My last two blog posts were about quarantine, so I guess it makes sense that #3 would wind up being about me actually coming down with COVID-19. The whole ordeal started the day after Election Night. My daughter felt sick with a headache, runny nose and fatigue which I originally assumed was due to her staying up late to watch the election. But the next day, she felt the same. I didn't think that she had COVID because the infection rate was only at 1% in Staten Island - or so I thought. That day, Thursday, 11/5, I noticed that I felt unusually fatigued. I remember saying to my daughter, "Usually when I stay up all night, I'm only tired the next day, not two days later. Well, I guess I'm just getting older." I also noticed that every time I stood up or bent down, all the blood rushed to my head. But again, I thought there was no way we had COVID because I mistakenly believed the infection rate was SO low at the time. Sure enough, by Friday, 11/6, my daughter still felt the same. Her nose was running, but she also complained that her headache felt different than any other headache she'd ever had. So I took her to her pediatrician, and her COVID test came back positive. By this point, I had a post-nasal drip, and since I'd been wearing masks everywhere, I couldn't imagine that I'd caught a cold or sinus infection from anyone while I was out and about which was hardly ever these days anyway. So when she tested positive, I assumed I was positive for COVID too.
I spent a very sleepless Friday night even after taking a Librax to calm down my IBS which had acted up from the anxiety. I woke up every single hour. The knowledge that there was now COVID in the house was terrifying. My daughter's pediatrician assured me that 99% of teenagers like my daughter are better in a few days and completely better in a week, but what about a woman my age? I got my COVID test first thing Saturday morning, 11/7, and it was negative, but I still asked the doctor to give me an exam, check my throat, lungs and oxygen levels. He said that everything was fine except that my throat was red.
That whole weekend, my daughter was quarantined to her bedroom, and I wore a mask to bring her all her meals. Physically, I felt exactly the same as I had for the past few days, just fatigued and still had the post-nasal drip, but I didn't feel sick, so I thought that MAYBE I really DID escape getting COVID myself. Maybe I had allergies and was just overly tired from the sleepless nights and stress of my daughter having COVID? But by Monday, 11/9, my post-nasal drip was so bad that I had to keep swallowing, and I felt very congested and uncomfortable. I took a spoonful of honey and gargled with salt water. A few hours later, I got these terrible gastro feelings where I felt like my stomach and my lower abdominal muscles had tightened in a way that I had never felt before, even with my IBS. The pain and stiffness was traveling up and down, and there was no relief. I assumed it was either the honey or that I had reclined too soon after eating tomato sauce. I didn't even remember that gastro symptoms can also be a sign of COVID. When I got into bed, I had to keep a heating pad on my lower stomach and prop myself up with two pillows until I fell asleep. Then, throughout the night, the gastro pains were replaced by a headache where very time I turned my head, I felt pain that wouldn't stop. I kept falling asleep and waking up, turning my head, and feeling the headache again. When I finally got out of bed Tuesday morning, 11/10, I took my temperature, and it was 100 degrees. It was then that I knew I definitely had COVID.
That's when I panicked. I called the Teledoc phone number to get a telephone conference with a doctor. A very nice female doctor called me back, and I told her I first had symptoms on Thursday, 11/5, which would now put me at the beginning of Day 6 of my COVID illness. I had remembered from reading countless news articles and seeing many news stories on TV that in adults, COVID often worsens several days after the initial onset of symptoms so I asked the doctor which days in the COVID cycle are considered the scary days where one has to worry about his or her symptoms escalating into something serious? She said the scary symptoms happen between Days 5-9, but not to worry, as since my daughter's exposure was contact traced to either 11/2 or 11/3, and since I was already experiencing symptoms on 11/5, most people would have shown the serious symptoms by now. She said I could probably expect to feel more of the same symptoms that I felt right now at my peak. I tried to hope for the best and remembered that 99% of adults with COVID only experience what is considered minor illness: headache, body aches, congestion, fever, etc., but not serious illness consisting of shortness of breath, chest pains and pneumonia. But I knew the next few days would be some of the most anxiety-filled of my life.
After I got off the phone with the Teledoc doctor, I took two Tylenols and continued to take them every six hours that day, but my headache didn't go away until nighttime. This meant I had a twenty-four hour headache WITH medication. That night, during my sleep, I broke out in sweats and changed my T-shirt three times, the way you do when you have the flu when the fever finally breaks. But unlike nearly all the times I've had the flu which started with high temperatures of 101 and above, with COVID, my temperature never went above 100, it was mostly 99, so that surprised me, but I guess I still had to sweat it out.
