Around noon on Sunday, November 14th, I developed a really bad stuffy nose. So bad that I couldn't breathe through my nose at all; I could only breathe through my mouth. (I became a true mouth-breather.)
Thinking it was just a cold, I did my favorite thing to remedy it and took a bath later in the afternoon. When I got out of the bath, my body was shivering and I felt very cold. I also felt tired. I stayed in bed most of the night, shivering and sweating.
On Monday, I woke up in a pool of my own sweat and felt the same as the night before. However, as the day progressed, my chills got worse and I had to sign off of work and go lay down in bed. I agreed to take a COVID test the next day since this did not seem like a cold anymore. I also lost my sense of smell and taste on this day. My high temperature was 100.2.
Tuesday was more of the same, but slightly worse. Took the test and results came back positive for coronavirus, which by that point was not a surprise. Bethany and the girls, who we took out of school, got tested as well, but the three of them came back negative.
I called my doctor's office and spoke to a nurse about what I should do. The nurse said to just rest and drink lots of fluids like you would for a flu. Only need to go to the emergency room if I had trouble breathing or had feelings of confusion, which I did not. She sounded very relieved over the phone when I told her that I was fully vaccinated and said that it should not be too bad because of that. She advised on taking Tylenol instead of Advil, which seemed to really be more effective. She also gave instructions on how to self-quarantine from my family.
I stayed in my bedroom for most of the day. Bethany fixed up one of our guest rooms with the intention to sleep there. If we were graded on how well we kept me quarantined, we'd get a big fat F. I ate dinner with the family, albeit 10+ feet away and I always wore a mask when not in my bedroom. Additionally, Bethany ended up being uncomfortable in the guest room and came to sleep in our bed anyway. My temperature reached its all-time COVID high of 101.2 that night.
Day 4 is when I actually started to get a little sore throat. Not the worst sore throat I've ever had, or even on the top ten list of worst sore throats I've had. Again, Tylenol helped a lot with that. One improvement was that my nose cleared up and I was able to breathe through it again. My sense of smell/taste was still completely gone.
By Thursday, I was able to work from home again, which was good because we had two team members out for the rest of the week starting that day. So, I was feeling better. Slight chills, but nothing like before. Normal temperature readings. Starting to turn around.
I neglected to mention that earlier in the week on Monday, my long-awaited Nvidia RTX 3080 finally arrived after much delay. But because I had been feeling so bad, I did not have a chance to install it yet. Well, Friday afternoon was the first time I felt strong enough to crack open my computer and get the sucker in there. Upgraded to Windows 11, installed Microsoft Flight Simulator, and I was off to the friendly skies that night. Point is, I was feeling much better.
Fast forward to now. It has been 17 days since my initial symptoms. I have lots of leftover phlegm and coughing in the mornings, but that clears up pretty quick. My smell and taste sense are still pretty shot. I would estimate that I have 10% of my smell/taste back at this point. It has been the most frustrating lingering symptom since I love my food.
To this day, Bethany and the girls have not tested positive and I am constantly scratching my head wondering how that happened. Bethany and Julie are fully vaccinated, so I guess it makes sense for them, but Coral is not vaccinated at all yet and I am surprised she did not catch it from me. This makes me wonder if I caught it from one of them since the science says that you can still transmit COVID to others even though you are vaccinated. I don't know and I guess it's not that important at this point.
So, key takeaways from my experience?
Get vaxxed. I personally recommend getting vaccinated if you are able to. It's not in my nature to ever push something on people, so you're not going to get a big fight out of me if you refuse, especially if you are young and healthy. I get the hesitation... I really do, but I do believe it helped my symptoms be less severe and got me through it quickly.
Take Tylenol for pain. I used Advil a lot at first because it usually breaks my fevers better, but Tylenol did seem to be more effective.
Drink lots of water and electrolytes. Gatorade, Bodyarmor SuperDrink, and Emergen-C were all the non-water fluids that helped me.
Rest. You won't really have the energy to do anything else anyway, so grab a good book, get your tablet or phone, and just lay in bed.
The experience is different for everyone. I spoke to others who had breakthrough cases of COVID and I learned that this thing impacts people differently. Some are knocked out for two weeks, some just have a mild cough, some can't smell or taste for a week, and some can't smell or taste for months.
It's inevitable. I'll talk about this more below, but this is another place where you can take my advice or leave it. My line of thinking right now is we're all going to catch COVID at some point. You've probably heard some people say how this is probably going to be like the flu moving forward and I am definitely finding myself in that camp lately. I am inarguably the most cautious in my family. I am a medically-diagnosed hypochondriac, I got vaccinated as soon as I could, I am strict about masks, and I use hand sanitizer religiously. I still caught it and I have no idea where I caught it or who I caught it from. Listen, I would love for you or the data to prove me wrong, but with the way things are going, I just don't see an end to this. So, prepare yourself, stay healthy, keep practicing good hygiene and you'll get through this.
As we approach the 2-year mark of COVID-19's initial outbreak, the numbers for reported infections and deaths in the U.S. are as follows:
Schools started back up across the country in various forms back in August and September. Mostly, in-person education is back, but with masks, heavier cleaning procedures, and social distancing. Even at lunch for some schools:
At this point, I get e-mails almost everyday regarding positive cases found at my kids' schools or bus routes:
Sporting events are at full capacity, some workplaces are having employees come back to the office, theme parks have re-opened, and concerts and events have returned. Even I went to a sold-out concert back in September:
According to a recent study from Columbia University, 31% of the U.S. population had COVID by the end of 2020. Many people didn't know it. Many had symptoms that were so mild, they thought it was a cold. Many didn't have any symptoms at all. If those are 2020 numbers, imagine what they are now. With delta still floating around, and the new omicron variant, and the other imminent mutations and variants that will evolve, imagine what the numbers will be next year.
I'm not trying to scare you. In fact, I'm trying to do quite the opposite by normalizing this virus. I think it's here to stay. Again, you can take my advice or leave it. I am not a doctor and I'm far from being an expert on this matter at all. I write what I experience and what I see and this is what I see. You are probably going to get COVID, or you already had it. Maybe more than once. It's more than likely going to be okay. It will be better if you are prepared and anticipate it.
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