Antonio

OGDEN, UTAH - JUNE 22, 2020: I dedicated my life to an establishment I was Djing at in Park City in mid February. 

I had moved back temporarily from LA to spend the spring remodeling my house.

I played on Saturday and a really sick man came up to the DJ booth. I could tell he was really sick because he was coughing and sneezing. He came up to tell me what a good job I was doing. I politely asked him to step back as he was coughing like crazy. 

I started not feeling too well around March 7th and I suspected something different than the flu or any cold. My symptoms were slightly neurological so I didn’t really know what was going on. I started sneezing a bunch--always covering my sneezes and using my pocket sanitizer. 

I was still working but just trying to not act too paranoid, and I thought it was a little ridiculous that I was automatically thinking that I had Coronavirus. 

I was worried because of a book my ex-girlfriend gave me in High School called, The Hot Zone, a book about the Ebola virus. Since then, I’ve been fascinated and terrified of virology -- kinda like how girls my age are into serial killers I suppose.  

I drove home from Park City to Ogden, kinda feeling like I had a little cold. Nothing crazy. It actually felt like I was getting better, but I had watched a video of this kid in Britain who’d gotten it, so I decided to quarantine just to be safe, canceled two gigs and got yelled at by clients on the phone. I could’ve played the gigs. I didn’t feel terrible. 

My fever started to climb got really high over the next few days, I had a hard time walking, and I started coughing, and I was worried that I had Covid, I decided to call my doctor but they told me that I had to pick up the test at Walgreens to take to my clinic to get tested. I was worried that I had something else that probably just needed major attention. 

I started coughing up blood. 

I called the Covid Hotline the next day and was told that it was safe for me to go to my walk in clinic and that I probably didn’t have Covid because there weren’t too many cases in Utah. 

My boss at my work really wanted me to get tested, everyone in Park city was social distancing that I had came in contact with. 

I didn’t trust them and called ahead to the emergency room, and they said they’d be ready to receive me when I got there. 

I tracked to the local emergency room, They denied me entrance into the ER, so I was forced to drive 45 minutes to an ER in Layton. 

I didn’t want to get anyone infected in the Healthcare industry, I made a couple hazmats suits in case things got serious. I was really weak driving so I pulled over and slept in my car for an Hour. I woke up and wrote notes on my windows saying, 

I might be Covid positive. 

Please take precautions. 

I stopped at the top of SR93 to admire the sunset over antelope island. There was a little bit of snow. My thoughts were pretty intense as I thought about how crazy it is that we live on planet with all these people and all these problems. I wondered if there were others in the world who were in my same situation, on the way to the hospital, admiring the view, thinking about space. 

I thought about when my dad use to take me for rides in his Volkswagen and how he’d boast about how amazing his car was. 

I got to Davis hospital, sanitized all my belongings in the parking lot, clothes. Changed into my hazmat suit and entered the hospital. 

(I had N95 masks and PPE from my house restoration)

It seems like there were a lot of people in there getting tested and concerned about getting Covid. But when I walked in, the entire room stopped and everyone was quiet. 

Everyone looked at me, and people started moving away from me, and I could tell at that point, I’m probably positive... its it’s almost if they knew. 

I wrote my name down on the forms, 

I could barely write anything, and after I wrote it... I looked at the paper and just saw scribbles. 

I went to my room I laid in my hospital bed and my heart starting acting weird so I started pacing around the room and wanted to leave. I was so scared. I was having a panic attack. I kept saying to myself. “Please let me go.” 

“I wanna go home.” 

The doctor came in and tested me with a nasal swab and gave me a aspirin, and x ray. I was told I had pneumonia, and I was sent home. 

I was terrified because I wasn’t sure I was going to make it home. I went to my car and started crying. I wrote a will on my phone and looked at myself in the mirror and my mask was stained with blood from my coughing. 

I thought about my dog and a girl I use to like, We use to go tagging late at night or we would try making recipes she found online, or we would drive around and listen to music. I was so sad that I didn’t marry her. She would call me Mario, because I was dressed up like Mario for Halloween and I saved her from some creepy dude at the bar. I carried her out. 

I thought about how alone I was, but I thought about the good times I had shared with friends and her and my pup. I remember my girlfriend in High School, the one that gave me the book the Hot Zone, I thought about how much I hated her racist family. I thought about the stories from my grandmother who lost her mom to tuberculosis, and how Hauntivirus was the reason why people were scared of the Navajo. I was just really thinking of everything and feeling tons of emotions.

Before I knew it I was driving my car and having all these thought running through my head, keeping my mind of my high fever. 

My mom called me and said, “I don’t think you’ve got Covid, there’s no cases in Utah.” and she went on to ask me to come stay with her at her house in Midvale. 

I remember saying, “Mom. Please. I don’t want to give this to anyone. 

