COVID-19
I became a statistic as a break-through case because I got a positive test result back last week. I’ll share my experience and opinions on it for anyone interested. I’ve been more than cautious for well over a year. And when I say cautious… We took delivery groceries and skipped anything social until we were vaccinated. I’ve continued to wear a mask almost anywhere I’m indoors with others. I had the J&J vaccine back in late March. I’m in good health and I exercise regularly. I get my flu shot annually and I very rarely get sick. This last weekend, I felt pretty bad after a tennis match. I play tennis multiple times a week and this wasn’t a particularly grueling match. Checked my temp and was running a low grade fever. Took a cold shower. Got out and felt short of breath and knew something wasn’t right. What really tipped me off was when I went to take a leak and opened the door to the trashcan below the sink instead of the commode lid. As much as that sounds funny, that was the real indication that it was something serious.
I informed the better half, had some dinner and started coughing later that evening. It was dry choking sorta cough. I woke up in the middle of the night and took my temp again. Now I’m up to 101, I’m sweating, and I’m coughing every other minute. I drown it with NyQuil and we head over to a drive through COVID-19 testing site at my local hospital first thing in the morning. At the opening bell, we still have wait in line for about an hour and there are 30 plus cars lined up behinds us. The swab up the nose really wasn’t that bad. I take copious amounts of Advil and decongestant and lie down for the rest of the day. I fall asleep a couple of times while the fever wains off and on for the rest of the day. Still coughing and it’s starting to hurt my neck and head when I do. I’m up on and off throughout the next night.
24 hours go by and I’m logging into check my test results. Nada. So now I feel miserable and I’m a bit worried because I’m still running a solid fever. I message my doctors office to let em know I’m awaiting results and not feeling well. I lay out of a meeting and some tennis matches. My wife calls in for a sick day. I get an email saying I have a new message.
SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA is DETECTED. The patient is considered infected with the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus and presumed to be contagious.
What the hell… where did I get it? I likely got it 4-5 days before the onset of any symptoms1. Now I’m isolating from my wife and my pets. I also have a new symptom called pissed-off-ed-ness. I text or email anyone I’ve been in contact with over the last week. That’s always fun because everyone is supportive and has their own various recommendations to share. I get a phone call from the healthcare system asking me to isolate for the next 10 days and I get a message from my doctor that I don’t meet the requirements for the monoclonal antibody treatment due to my good health and age. He informs me that the symptoms will last 7-14 days and suggest treating them with cough syrup, Tylenol, and a Vitamin D supplement. I trust my doctor. He’s a pretty wholistic sorta fella and I always inspect his cart when I see him in the grocery store. I saw him just a couple weeks ago and we spoke. He asked what I’ve been up to and I told him I was on contract with a university where’d I’d already finished the work and mostly just been playing tennis. He smiled and asked me if I could get him a job.
I start dosing vitamins and measuring my blood oxygen levels. I’m consistently reading in around 94% for blood oxygen which is pretty poor for someone in my shape. I lost almost all of my sense of smell and taste. Mostly I just feel completely congested and tired. I used to smoke cigarettes and that’s part of the reason I’ve been so cautious about COVID. My doc and I have previously discussed my low HDL as possibly mixed hyperlipidemia2 which is basically an inherited lipid disorder that means my bad cholesterol is high, my good cholesterol is low, and my Triglycerides are high. Basically just bad chemistry for your cardiovascular system. It’s a main part of the reason I try to eat healthy with and exercise regularly. It certainly gives me pause for concern about possible complications.