The next two days, Wednesday, 11/11, and Thursday, 11/12, which were Days 7 and 8, I was so tired that even going up the stairs made me feel completely exhausted. That put me in a panic because I couldn't tell if I was now experiencing the "shortness of breath" symptom, or if just the act of climbing the stairs was making me completely exhausted. I still had a feeling of heavy congestion, and I constantly worried I would get a bad cough and chest pains. I checked my oxygen levels regularly with the pulse oximeter that I immediately ordered from Amazon the night my daughter tested positive, and it really did come in handy to calm my nerves. My oxygen was usually 98 or 99 (normal readings are from around mid to upper 90's), but my pulse was always in the 100's which I thought was a little high when up to 90 is considered normal. I read online that sometimes when your body is fighting a virus, your heart has to work harder to pump out the blood which makes your resting heart rate increase, so I tried not to worry about my unusually high pulse rate over the three days that I felt the sickest.
There was one positive note regarding the sickness I felt. During the afternoons, on the days I felt the sickest, I slept more relaxed and calmly than I ever had in my entire life. It felt like I was floating on clouds as long as I kept perfectly still. It was like my body was rewarding me for not using any energy because it needed all the energy it had to fight this virus.
Meanwhile, the NY Covid Hotline called every single day since my daughter tested positive on 11/6. They had a file on me too since I was the parent and was exposed to COVID myself. So by Tuesday, 11/10, after four days of my answering the hotline's questions where I had to respond "Yes" or "No" to a list of COVID symptoms, I was now answering "Yes" to many of them. The hotline told me, "You are now experiencing symptoms consistent with COVID-19." After that call, I really looked forward to their daily calls where they would go over the symptoms checklist with me, and I felt reassurance that I was still saying "No" to the serious symptoms of COVID. I also felt relief at being able to agree that the symptoms I said "Yes" to were improving.
By Friday, 11/13, I finally reached Day 9, and I continued to improve. By Day 10, my pulse was back to the 70's, but on Sunday, Day 11, I woke up with no sense of smell. I noticed it when I went to do my daily cleaning of the bathroom sink when after spraying the Lysol spray cleaner and anticipating its strong smell, suddenly there was nothing. I couldn't smell the hand soap I washed my hands with either. I went all around the house and finally found one thing I could still smell which was this huge cinnamon caramel swirl candle. I was further thrilled when I opened up the jar of peanut butter, and I could smell that too. But I couldn't smell anything else. I went downstairs to bring up some more scented candles and found one red vanilla chai one in which I could faintly smell the vanilla. When I sat down to eat, I could taste salty, sour and sweet but only on my tongue. I couldn't taste the actual food, I could just identify salty, sour and sweet. I assumed this was because I am a supertaster with many taste buds. When I ate my meals, I tried to focus on textures more than taste because I couldn't smell my food. When I made pasta, I couldn't taste the tomato sauce at all, and it was depressing, so I put some raw, shredded mozzarella on it, and the texture and the fact that I could taste a bit of creaminess cheered me up.
Finally, three days later, my smell returned while I was eating an egg sandwich, suddenly noticing that it tasted exactly the way it was supposed to. I went into the bathroom to spray the Lysol cleaner in the sink to test it, and I was able to smell it. The vanilla chai candle now smelled like a spicy vanilla, not a very faint vanilla. I went to my bedroom and sprayed perfume on my arm so I could keep smelling it on my wrist all day because I was SO thrilled that I could finally smell again!
It has been a slow recovery though. Once I had gotten much better and no longer had to quarantine, any time I went out of the house, I got a terrible headache just from the exertion. Even as I worked from home, my hand would sometimes shake while I was typing, I would get a headache again, and my temperature sometimes went to 99. This never happened to me with the flu. I'd have a high fever on the first day, bad body aches and chills, but after about a week, once it was done, it was done. I might have felt a bit tired over the next week after I'd recovered but not crushingly exhausted as I did now. It seems to take a much longer time to kick COVID completely. I think you just have to listen to what your body tells you and rest if it needs you to. Each day that is a good day, I can tell I'm getting better, but now, even after three and a half weeks of my initial symptoms, I'm still very tired and not back to 100% yet.
So that's my experience with COVID. It ran through my entire household, as it is VERY contagious. My advice is to wear a mask when you're anywhere outside of your house and to take this illness seriously. Our COVID experience was contact traced back to someone who habitually wore the mask as a chin guard, exposing the nose and mouth. Avoid indoor areas with anyone who is doing this. It's not a joke, and it's not a hoax. Listen to the scientists and stay safe!
