The Adventure of the Covid-19 Infection

Realistically, it's only a matter of time before everyone suffers a bout of Covid at one point or another. Unfortunately this week it turned out to be my turn.

I'm not actually sure when Covid first hit me. Last Sunday I woke up and felt pretty ill so the first thing I did was take a lateral flow test. I waited the allotted time and it remained negative. I spent much of the day feeling unwell and being sick but I gradually began to feel better and had had no symptoms that matched Covid whatsoever so I went to work on Tuesday. Later that evening I felt worse but just assumed I perhaps should have taken another day off and went to bed. I awoke at 2AM and was instinctively aware that something was wrong, took another lateral flow test and a second line indicating I had tested positive appeared. 

The moment of realising I had Covid was quite overwhelming. My first thought was for the people I'd seen over the previous few days. I felt really guilty about having gone into work but I've tried to console myself with the fact that I'd had a negative result and had no symptoms so there was really no way of me knowing. I'm confident that I was infected at work anyway so it seems likely subsequent cases came from the same original source too. There was also that streak of fear. I don't think I've ever had a condition before has killed many people and though I'd been safeguarded by vaccines I'd passed the five month mark where the effectiveness begins to wane and besides, vaccines are no guarantee that you will not be seriously ill. 

The following few days were deeply unpleasant. Some people become seriously ill and require hospital treatment and some people seem to have very few symptoms at all. I seemed to sit firmly in the middle of those two things. I've never needed medical support but I have felt pretty rough at times. I felt like I'd been beaten up, every limb aching with the invisible assailant having put particular effort into pummelling my chest. I was particularly breathless yesterday and felt like I was living at altitude, my lungs struggling to obtain the quantity of oxygen that I ought to be inhaling.

Without wanting to be too dramatic, it has been quite scary, especially because I live on my own. If it went quiet on the street outside and no-one had been in contact with me for a while I kept wondering if I might have died and not realised. I caught my reflection in the mirror at one point and had never seen the face looking back at me feel so pale. It was a weird psychological aspect that I hadn't anticipated, that though I've never really physically felt like I was dying, mentally I wondered if it might have. 

I've eaten very little all week and seem to have survived on a diet of bread and water, with the very occasional cereal bar. As weight loss programmes go, Covid is not one I would recommend but it does at least seem to be effective. After a few days my sense of smell and taste completely vanished which is really odd. My brain knows exactly what familiar flavours should taste like but it's getting none of the sensory feedback it was anticipating. As someone who very much likes their food, it's is pretty unsettling to have very little desire to eat and then no enjoyment of the food itself when I do actually eat. 

I am pleased to report that at the time of writing I do appear to be over the worse, although this disease has hit me in waves so I've got my fingers crossed that is indeed the case. I feel now more like I've got a cold than something worse. On the whole, I feel quite lucky. It's been deeply unpleasant but am really aware of just how much worse it could have mean. I'm so pleased that I had both parts of the vaccine as it really feels like they have saved me from a worse situation. 

Unfortunately I am likely still infectious so I have the best part of another week shut inside my flat without seeing anyone which I can't say I'm looking forward to. It's pretty tolerable when you're ill because I had no real desire to go out and see people but now I'm feeling better it's already beginning to be a little frustrating. But hey, I'd rather be in my flat than in a hospital ward.

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