I Finally Caught COVID!

Two weeks ago I had COVID! Yes, pretty sad/impressive that I’ve gone 2.5 years without catching it. My working theory was that I was immune/asymptomatic or something – a natural-born genetic gift that I was bestowed with – but no, I was just lucky until a few weeks ago. So good on me for dodging the illness for so long, bad on me for not having special DNA or an OP immune system.

I’m still not sure who gave it to me either. No one at the house has had it besides myself, so I must’ve been infected by someone at work. Who this is, I have a slight idea, not that I can prove it or that it would do any good if I could prove it; I’m just a very curious person.

Last day of work on Thursday. Did some yard work Friday. Early in the Saturday a.m., like 1 a.m., I had a slight sore throat. I felt kinda off, kinda weird. Kinda whatever. No big deal. Sickness had been going around and I always get a sore throat when I do get sick.

Saturday morning crushed my dreams. I woke up at 8 a.m. feeling like shit, just achy and cold and my throat hurt worse than it did earlier. I hit the vape and while I could still taste/smell, I almost knew I had finally caught It. My son woke up, sleeping in our bed, and I basically told him to get the hell away from me and go find mommy. I drugged myself back to sleep and woke up feeling a little better, but not by much. 

It took my sick and diseased ass until 7 p.m. to drive the 2 miles to Walgreens for a COVID rapid test and drugs, plenty of drugs. I’d just nuke the sickness out of me! Keep enough acetaminophen/ibuprofen in my blood and I’ll beat it into submission. The rapid test went as you’d expect. The box instructs you to not read the results until 15 minutes had passed; of course I stared at it from about 10 minutes on. There was a solid fucking line in the result display – a positive result – and as the minutes ticked by it sure didn’t seem to be fading. Like at all! And with about ten seconds left I imagined, and laughed at the futility of the idea, the line simply vanishing and disappearing right at the 15 minute mark. This did not happen and well after 15 minutes that stupid fucking line taunted me. “Gotcha bitch!” I had COVID.

I grabbed a mask and went downstairs. My wife took everyone upstairs, well-away from me. It’d be like I was camping, that’d be fun, right? Oh, of course not. Remember when my dumbass tried to camp in the woods? Where I gave up on the second night because I was so lonely? And how apparently I can’t stand to stay away from people despite the introvert that I am? There was no way I could survive away from people – from my wife and kids? – for a week. And what would I even do? And I’d be off of work? No matter, I thought, I’ll make the best of it. I’ll bike ride, and hike, and work on my shed, and, and I’ll do everything! I’ll stay busy, keep my mood positive, and this hell will be over in no time.

The next day, and the day after, and it’s all a blur that I don’t really remember how many days it was, I was down and out. Basically dead. And it was so strange to me. I didn’t feel real bad physically, I’ve had normal flus worse than COVID, but I no energy. None at all. And my mind was blown by how little I could do with no energy. I was totally useless.

I think I’ve mentioned before how sickness makes you feel old. How you have no energy and just can’t exert yourself to do anything. How I, as still a youngin (sorta?), thought “just power through it, man!” was a valid option. How after catching a few brutal flu/bronchitis episodes made me rethink that whole idea. No, there are sicknesses that are so shitty and bad that they rob you of energy and motivation itself. You don’t just feel bad, you feel dead. Like time is ticking away and you’re so goddamn bored but you can’t physically do anything besides lay there because getting up feels like such a chore.

Covid was by far my worst expiernce in the “draining sickness” category. Even if I felt worse with the flu/bronchitis, COVID held nothing back when it came to general exhaustion. It was miserable and I learned how terrible having no energy can be. Physically not being able to go on a bike ride – I expect that – but physically/mentally not being able to text people? Yes, that’s a thing! In the depths of my loneliness I could barely hold text conversations with people. The best way I can explain it was I had no energy! And it’s so hard to elaborate beyond that.

I tried to crank out a blog post about the whole affair, but after a paragraph or two I’d burn out. The paragraphs would get shorter and eventually just fizzle out. I tried this five times! I still couldn’t make even the smallest most stupid bullshit post about COVID while desperately wanting something to do to keep busy with. Like shit, I knew COVID has “exhaustion” as a symptom but not like that. Jeez.

Another thing to note: I didn’t have the energy to eat food. So as my body is using all the energy it can find to fight COVID I’m just not feeding it. Think about how that would work with a severe case; your body could run out of energy to fight the disease. And then shit goes bad and you end up in the hospital. Not that that’s how it really happens – I don’t do proper research – but maybe? It was a scary thought for someone unwillingly starving themself for a half week.

Wednesday was my first “coherent” day. I think I pretended I was symptom free but I probably wasn’t. Thursday, a little better. I called my boss Friday to update her and actually ask if I was going to be paid, things I couldn’t do with the whole no energy thing, which was a good sign of improvement. One of those days I went on a bike ride. It was a short, 3 mile ride around the neighborhood and I about died. Sunday, the day before heading back to work, I went on another bike ride. This time I hit the zone at mile 3 and somehow on a 12 mile adventure. It was great! I felt tired but as this was the first real bike ride this year and that I’m terribly out of shape and recovering from COVID I’d say I felt way better than I should’ve. 

I didn’t even ache much the next day! Monday at work, I still had a lack of energy and couldn’t be bothered to deal with anything. By Tuesday I was back on my game, sort of, and the rest of the week improved as it went. So my COVID is over. Thank fucking Yahweh.

And I even have a blog post to show for it. Yay?! Yay.

Fun fact: since my wife is kinda crazy and irrational about COVID and kept everyone away from me at all times, no one else in our household of eight people caught it. Not the two little kids, not the three teenagers, not the two adults, nor the one elderly lady. My mind is blown. I assumed we’d all get it but nope, her craziness came through wonderfully. Like they’re still avoiding me even after a week of being better and working, but whatever. I’ll let them be crazy even if I am miserably lonely.

How to wrap this up? Fuck COVID. Seriously. I’m a bit late to party about that here in 2022, but whatever. Fuck COVID. You know those fucks that say COVID is just another flu? Yeah, even if it is, or will be (because we let COVID just run rampant here because we suck dick at doing anything properly), fuck that. It was not a fun time! Like I didn’t die or have any really bad shit happen to me, but I did lose a whole week of my life just being sick. Fuck that. I suppose I should bring up the whole “just a flu” side of the family and how they got my grandma killed from it, but there was already a post about that and let’s not get into it again. COVID sucked, I don’t want to catch it again.