Just Lauren

I have covid.

Hahaha, how do you bounce off of that sentence? For two years I’ve felt unconsciously or consciously afraid of this virus. I thought, on some level of brazenness, that I would never get it. I’d be able to skip and dodge around it, getting vaccines and boosters until I died happy and at peace at age 100 plus.

Welp.

I don’t know how I caught it or when exactly, but my first symptoms showed up Tuesday, January 25th, and boy they haven’t stopped. I’m better, don’t get me wrong, but for the first full 5 days of this, I was miserable. You know some people only get some of the symptoms, but me, I got almost all of them – sore throat, cough, chills, muscle aches, congestion. On the 5th day I got breathing problems and that night lost my sense of smell (which a day later resulted in a loss of most of my tastes). I haven’t slept through the night since that first day. My brain works slower, partly I think because I’m not getting enough sleep, and I have very little energy. Talking can tire me out. TALKING!

I’m not in bad shape. I eat a relatively healthy diet, I exercise somewhat (I walk all the time), and I’m at a good weight. But damn, covid took me out. I considered writing this post days ago, I mean days, but then I’d open the browser to start this post, and I would feel way too tired to even attempt to write something. I didn’t even have the energy to write that first sentence, “I have covid.” Thank goodness I had a What I Like Wednesday post already mostly written, otherwise it would have been skipped this week.

So while I’m better – my sore throat is gone, my cough is lessened in frequency and harshness, I can breathe sometimes – I’m still not quite back to my normal self. Not being able to smell is mostly ok and only sometimes weird but not being able to taste really sucks. It makes me not interested in eating, which is also a new experience for me, haha. Strawberries are just mush, crackers are just crunchy, chocolate is just bitter. I can still taste peanut butter and graham crackers (oddly) but I really want fruit! I want dessert again (I tried putting sugar on the strawberry to see if I could taste that – nope, can’t taste pure sugar either). I can taste some spices so Elisabeth put some red pepper flakes in our soup one night and that was a nice addition. Here’s the one cool thing, because I can’t taste as well, I can eat way spicier things and it doesn’t affect me. According to Elisabeth, the soup was spicy (and she can handle more spice than me) and I barely tasted it! Now, I still want my taste buds to come back asap please, but I’ll have that tiny bit of bragging while I can.

Oh covid, what an experience. The tiny bit of my brain that remained active this whole time (that wasn’t occupied with feeling tired), is finding all this really fascinating. To hear about the symptoms is one thing, but to live them is another. While I did get tested that Wednesday for covid, it came back negative. It wasn’t until Sunday when I did an at home test that it came back positive (according to the clinic I went to for my test, covid hasn’t been showing up on tests until 5 days after symptoms first appear, heads up). I actually felt kind of relieved. This weight of “Will I get this? Will I be ok if I get this?” was removed from my shoulders. I do still worry about long term effects, but what can I do about that now? I have it. I’ll just face whatever happens with the best of my ability.

Sigh. So here I am. One week before moving and I can barely do a thing without getting winded and needing to rest. What timing. But, I’m doing it. I have started packing and am well on my way with plenty of time to spare. Shari will come over this weekend and help pack some more. She’s gonna help me move and my parents will come and help me clean. Thank goodness for a great support system, what would I do without them?!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go blow my nose. 😉

Editor’s note: I wrote this post Wednesday after work and not even an hour after I hit the “schedule post” button, I started getting my sense of smell back. Woohoo!