Welp, I caught COVID.
I felt like I was still being careful, staying home most of the time (a stretch for me, I know…), masking indoors, etc., and was basically only going out to do grocery shopping, walks for exercise, and some required in-office work attendance one day per week. But, on Sunday I started feeling terrible in the early evening, figured I’d try a rapid test on the off chance, and there was the line. Partly my fault though, as I’d been diligent about my first three vaccine shots, but then started slacking on getting the bivalent booster.
It’s definitely the sickest I’ve felt in probably 10-15 years. Not necessarily in intensity, but in length, the spells of fever are lasting longer than they usually do; I’m usually over the worst of it within a day or two, but this is day 4 going on 5 now. Mostly just headaches, an occasional cough, sore throat, and congestion, but there’s the occasional curveball. The theme for my first night of trying to sleep while sick was “oh god why can’t I stop peeing”. I haven’t lost my sense of taste, but it’s a lot harder to smell things, but I’m not sure how much of that is from just plain old congestion. (update: welp, fully lost smell and taste a day later)
And today I had something weird happen: I got up to check my fever and put the thermometer in my mouth, felt a mild pit in my stomach suddenly swell up, and started to completely lose my train of thought as the world seemed to become brighter. All I could think to do was stumble into the bedroom and collapse on the bed, where over the next minute or so the brain fog gradually lifted and I started feeling normal again, and finally noticed I still had the thermometer in hand (reading 37.5C). I had to look up the symptoms afterwards, and it turns out that that’s what fainting actually feels like. Huh. First time in my life.
I seem to be feeling better tonight at least, though it wouldn’t be the first time if it turns worse again by tomorrow. I’ll be hunkering down for a little while longer, at least; the current guideline is to isolate for five days from the onset of symptoms, but that seems a bit short? That would be tomorrow and the symptoms haven’t even cleared yet. Oh well, I’ve got canned food for weeks…