creating coronavirus herd immunity. That isn't exactly true.
Speaker 1: It is true that through October twenty twenty, Sweden had
Speaker 1: not imposed any strict laws for its citizens, while other
Speaker 1: European countries are in full lockdown mode with legal implications
Speaker 1: for those who break the rules. Swedes can still go
Speaker 1: to bars and restaurants, and Swedish kids can go to school.
Speaker 1: But as daily coronavirus cases start to explode from just
Speaker 1: a few hundred in September to more than three thousand
Speaker 1: a day in late October, Sweden's national Health agency recommends
Speaker 1: stricter measures in harder hit regions, including Gothenburg. There's still
Speaker 1: just recommendations, but on October twenty ninth, the day before
Speaker 1: Marina finds out she's been exposed to coronavirus on her
Speaker 1: road trip. Residents are asked to stop going in most
Speaker 1: indoor places, and for those who actually test positive for
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen there are special rules. But Marina for now
Speaker 1: is just trying to get a jump on things in
Speaker 1: case she tests positive. So I finally got the ok
Speaker 1: from various powers that be that as long as I
Speaker 1: stayed away from other humans and dogs, I could take
Speaker 1: him outside. But he's a puppy. He doesn't understand this,
Speaker 1: Like he wants to go sniff other dogs butts and
Speaker 1: like go near other people. So I had to really
Speaker 1: be careful to keep him on leash and just like
Speaker 1: keep him away from people while I was waiting for
Speaker 1: the test result, which she gets on October thirty first,
Speaker 1: So happy Halloween to me. Turns out I did have COVID,
Speaker 1: I still had a puppy, and now I had to
Speaker 1: just be at home until I no longer had COVID,
Speaker 1: you know however long that took. For two weeks, Marina
Speaker 1: mostly stays inside her apartment with Roscoe. It's a third
Speaker 1: floor walk up with one bedroom in a balcony pretty
Speaker 1: big for one person, but still a Swedish apartment. I
Speaker 1: would take him, you know, to do his business on
Speaker 1: the balcony, take him on walks twice a day. But
Speaker 1: it became like incredibly stressful because not only was I
Speaker 1: feeling like increasingly more sick, but he still demanded all
Speaker 1: this time and attention and energy. So I had a cough,
Speaker 1: I had like aches and pains, some diarrhea, like it
Speaker 1: felt kind of like a food poisoning plus of flu
Speaker 1: at the same time. Type of a situation. Marina is
Speaker 1: stuck at home and feels like total shit, and then
Speaker 1: things get even worse when Roscoe gets sick too. So
Speaker 1: in addition to his like weird like peeing all the time,
Speaker 1: he started throwing up his food and had like some
Speaker 1: weird poop and stuff. And I'm like, oh no, like
Speaker 1: what do I do Because I can't take him to
Speaker 1: the vet because I have COVID. She finds an app
Speaker 1: that allows her to get a telemedicine appointment, but for dogs,
Speaker 1: I was able to talk to a vet over the app,
Speaker 1: and so I had several appointments that way, just asking
Speaker 1: like is this normal puppy stuff? The vets tell her
Speaker 1: they can't know exactly what's wrong with Roscoe without examining him.
Speaker 1: But she can't get him examined because she has to
Speaker 1: quarantine until she's not contagious. So then during this time,
Speaker 1: like the two weeks that we were like cooped up
Speaker 1: in my apartment, he woke up in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night and started throwing up, and I'm like, crap,
Speaker 1: it's three in the morning. I just like went to
Speaker 1: bed not too long ago, like I'm exhausted. Now I
Speaker 1: have to clean up dog barf. I'm cleaning up this
Speaker 1: dog barf, and then it turns out there are worms
Speaker 1: in it, and I was just like, just kill me now,
Speaker 1: Like my dog has worms, like literal living worms, because
Speaker 1: this is a thing that dogs can get. So luckily
Speaker 1: I had some warm medication for him already, so I
Speaker 1: gave him that. But that was like one of the
Speaker 1: lowest moments where I was just like, my apartment is disgusting.
Speaker 1: It's full of COVID. It's full of like dog pee,
Speaker 1: it's full of like you know, puke with worms in it.
Speaker 1: Like this is just so correct. So now Marina's got
Speaker 1: COVID and her puppy is puking up worms, and she
Speaker 1: can't really do much about it. Plus, she's starting to
Speaker 1: question if Roscoe's previous owner lied to her. He hadn't
Speaker 1: been trained at all, Like he didn't know how to
Speaker 1: walk on a leash. She didn't know a lot of
Speaker 1: basic dog stuff that he should know by being six
Speaker 1: months old. So then I started thinking, like was he
Speaker 1: just not taken care of? Like did someone mistreat him?