I had little to no strength, and I don’t remember much. I was saving my garbage to burn because people like to go through my trash. 

I got worse the next few days, I was crawling on my floor at times, I was drinking soup straight from the can because I couldn’t remember if I would leave the stove on. I wasn’t using the bathroom because I wasn’t able to eat or drink much, There’s a part where I woke up a day later on the bathroom floor and blood all over. My fever dipped to 102. I decided to take a ton of DayQuil and prepare for the worst. 

The only thing I could do is be responsible at this point. I looked at myself in the mirror and told myself, 

“I need to be responsible.” 

I made a hazmat suit to wash my dog and put her upstairs, I said goodbye to her and cried, I wrote notes all over my house and slept on plastic wrap in case my body needed to be moved. I set up what I thought was a good scenario for removal of my body without anyone risking infection with removal.

I went to sleep thinking about all the times my grandmother took me to the reservation and places to see things, the time my dad would take me to his dance classes, I thought about the time my mom took me to six flags after I was suspended for knocking a kid out who was bullying me in school. I thought about my grandfather and how he knew he was doing to die, and called me to his house a week before.

My phone was going off the hook, I think all of my friends and family knew something was wrong. 

People I haven’t talked to in years, Ex girlfriends, enemies... I kept telling everyone I was ok even though I wasn’t. I didn’t want anyone to get infected. 

I laid in bed and my heart was really acting weird. I heard my dog crying upstairs while I went to sleep for what I thought was going to be the last time. 

I woke up the next morning and was drenched in sweat. I took my temp and it was 99.4 

I was shocked because it hadn’t been that low in forever, I drank water and was able to hold it down. I was shocked again.

I waited to throw up, usually anytime something hit my stomach I would puke. My body accepted the water and I felt so refreshed. I can’t even describe the feeling. I felt like how people pretend to look refreshed in soda commercials. 

I ate a bunch of dry oatmeal and was drinking bagged cheese. I threw up because I was eating too much too fast, and then I heard my ringtone, “Days go by and still I think of you....”A song by Dirty Vegas. 

I ran into my living room and picked up the phone to hear,

“Hey this is Amy from the Weber Morgan Health Department, is this Antonio Cruz Martinez?” 

And I was like , 

“Yeah...”

(Amy is a recent ex, so I was a little confused because health Department Amy and my Ex sounded the same)

“So we got your test results back and it looks like you’ve tested positive for Covid-19.”

I started crying, I put the phone on mute and said “oh I fucking knew it, you stupid sons of bitches treated me like a first class asshole... fuck you.”

And then I took the phone off mute, wiped my tears and I said something like, 

“Wow... ....ok.” , in a serious tone 

Amy asked me to compose a list of measures to take and to notify when my symptoms were gone. After my last symptom I’d be placed on 72 hour end to my quarantine. 

I don’t live anywhere near any family, so my good friends were kind enough to leave food on my doorstep, the health Department also brought a few things by as well, I’m glad they didn’t hear my rant.

I had to make a post on Facebook, because I didn’t have enough energy to call the 70-80 people I had come in contact with. Nobody got infected. I was shocked because I had shared a drink and food with a girl on Park City. I was damn sure she would’ve been infected. Her work took it serious, and I was great full for that. 

I got better over the next few days, watching the country get locked down, watching the conspiracies fly around. 

I probably got close to 1,000 messages on all formats about Covid. 

Religious folks telling me to be healed, Religious folks telling me that I need to reveal myself in the name of god because I’m not who I say I am.

Friends of mine who are conspiracy theory junkies who ended our friendship because they felt I was lying about having Covid. People who found some alternative medicine remedy for Covid. People who were worried themselves about having Covid. I spent my time getting better but I was on my phone for 15 hours a day trying to calm people down, and reassuring them that they would be fine, and that I would be there for them if they needed anything. 

It’s a surreal feeling being the most paranoid person, and when I get surrounded by paranoid people, it makes me calm. 

I always worry that the plane is going to crash, but if someone on the plane starts vocally worrying, I find myself comfortable for some odd reason.  

I pushed to recover, fought through breathing problems the next few weeks and gave my self an extra 3 weeks to take the upmost precautions with anyone. 

I now struggle to see what the future holds, I started to DJ when the economy collapsed in 2007, and now DJing which requires me to play at places with people is out of the picture for now. I don’t know where else to turn. The bar I dedicated my Career to got a government relief grant and decided to exclude me from it. 

I was denied unemployment by the state. 

I don’t have any sources of income and I’m depending on people again. 

Getting fired for having Covid and watching the whole staff go on a fancy golf trip was really tough. I felt betrayed. 

Djing saved my life in 2008, but with the world right now, it’s rare venture to risk.

As much as this was hard for me, I kept seeing the Navajo Nation Suffer. So I decided to spend a majority of my stimulus check on helping the people on the Reservation.