For the most part, I just ham’ed it up, laying around watching old Simpsons episodes and complaining about being tired. The better half thinks I actually started coughing a couple days prior to me running the fever but I don’t remember it. There are three places I think I could have been exposed to the virus. I help coach a high school tennis team and several players were on quarantine in the week prior. I stay six feet from them outdoors and don’t fist-bump or any of that. I won’t even use the restroom at the club. I played tennis with an out of town group of fellas earlier in the week. Same deal there though. I went to a meeting inside our neighborhood clubhouse with a couple others and I either had a mask on or tried to stay a pretty good distance from everyone. I went to the grocery store and wore a mask the whole time. I think I got it from my dentist office… as if people aren’t already sour enough at dentists. I could go on a length here about it, but I’ll just say that my hygienist wasn’t my usual. As I sat below her in the chair mouth wide open, I could see her ill fitting surgical mask was mostly falling below her nose as she expressed doubt in the case numbers complaining that they weren’t testing for the flu and that her trips to Israel had been cancelled. I had jokingly asked her if she had any symptoms before I took my mask off. Perhaps I just made her nervous from my sense of humor and frankness. I called the office to inform them that I had tested positive and they said “I hope you fell better”. I said “do you want to know my name or what day I was there?”
I can’t really accurately blame anyone for catching COVID and nor should anyone else. It’s not like we have a good tracking system in place. And therein lies the issue which I believe is central to a lot of the bullshit going on that’s now spread to creating contentious local school board and municipal meetings. Blame…. China made it as a bioweapon, immigrants are bringing it across the border, African Americans are primary carriers, demons are using it to drive fear, it’s a ‘plandemic’ designed to create a ‘new world order’…. I recently watched several people accuse the Mayor of Charleston of being evil during a recent city council meeting discussing masks. All of this sorta nonsense is plain out bullshit. It’s amazing how stupid people can be. Here’s a little video compilation I made of some selected comments from local board meetings3:
South Carolina is now leading the nation in per capita COVID-19 infections with just under half of the population vaccinated. It’s rampant around these parts. I’ve known a couple folks who have died from it and I know quite a few folks who don’t do the masks or vaccines. I think it’s mostly a weird ‘don’t mess with my freedoms’ sorta non-sense because they’re not necessarily uneducated or dumb people. I think that ironically, it’s a fear of the unknown which is a powerful motivator for both sides of the argument. I also think that part of that fear has been created by the simultaneous information overload and wasteland that our modern communications can be. I can empathize with both sides even though I’m squarely behind the science. At this pace, It’s going to be around for a while.
The COVID-19 pandemic, like other historical pandemics, has created a rash of fear and conflict. I could go on here, but I have a tendency to think that we’re the invasive pests carrying the virus. I believe that the world is full of randomness and that’s part of what makes it so magical. A little bat virus from the other half of the globe mutating as it carried around the world and making it into my lungs is pretty amazing despite it’s consequences on human life. This shirt of mine has become my favorite recently. I got it from McSweeny’s who recently published a pretty interesting take on vaccines4.
My symptoms cleared out after nine or ten days. That’s a pretty long time. Little virus was pretty nasty and trying to hang in there. My better half tested positive a week later and I think my cats and dog got it too. I’m still taking vitamins and a low aspirin dose daily. I’ve been working in the yard a good bit to stay active and I haven’t noticed any profound tiredness or soreness. I haven’t really noticed any other lingering symptoms although I am well aware that there is evidence of it having lasting effects on the body. I’m just happy that we were vaccinated before we caught it. I also am glad that we didn’t spread it by being idiots. We’re back to having groceries delivered and we’ll make sure we wait out the 14 day isolation before we go anywhere. Even when I do, I’ll still wear a mask indoors until the numbers are back down. I’m just really looking forward to when we can all put this behind us and I hope that somehow we can all learn something from it.
- CDC Interim Clinical Guidance for Management of Patients with Confirmed Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) – https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-guidance-management-patients.html
- Hyperlipidemia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlipidemia
- Video compilation sources: Aug 23rd Lexington Richland District 5 Board Meeting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw0Vkxs95XI , Aug 21st Charleston City Council Meeting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcXh3XepoWs , Aug 23rd Greenville School District Board meeting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBoJVI1fEWE.
- McSweeny’s – https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/oh-my-fucking-god-get-the-fucking-vaccine-already-you-fucking-fucks