Speaker 1: His temperament was very sweet, He just like didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about how to be a dog. So for a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, Marina's sick and Roscoe's sick, but eventually
Speaker 1: Marina starts feeling better, her fever goes away and her
Speaker 1: cough becomes mild. Her doctor tells her she can stop quarantining.
Speaker 1: That was like the big day for me because a
Speaker 1: malt I could go out and do all the things
Speaker 1: I needed to do. And the number one thing I
Speaker 1: needed to do was take Roscoe to the vet to
Speaker 1: see if there was something wrong with him or what
Speaker 1: was up with his situation. The vet tells her that
Speaker 1: Roscoe had been underfed by his previous owners, but he
Speaker 1: seems relatively healthy otherwise. She isn't sure why he's peeing
Speaker 1: so much, but she gives Marina some special food to
Speaker 1: help with the puking. In Sweden, all dogs have an
Speaker 1: ID chip that's like put into their little puppy bodies
Speaker 1: to identify them if they get lost. It's true. All
Speaker 1: Swedish dogs need to have a chip or a tattoo
Speaker 1: marked with a unique ID number, and they have to
Speaker 1: be registered in the Swedish Board of Agricultures Dog Register.
Speaker 1: The register keeps a record of popular names for Swedish dogs.
Speaker 1: Molly and Bella are the most common in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Luda and Siga are close behind. So in addition to
Speaker 1: the chip, Roscoe also has a little puppy passport and
Speaker 1: it turns out his chip number doesn't match the number
Speaker 1: in his passport. They're one digit off one digit And
Speaker 1: I'm like, why is that? And she's like I don't know.
Speaker 1: But her whole demeanor change and she was like, you
Speaker 1: need to get this sordid asap because it is not
Speaker 1: allowed for you to be in Sweden with a dog
Speaker 1: that is improperly registered. She leaves the vet appointment wondering
Speaker 1: how the hell she got into this mess. Maybe he
Speaker 1: was smuggled in maybe that would explain all his health
Speaker 1: issues that he had come from some like Eastern European
Speaker 1: puppy mill, and I had bought him without knowing any
Speaker 1: of this. So I went home and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: really don't know what to do, Like I don't know
Speaker 1: how do I resolve the situation, Like who do I
Speaker 1: talk to to get my dog legal? With no idea
Speaker 1: what to do next, she calls the police. A detective
Speaker 1: tells her to bring the dog into the station. The
Speaker 1: first day I was free to leave my apartment, I
Speaker 1: went to the vet. The second day I was free
Speaker 1: to leave my apartment, I went to the police station
Speaker 1: downtown with my dog. The Swedish detective there doesn't know
Speaker 1: what to do either, but he calls the Swedish Department
Speaker 1: of Agriculture and they tell Marina to go home and
Speaker 1: wait for their call. I come home, give Roscoe a
Speaker 1: new toy because he's been such a champ about all
Speaker 1: of these trips and he doesn't know what's happening, but
Speaker 1: he's been like really cooperative as I like him. All
Speaker 1: over town. That night, she gets a call from a
Speaker 1: woman at the Department of Agriculture. She explains to Marina
Speaker 1: that if the chip by D number doesn't match the
Speaker 1: doggy passport number, then she has only two choices and
Speaker 1: they both completely suck. Option one is you can do
Speaker 1: a two month quarantine with a dog in which he
Speaker 1: has to stay in your home, not be around any
Speaker 1: other humans or animals, and we reserve the right to
Speaker 1: like check up on you, and if you break the
Speaker 1: rules of the quarantine, they're illegal consequences. So I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that seems really extreme. Two whole months of that, and
Speaker 1: I live alone in an apartment, Like, it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: easy in the best of situations. So, while already living
Speaker 1: in quarantine or Sweden's relatively mild version of it, she's
Speaker 1: told that one option for Roscoe is to do an
Speaker 1: extreme two month quarantine with an unhousebroken, worm, puking, adorable puppy,
Speaker 1: with no help from friends, family, or even a vent an.
Speaker 1: Option two was that I could choose to put him down,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, is there option three? Is there? Option zero? Like,
Speaker 1: help me out here? Is there anything else we can do?
Speaker 1: I explain the situation that I still am getting over COVID.
