A lot has happened in the last few weeks. On October 26th, a Sunday, I noticed I had a cough. Or I should say a cough that seemed a little different than my usual cough. But, like all of us, every time I had a tickle in my throat or felt a little run down I didn’t want to jump to the paranoid conclusion that I was about to die of Covid. I went to work the next morning. By noon, still with the unusual cough, I began to feel it was irresponsible for me to be around others and I went home.

The next morning, Tuesday the 27th, I drove across town and got swabbed. I worked from home that day and waited for my results. 

On Wednesday, October 28th, I got the news: I was positive for hoax pox. 

I immediately notified my friends and family. There were about five people I had significant contact with on Monday before I began isolating. Those folks would have to quarantine themselves now, although truth be told that wasn’t much different than what they were already doing.

I began to feel sicker. My cough was soon joined by a fever. I wondered how bad this was going to get. I’m 52 years old, significantly overweight, and I smoked for 30 years before quitting 18 months ago. I didn’t feel too lucky playing the Covid lottery.

My fever never rose to alarming levels, but I became debilitatingly tired. I would rise from bed in the morning, sit in a chair, and remain there all day. I had no desire to eat anything, but I forced myself to try. This is when I discovered that I did indeed have that no taste/no smell symptom that you hear about. 

I tried to eat a Clif bar. It might as well have been a dirt clod. After a few bites I just couldn’t continue. On another occasion, I microwaved some chicken noodle soup. It might just as well have been a bowl of hot water with soaked Kleenex swimming around in it.

Thank goodness I have wonderful friends who bought me everything I needed during this time. They would leave bags of groceries and supplies on the doorstep of my building. My trip down the stairs and back up again with bags in hand was very difficult. It was a day’s energy, gone in just that one task. 

By the next week I began experiencing a frightening new symptom. It felt like a weight on my chest causing me to gasp for each breath. In addition to taking my temperature several times a day, I was also taking my oxygen level. It never dropped below 93, but that isn’t a great reading. It was resolved that if it got any worse, I would go to the emergency department.

Three days later, I began to breathe normally again. My fever was pretty much gone, too. I was taking Mucinex during the day and NyQuil at bedtime. Soon I was left with only exhaustion, an inability to eat, and that damned cough.

This lasted for another couple of weeks. Then everything seemed to be going in the right direction. I wasn’t quite as exhausted. I could eat things and those things tasted increasingly like food. The CDC says that when you get diagnosed, you have to quarantine yourself for a minimum of 10 days. Then, if you have had no fever for 48 hours and your symptoms are getting better (with the exception of taste/smell), then you may reenter the world of the living. And so I did. 

Anyway, that is how I spent the month of November. When I finally left my apartment I was surprised to see the street decked out in Christmas lights. I returned to work, although my energy levels were still such that I could do almost nothing else. I still struggled to eat at the appropriate times. I was pretty much never hungry.

Now, five-and-a-half weeks later, I can say that I’m fully recovered. Except…when I returned to work I discovered a new symptom that I hadn’t realized I had: brain fog. I noticed it when I could not think of a word I wanted to say. Like an ordinary word that you might use several times a day. I eventually would get it. But those 15 seconds during which I could not think of the word “sink” or “lock” were–and remain–unsettling.  And that’s not the only manifestation of this issue. I also discovered that I had an intermittent inability to spell. I first realized that it was a problem when I went to type the word “crazy.” I typed c-r-a-y…wait does the z go at the end? That can’t be right. I tried again but could not figure it out.

Unbelievably, I did it again just now in the paragraph above. 

So is this it? I got knocked down a few IQ points and that’s my Covid legacy? If so, I guess I should count myself lucky. And maybe it, too, will fade away like the other symptoms have. All I can say is that I’m very grateful that I have recovered and very grateful to my dear friends who have supported me so well during this scary time. 

One more thing. How’d I get it? Where did I get infected? The places I would go in the weeks leading up to my diagnosis were few. The grocery store. Work, with my tight bubble quarran-teammates. (None of whom got sick, by the way.) The six foot walk into Papa Murphy’s to grab my already-paid-for pizza off the shelf. Aside from work, everyone including myself was masked. Well, there was the odd person at Sendik’s who wasn’t, but they were few and I never went anywhere near them. 

And there was that week where there were contractors working in my apartment all day long while I was at work. They weren’t masked. I even confronted them about it one morning when I was leaving and they were just arriving. Their work was concluded eleven days prior to me getting sick. 

And then there was Jeff’s. Good ol’ Jeff’s Spirits. At one point the employees all wore masks, or at least most of them did. Customers were a mixed bag, but again I stayed away from them and I was in and out in probably two minutes. No dilly dally. I grabbed a bottle of wine, paid for it, and was out. 

But after a while the staff stopped wearing masks. I was annoyed but I still went in now and then. I shouldn’t have. I’m convinced now that this is where I contracted the virus. It was by far the most risky thing I was doing at that time. I should have known better. I should have been more careful. 

Incidentally, I was just there last night, grabbing a bottle of wine, and–no masks. Not one employee with one on. Not that it is of great concern to me now. It’s a fair assumption that I have at least a few months of immunity. Not that I’m taking additional risks. I’m carrying on just as before.

That’s my story. Hopefully the real conclusion of it will be when you and me and everyone else with sense gets injected with a vaccine. Be safe and stay well, my friends.