Friday, June 11, 2022, a date that will live in infamy, is when I started having symptoms of covid-19. After 2 years of living cautiously according to CDC guidelines, and a full 2-1/2 years after we first hear about the SARS-COV-2 virus, it’s finally happened.

I remember in the early days there was a CDC quote that indicated everyone in the United States would eventually be exposed to the virus. For months we got daily updates on the spread of the disease and reminders of precautionary measures. These turned into weekly briefings and now there is hardly anything at all. In March of 2021, I reported that covid had already decreased the average life expectancy in the United States by 1.13 years (for that episode got to RunningAFEVER.com/252.

But by the summer of 2021 stats had gotten so much better in the United States, the transmission was very low in my locality, and things were looking up. Mask restrictions had been cut back. For me a key event of that time is burned in my memory. It was about this time of year, great weather here in Northwest Arkansas. A friend had gotten great tickets to the Chicago concert here at the outdoor venue Arkansas Music Pavillion also known as the AMP. Chicago is one of my favorite bands, hits spanning across decades, great songs, great musicians, and I’d never seen them live before. They were just getting back from their year of covid exile and this was one of their first shows. They were excited to be there and playing for us, the crowd was ecstatic, it seemed, just to be out in public without having to stay 6 feet apart and wear masks and not even shake hands. We were caught up in it and it was about the best time I’ve had in a long while.

We thought the nightmare was finally over. Then things got worse. Much worse, spiking to hundreds of thousands of new cases. The delta variant had been discovered in the previous year, which was more contagious than the original virus. Vaccines were being distributed but were limited in supply. By November the omicron variant had been discovered, which multiplies 70 times faster than the delta variant, and it soon become the overwhelming majority of cases. In early 2022 my county in Arkansas was seeing hundreds of new cases a day.

Now we’re back to thinking it’s over. I rarely bother checking stats. Transmission is low in my county. Due to my injury, I’m still working from home all the time. But somehow I got this thing. Now I don’t know if it is the omicron variant, but it probably is.

Late last week, let’s call it Friday, I started noticing a reduction in my sense of taste. Nothing tasted good. My appetite hadn’t changed; I just couldn’t find anything I wanted. Saturday I started having nasal congestion and drainage. Later in the day I became very tired and had body aches. Sunday and Monday I was pretty much sleeping all day, only getting up in the evening to watch some videos and eat my small and only meal of the day. Using the free home rapid response test I got a positive result on Monday.

Tuesday I was feeling a little better. I went to my doctor’s office and saw the Nurse Practitioner there. She said that the home rapid response test is very reliable when the test is positive and didn’t see a need for a PCR test. I asked why I had a more severe set of symptoms, considering I had been vaccinated and had 2 booster shots. She said the vaccines were exactly the same as when they were first released, while the virus has mutated. But the vaccine will still help prevent more serious conditions, hospitalization, being on a ventilator, and death. She related that she lasted until January 2022 before she got it (awesome for a front-line medical pro). She was very sick as well.

There were 2 options for treatment, one involved a new drug Paxlovid (we first heard about it as remdesivir). The second was basically just treating the symptoms. A Zpack (azithromycin) and a steroid that I would take for five days. This is the option I chose, though I don’t think I got the 5th steroid because my cat moved it under something. The bubble package was just too crinkly and shiny for her to resist.

The Nurse Practitioner also said the symptoms could get better or worse day to day, but fortunately, I’ve been getting better ever since. Guidelines say I can be around others now, socially distanced with a mask. But I’m contagious for 20 days and I’m going to try to quarantine that long.

So covid-19 is still something to be concerned about, and it’s still important to get vaccinated and test yourself if you think you might have been exposed. The home rapid response test kit that I used is available for free at covidtests.gov/tests, link in the show notes. It’s real easy, 2 clicks, enter your address and it’s in your mailbox a few days later. Everyone should keep a couple of these around for an easy test option. The directions are kind of complicated, but after the first one, it’s not that hard to do. There is an app but I didn’t use it. It has a timer, and a reporting functionality as well.

Links:
http://RunningAFEVER.com/252
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/about-covid-19.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2_Delta_variant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2_Omicron_variant
https://www.covid.gov/tests