Speaker 1: I'm an American, I don't have like anyone living here
Speaker 1: to help me, it wouldn't be easy, and not to
Speaker 1: mention taking two months off of work, and just like
Speaker 1: the cruelty of not letting a puppy like be around
Speaker 1: other or dogs. It just seemed like even if it
Speaker 1: were possible, it would suck and it would like harm
Speaker 1: his emotional development as a dog to do this. They
Speaker 1: give Marina twenty four hours to make a decision quarantine
Speaker 1: or put Roscoe down. So at first I was thinking, like,
Speaker 1: there has to be another way, and so all of
Speaker 1: my friends and sisters are like trying to dream up
Speaker 1: like other alternatives, like maybe he can go stay in
Speaker 1: a kennel, maybe there's a friend who can take him,
Speaker 1: and I'm like no, they specifically said he's like not
Speaker 1: allowed to leave my apartment. Marina is also living in
Speaker 1: Sweden on a visa, so she's nervous about doing anything
Speaker 1: that can get her kicked out of the country. So
Speaker 1: I slept on it, I cried, I snuggled him. I
Speaker 1: was like a mess. And then the next day I
Speaker 1: woke up and I was I would just like start
Speaker 1: crying at any moment, and poor Roscoe, like he knew
Speaker 1: something was wrong, and he would come up to me
Speaker 1: and like lick my hand and like try to comfort me,
Speaker 1: and and I'm like, oh god, I'm like trying to decide,
Speaker 1: like do I keep you alive or not? But he
Speaker 1: has to make a decision. The twenty four hours go
Speaker 1: by extremely fast, and then ultimately I realized, like I
Speaker 1: am not healthy enough to do this, Like I am
Speaker 1: still recovering from COVID, I am not well, and without
Speaker 1: any help, I won't be able to do this. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get sicker. He's gonna get sicker. And the thing
Speaker 1: that really kind of tipped the scales for me was
Speaker 1: thinking of like just how cool it was to him
Speaker 1: to keep him cooped up with me in the apartment
Speaker 1: without access to the medical care that he needed, Like
Speaker 1: he needed to go back to the vet for more tests,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't going to be allowed to take him
Speaker 1: even to the vet. So Marina makes any credibly difficult choice.
Speaker 1: I called the vet again to make a second appointment,
Speaker 1: and the second appointment was to have him put down.
Speaker 1: The next day, she tries to give Roscoe the best
Speaker 1: morning of his life. She gives him all his favorite treats,
Speaker 1: takes him on a walk, gives him extra cuddles, all
Speaker 1: the things he loves. I was really struggling to keep
Speaker 1: my own emotions in check, and I didn't want that
Speaker 1: to like worry him. So it was just really awful.
Speaker 1: So I put him back in the carrier. Call another uber.
Speaker 1: At the vet's office, everyone is really kind and empathetic.
Speaker 1: So you go there, they check you in, They take
Speaker 1: you to a special room that's sort of like a
Speaker 1: private room where you can be with your dog, just
Speaker 1: the two of you. Because it's Sweden and they love candles,
Speaker 1: there was a lit candle in there, so it's almost
Speaker 1: this life chapel feeling in a way. There's a high
Speaker 1: table covered with a blanket. But Marina can't let Roscoe
Speaker 1: out of her arms. Yet he liked it when I
Speaker 1: would hold him, so I just had him in my
Speaker 1: arms to the point that my arms started getting really sore,
Speaker 1: but I refuse to put him down. But then the
Speaker 1: nurse comes in and explains what's going to happen. First,
Speaker 1: they'll give him a sedative to make him calm. Then
Speaker 1: once it's taken effect, they'll give Roscoe a second injection
Speaker 1: and that's the one that kills him. I put him
Speaker 1: on the table and patted his fur and stroked behind
Speaker 1: his ears as he got the first shot. Then he
Speaker 1: started getting really sleepy, to the point that because of
Speaker 1: the sedative, like he wasn't able to stand up on
Speaker 1: his legs anymore. So he's just sort of like laying
Speaker 1: there and I'm petting him, And then the veterinarian came
Speaker 1: in and gave the second shot, and I remember just
Speaker 1: like looking at him and like one moment he was
Speaker 1: alive and then the next moment he wasn't, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's hard to explain, but even though his body
Speaker 1: was exactly the same outwardly, like you could just tell
Speaker 1: he's not alive anymore. There's no pain for Roscoe in
Speaker 1: his last moments, only for Marina. They leave her in
Speaker 1: the room alone, and I just like cried like a maniac.
Speaker 1: And I had a mask on at this point, so
Speaker 1: like the inside of my mask was all snotty and
Speaker 1: like tears everywhere, and it was very uncomfortable to just
Speaker 1: cry that hard with a mask on. So that's another
Speaker 1: kind of like COVID reality. It's like you can't even
Speaker 1: properly cry, you can't ugly cry in the same way
Speaker 1: because you're going to get snow all over your mask.
