Recovering from Covid-19 and Looking Back

(Apologies, blogger won't let me space out paragrpahs) Yes, you read that correctly, I am now one of the 26+ million world wide that is officially recovered from covid-19. I would have documented my experience as it happened, but felt like I wanted it fully out of the way before sharing the story. In short, I was one of the lucky ones and experienced very mild symptoms, which were basically low level flu symptoms. This included a slight fever topping out at 101 degrees and some minor chills. All symptoms were gone within roughly 36 hours, and by the time my positive covid test came back four days after the onset of symptoms, I had already been symptom free for three days. I'm actually very glad to trust my gut and get tested, even when already feeling better, as I would have likely dismissed the short lived symptoms as a fluke cold and gone about my life as normal and visiting friends and family. I self isolated until getting my results and then quarentined until 10 days after my symptoms were gone, for a total quarentine of 12 days, just to be safe. I'm surprisingly thankful for a positive result, as I know there have been false negatives, and at least I had some closure on what I was experiencing. After, and during, my quarentine myself and the health department did a thorough contact tracing with people I had been in proximity to the past few weeks, including my one roomate. Thankfully, everyone eventually tested negative, and over two months later are still negative. I can attribute much of this to taking serious precautions during my quarentine, especially with a housemate I share a kitchen, fridge, sink, and laundry with. This included wearing a mask when leaving my bedroom, wearing latex gloves, and regularly sanitizing exposed surface areas for two weeks. The sanitation practices continue til this day. The toughest part of the whole journey wasn't the 24 hours of symptoms, but the fear that friends and family had about when it would truly be safe to be around me again. Thankfully, science has shown how safe I am to be around and I've now visited with family with nobody getting sick. The other thing was that during quarentine I watched a lot of videos of other people's experiences and none were very good. Many were healthier looking people my age, but who dealt with weeks, if not months of fatigue, low blood oxygen saturation and other long term symptoms. Because of that, there was always this little voice in my head that wondered if things were going to get worse any given day and that this couldn't possibly be it. And, yet, my only "long term" symptom was loss of smell and taste, both of which came back after two weeks. My running and strength training feel no different now, than before, with strength actually being slightly better post covid. That said, if anything is going to get people to engage in healthy lifestyles, knowing that it could drastically improve your covid expierence, should you get it, should be one of them. Anyway, below is some of what I journaled during my brief covid experience over two months ago, and I hope it provides a sense of ease and relief that while this virus can be fatal, for many, it's no different than my experience, or a complete non experience at all. Be safe, get tested, and take care! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Final week of July, 2020. About two weeks ago my family had a bout with what turned out to be a random viral cold. Within a 48 hour period several family members reported fevers, with the longest duration being about three days. Of course, in this day in age you can't be too careful, so of course covid-19 tests were taken and all thankfully came back negative.

Flash forward one week, and after a weekend of feeling great, I woke up on Monday morning with a fever of 101.3 (a newer thermometer read 101.0). And yes, those are Christmas themed pajamas #workingfromhome.

Well, that was a bit of a shock, and it's tough to say if this was the same cold that went around my family, as seven days had already passed before being exposed to it. It should also be noted, my immune system has always been pretty strong and I really can't recall ever getting sick or getting the flu. My immune system is what allowed me to NEVER miss a day of school from kindergarten to my high school graduation. Then again, I am now pushing 40, so let's not pretend I have that teen and college aged immunity anymore.

As Monday progressed, the fever stayed at 101, occasionally dropping every few hours. Other flu like symptoms were starting to pop up, including minor aches and pains combined with random chills, but again, not that unlike the flu.

But, alas, in this day in age, you can't be too careful, so I called Sentara Health Care and scheduled a virtual doctor's visit. After a five minute briefing, the nurse practitioner said I had enough symptoms to be approved for a drive up covid-19 test the next morning, something I was not eligible for when my family got sick, since I had no symptoms.

Recently, when a family member got their covid test, it was self administered and they only had to stick a swab an inch into their nose. I had seen and heard the "horror" stories of the long swabs being shoved all the way back into people's nasal cavities for testing, and was relieved that mine probably wouldn't be like that.

Wrong.

So, of course my covid-19 test turned out to be the dreaded nasopharyngeal swab. Admittedly, I had always been a little curious as to how this experience was, so part of me was really interested in getting to do this myself. I pulled up to a small Sentara parking lot, mask on, and called inside to check in. Within about five minutes a nurse comes out in full upper body covering with several 4-5 inch long swabs that look like mini pipe cleaners. In this particular test they have to swab both nostrils, so I get to have double the fun.

Some people suggest closing your eyes and holding your breath during the test. My curiosity got the best of me and I watched as this swab slowly disappeared into places in my face that I never knew existed. I wondered. Can they see my thoughts? Once fully inserted, the nurse spins the swab causing a burning sensation similar to when you accidentally breath water in through your nose. Some people's instincts can kick in and although this didn't happen to me, you might find yourself wanting to jerk your head away. Anyway, the second nostril was the same as the first. Immediately after the test I started sneezing, which is one of the reasons they hand you tissues before the test, and because in some cases it can cause a nose bleed. For those wondering about the long swab test, it certainly isn't pleasant, but rather uncomfortable. I also think getting a nurse with good experience probably makes a big difference. That said, a big thank you to all the medical staff for providing and performing these tests, and really putting themselves in harms way to make our community safer.

I will say, I was impressed with the ease of the process. It took only 15 hours between the virtual doctor's visit and the actual drive up test. It should take 3-5 days for results, and I am to quarantine completely until then. While, I hope that the result is negative, I do feel like a positive test could provide more educationally. As someone who is very diligent about wearing face coverings and sanitizing, it would make me wonder all that more where my best practices fell short. I really don't go out much, but the places I do are mainly grocery stores and the gym, again both places I take a lot of precautions.

The gym is the place that concerns me the most. You have a lot of people in a small condensed indoor space breathing hard, sweating, and not required to wear face coverings while actively working out. Despite a generally strong culture around sanitizing and wiping down equipment before and after use, I can't help but think of the things people still never wipe down. The biggest culprits are usually the free weights, but in retrospect, it's the actual weight plates that people use on the Smith machines that I can tell you NEVER get cleaned. I can't imagine the number of times I've touched those and incidentally touched my face, or wiped off sweat.

Well, I guess we'll know in a few days. And please stay safe, because quarantining is boring as crap and I'm tired of eating Hot Pockets.

Update: Wednesday morning, temp is already down to normal. All flu like symptoms are gone. I do, however, have a noticeable loss in my sense of smell and taste. I can smell about 10-20% of what I think things should smell like. This is a tell taled sign of covid, so my gut is thinking that I do have it, and my pharmacist sister strongly agrees. I'm not sure how much I would even trust a negative test result at this point. To be continued......