Ten weeks ago the wife and I were on a trip to Scotland, literally on the plane when they declared the pandemic. I will skip the long story and just say we managed to get home but man o man was it rough.
When we arrived back in the US we were greeted by the CDC and told to quarantine ourselves. Okay, we can manage that. We felt fine and had no temperatures.
The next day I had what I usually get on planes, head funk. No biggie. (Now, the plane was essentially empty as were the airports)
Then the wife got a bit sick. And I admit, she coughed on my face while sleeping.
And she got sicker.
And sicker.
Almost every common symptom except temperature. She would go up a teeny bit but right back down. She lost her sense of smell and taste, and body aches like she has never had before. She would cough so hard she’d vomit. I lay awake at night downstairs listening and being absolutely frightened.
Yet I was fine.
She got a bit better for a day, and then dropped even more.
Her doctor told her to take mucinex and Tylenol and stay home and isolated until it got better or she had REAL trouble breathing. She had some, but not quite oxygen deprived. Her coughing was something fierce and scary.
She lived upstairs and I lived downstairs and I delivered water, tea, and what little food she could manage. Even when she did eat it tasted like cardboard. I swear there was three days she ate maybe four pieces of toast. She just couldn’t or wouldn’t eat. I kept trying to get her to drink, but it took everything she had to even do that.
I was texting our daughter and trying to remain optimistic but I was sure she’d have to go to the hospital and possibly get put on a respirator, and if you end up on one of those you’ve got maybe a thirty percent chance of coming out of it alive.
I went through all the insurance paperwork and financial accounts to get them in order and make sure I could continue on. We both felt she was going. She wanted to write notes to the grandkids and couldn’t muster the strength.
And then literally hours after she almost decided to go to the ER she started to get a little better.
And better.
I was afraid to get too optimistic with our daughter, so I held back a bit until I was sure.
But she was mending. Phew.
(Edit: she lost twelve pounds)
So did she have the virus? At the time, we weren’t sure. Her doctor said if she had come in to the ER they would have tested her if they could but she’d probably show negative anyway because she’d been sick for too long. Maybe it was a really bad upper respiratory infection, maybe not. I’ll tell you though, YOU DO NOT WANT THIS!
If we did get the virus we figured it was on The plane going over or on a tour bus with people from all over the world when we went to Loch Ness and the Scottish Highlands. The timing for that is about right. The next day social distancing was put into place. The good news is no one we were exposed to or know has been infected. Our quarantine worked.
The best day I‘ve had in forever was when I finally could hold her at night once again.
So now it’s more than two months later, and I swear she has some mild lingering effects but mostly full normal. God only knows what this does to the body long term. Two weeks ago she went in for an antibody test. One week later, the test showed positive.
So I went in a week ago. Positive. Yup, I had been asymptomatic. I did have the head funk and a slight cough for more than a week, and figured there was no way I hadn’t been exposed, but I still wondered. Oddly enough I live on Prilosec for heartburn and it apparently is one of the things that may help fight COVID-19. Maybe it helped, maybe I just got lucky. Considering my age I did not want to catch this.
Now we just hope you can’t catch it again.
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