NoVID No More

So, upon flying back to Denver from Las Vegas where a three family gathering related to their half-marathon had concluded (don't worry, I was in a sag wagon capacity and the two races I've run in recent history were a 0.5 km race with donuts halfway and a 1 mile race mostly against preschoolers and elementary school aged kids and their mom's carrying them), on a Monday night redeye (we got home to our house at 3 a.m. on Tuesday), I was seated next to an old lady who refused to mask despite the fact that she was at peak coughing from COVID and my efforts to mask didn't help.

Symptoms started to appear at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. I was feverish, shivered for three hours straight the first day, was mentally confused to the point of delirium, aching all over, persistently having wet deep chest coughs to distraction, weak, having intense headaches and sore throat, runny noise and congestion, etc. that left me awake and coherent for only about 2-3 hours from 8 p.m. that day until 11 a.m. on Thursday. It stayed bad. I spent Friday mistaking a lot of fever dreams for real and bumbling into things, and at noon on Friday, I tested positive for COVID.

I'd held out for almost four years during which I'd gotten vaccine or booster shots six times, and was the last family member in my extended family to get it, but my time ran out.

Kaiser managed to get me hooked up with Paxlovid, the COVID anti-viral drug, in time to get my first dose less then seven hours after testing positive, and I'm half way though that five day course of drugs. This helps. Still, I only managed to stay awake and not delirious for about ten hours today and eight hours yesterday and six hours on Friday and maybe four hours on Thursday. And my attention span is totally shot. I'm having trouble staying focused on anything for even fifteen minutes. I'm still coughing, but not as bad. To spare the rest of the family, on the same flight but further away from Typhoid Mary, I've spent the whole time in isolation, either in my bedroom alone, or wearing a mask elsewhere in the house.

Lots of work has been pushed to the side which will have to be caught up. But you can't work when the highest level activity you can manage half the time is to stare at the ceiling. Today and yesterday, I've managed brief Facebook reel sessions, and listening to three or four songs at a time before not being able to follow it.

Still between the vaxes and the promptly Pax, I'm pretty sure that I won't die, won't have to be hospitalized, and probably won't even get long COVID, despite having more than one pre-existing condition and being over age fifty, which might otherwise put me in a higher risk group. And, I've followed all doctors orders about hydration, OTC painkillers, etc. I'll probably even manage to do some work tomorrow, although very likely not a full day's work and not the most demanding tasks yet. 

By the time I get better, my blisters from my foolish choice to spend four days in Las Vegas wearing brand new shoes, might heal as well.