Speaker 1: She stays in the room for about fifteen minutes, Then
Speaker 1: she thanks the staff at the vet and then leaves
Speaker 1: and walks all the way home. On that walk back,
Speaker 1: I passed so many people with dogs and just knowing that, like,
Speaker 1: well they have their dog, Like why can't I have
Speaker 1: my dog. It was just so intense, like getting the dog,
Speaker 1: falling in love with the dog, and then losing the
Speaker 1: dog in such quick succession. My head was spinning and
Speaker 1: my heart just hurt. Even though I feel like I
Speaker 1: made the right call to put him down, it was
Speaker 1: really really hard to do. Had it not been COVID,
Speaker 1: if I would have been able to rely on more
Speaker 1: help from friends or get him to a kennel or
Speaker 1: you know, if there wasn't a pandemic, I might have
Speaker 1: found a workaround. But I wasn't able to. She gets
Speaker 1: home and the apartment is a mess. The apartment is
Speaker 1: like a tornado hit it. It's full of like puppy
Speaker 1: things everywhere, all sorts of puppy things that hadn't even
Speaker 1: been opened or used. And I that first day just
Speaker 1: like putting everything into trash bags and boxes and figuring
Speaker 1: out what I can give away and basically like getting
Speaker 1: my apartment back to how it was before I brought
Speaker 1: him home the month before. But even now I still
Speaker 1: have a bunch of puppy things in the closet that
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do with. Roscoe went to
Speaker 1: Doggie Heaven late in twenty twenty. I went through a
Speaker 1: period of essentially grief, because when you lose someone you love,
Speaker 1: even if it's a dog, like they're going to be
Speaker 1: moments where you're sad. And I was emotionally and physically
Speaker 1: exhausted afterwards and still kind of recovering. And then I
Speaker 1: went through a period of what I had assumed was
Speaker 1: like grief slash, just decompressing from this, but it kept
Speaker 1: going on and on and on, and so finally, by
Speaker 1: like early January, I knew something was wrong, and I
Speaker 1: talked to my doctor again and I said that I
Speaker 1: was worried. I was depressed because I wasn't sleeping, I
Speaker 1: wasn't eating, I was tired, like it just didn't feel
Speaker 1: it didn't feel like COVID, but it didn't feel normal.
Speaker 1: So that's when I found out, after a series of
Speaker 1: medical appointments, that not only did I have COVID, but
Speaker 1: then I got what is called long COVID. If you
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with how life destroying long COVID can be
Speaker 1: for some people, we covered it two episodes ago. For me,
Speaker 1: it was manifesting as a lot of like mental health
Speaker 1: stuff and just exhaustion, fatigue, also weird things like I
Speaker 1: started getting headaches which I never got before. I had
Speaker 1: like weird body temperature regulation issues. I would feel cold
Speaker 1: all the time. Looking back, even now, I don't know
Speaker 1: how much of like my post COVID health problems were
Speaker 1: tied to this long COVID thing versus just tied to
Speaker 1: like emotional exhaustion slash pression from going through this like
Speaker 1: really hard experience in such a concentrated time. I think
Speaker 1: essentially it was so stressful and so much anxiety and
Speaker 1: effort in such a concentrated period that it sort of
Speaker 1: like shot my nervous system and it's taken me months
Speaker 1: to get past it. I would not recommend to anyone
Speaker 1: else to get COVID at all, but also to get
Speaker 1: an unhousebroken puppy and COVID on the same day was
Speaker 1: just sheer bad luck, you know. In getting Roscoe, Marina
Speaker 1: was looking for companionship both dog and human while living
Speaker 1: in a foreign country. She was also looking for structure
Speaker 1: during a time when structure completely broke down because of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. I think, like a lot of new pet owners,
Speaker 1: she thought her pet would open up new world. In
Speaker 1: a slightly different world, I would have gone all those
Speaker 1: things I wanted, but in a COVID world, I didn't
Speaker 1: get any of them. On the next episode of long Shot,
Speaker 1: we'll hear about a new, lower cost vaccine being developed
Speaker 1: for COVID nineteen one that could help poorer countries worldwide
Speaker 1: get access. Long Shot is a production of School of
Speaker 1: Humans and iHeartRadio. Today's episode was produced, written, and narrated
Speaker 1: by me Sean Revive. A co producer is Gabby Watts.
Speaker 1: Yay special thanks to Noah Brown and iHeartRadio, Amy shirt
Speaker 1: Left and Cleo Contirapti. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley,
Speaker 1: and Brandon Barr. Fact checking for this episode is by
Speaker 1: Adam Shadoo. Long Shot was scored by Jason Shannon. The
Speaker 1: score was mixed by Vic Stafford. Sound design and audio
Speaker 1: mixed was by Harper Harris with Tune Welders. School of
Speaker 1: Humans