A COVID diary - Part deux
This is the second (and hopefully final) part of my COVID diary. It went a lot better than I had hoped for and I'm quite surprised at how fast I came around. I am now 14 days post-diagnosis: the symptoms are practically gone and I've been testing negative for at least 2 days.
T+7 to T+10 - Sunday, January 19th to Wednesday, February 1st
These four days were honestly quite a blur. I don't remember much, except that I spent a few hours working each day and many hours napping in the afternoon. The main symptom I had left, beside the loss of taste and smell, was the extreme exhaustion that set in after only a few hours. Since I spend at least three hours on the phone every morning, I often ended up out of breath after one hour talking. That made for interesting days. I somehow developed a toothache, but I'm not sure if it's COVID-related. Maybe I'm grinding my teeth too much...
Smell and taste are slowly coming back, but I'd say they're still below 70% of what they were. The afternoon naps were great and somehow didn't impede on getting a full night of sleep. The new mattress really made sleep fun again. A rapid COVID test taken on Tuesday still showed positive, but the line is very faint.
T+11 - Thursday, February 2nd
This day felt strange. You know, when you feel you're about to be ill? Kind of like that, but reversed. I felt "meh" most of the day, and decided to take the next day off because I didn't take a full day of rest yet (not even a three-day weekend). I had fully planned on going to the doctor if I still felt like that the next morning. I clocked out after my 12 o'clock meeting, and went to take a nap. I almost fell asleep with some background YouTube videos, until I realized I would not be able to nap that afternoon. I decided to ride the rest of the day by watching whichever Adrian's Digital Basement videos YouTube threw at me. I ended up going to sleep at a somewhat-normal 21h00, and I slept really well.
T+12 - Friday, February 3rd
For the first time in two weeks, I woke after my alarm would have rang (it was disabled since I took the day off). Also, for the first time in two weeks, I woke up feeling fine. Almost no congestion, barely any cough, and I feel quite normal. I managed to shower and get dressed (again, a first in two weeks). Just for gits and shiggles, I did another rapid COVID test. 15 minutes later, and voilà! Finally testing negative!
I felt good enough to not have to go to the doctor. Instead, I'll take an appointment for an "annual physical" in the coming weeks instead. I decided to take it slow for the day, and do some way overdue laundry. I was able to do it all without being out of breath. Still slightly tired, but at least not out of breath.
In the afternoon I went to do some grocery shopping with mom (I didn't feel like going alone, just in case), and that got me knackered. I slept well that night.
T+13 - Saturday, February 4th
It literally feels like a switch was flipped off two weeks ago, and flipped back on this weekend. I have more energy this morning than I had the previous days. Another rapid COVID test resulted negative, which is awesome. I went to get breakfast at the restaurant with mom this morning, and it was delicious even if I can only taste 70% of it. So far, it's the only lingering symptom. Unless the smells or tastes are very strong, I can barely detect them. It has some good, though: I don't get dizzy anymore when walking in front of Lush or any other perfume/make-up/soap store.
I managed to go shopping on my own today, and I rescheduled my bass classes to start back on March 7th. That leaves me a whole month to not stress with that.
However, halfway during my shopping, I got hit with some strange GI symptoms... Some random cramps - very similar to what an IBS flare-up gives me - just randomly started. I made it to a bathroom in time and it sort of stopped after that, but I did feel queasy for the rest of the day. Dinner was small, and didn't trigger any other GI symptoms.
T+14 - Sunday, February 5th
Slept a whole 10 hours last night and it was great! Almost all the flu-like symptoms I had are gone, but I still only have about 70-75% of my taste and smell back, with some random skunky ashtray smell here and there. I did notice it's worse when I lay down, so I prop myself up with some pillows as much as I can when I go to sleep.
I didn't do much today, except write this blog post and watch YouTube videos. I did end up having some strange GI symptoms after lunch today, not too dissimilar to those I had yesterday. I hope it's not going to be a common occurrence, because I could very much do without that.
Other than that, I'd say I'm almost fully back to how I was pre-COVID. I'm just getting tired a bit faster than usual.
Summary
Unless something else comes up in the next few days, that'll be post two of two on my COVID adventures. Moral of the story is that vaccines works as otherwise I would have been a lot sicker than I was. I was able to work every day, and the symptoms were quite mild. The bronchitis I had in early January was way worse. This was more annoying than anything.
Stay safe!
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