My COVID experience

The morning I got sick I woke up tired. Maybe I didn’t sleep well, I thought. Maybe I just need a nap. Two naps later and I was still tired. But it was more than tiredness, it was a deep fatigue that penetrated down to my bones. The last time I felt like this I was anemic. And then, sitting in church, I swallowed and felt the first scratchiness in my throat. Uh-oh. Was it real? I swallowed again. Still there. I swallowed again. Gone. OK, maybe I’m not getting sick.

It was strange, those mental gymnastics I jumped through at the beginning of the illness, trying to convince myself I wasn’t getting sick. That the dreaded disease was not upon me. The old fallback: Maybe It’s Just Allergies.

But then I started sneezing. Allergies, still? And then my nose started running. Runny nose can be allergies, right?

I made a pre-emptive run to CVS. Just in case. Alka-Seltzer Plus and three boxes of tissue. When I picked my husband up from the airport that evening I told him not to kiss me because I thought I was getting sick. He kissed my cheek.

I went to bed early because I was feeling so tired. My nose was running like a faucet. I was plowing through my first box of tissues.

I woke up at 2am feeling awful. My sinuses felt like they were filled with hardening concrete. I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I went downstairs and made myself comfortable in the Lazy-Boy recliner. I drifted in and out of sleep for a couple of hours. At 6am I went upstairs and told Matt I needed to take a COVID test. There was no doubt now that I was sick. I feared the worst. I took the test. It was positive. I had COVID.

My worst symptoms were sinus congestion, headache and overall exhaustion. Days 2 and 3 were the worst. On Day 2 I made a virtual appointment with an urgent care and the doctor prescribed a Z pack and some asthma meds.

The strange thing about being sick is the loss of control. There’s nothing quite like being sick to remind you how powerless you are. The illness is in control, not you. You are like a ship in a storm. All you can do is ride it out.

I’ve been sick enough in my life to know how this story goes. There’s no immediate fix. Doctors will say things like: “You have to let it run its course.” But every time I get sick I still wish there was a way to make it better quickly. As I lay in bed on Day 3, all I could think about was how I wished it was Day 7 and my symptoms were over. Little did I realize that by Day 7, my main symptoms would be gone but the fatigue would remain.

I never developed the scariest symptoms: severe cough, fever and loss of smell and taste. I had a slight cough but no wheezing. I never felt like I was struggling for breath. Overall, my lungs stayed clear. For this, I am abundantly grateful. I have serious asthma and it could have gotten very bad for me.

The other layer of difficulty that COVID posed was the isolation. I quarantined in my bedroom for a full five days. It was hard not to touch and hug my family. The suffering of being sick was compounded by the loneliness of isolation. I just wanted to touch someone! Perhaps the hardest part of the human experience is being sick and alone. It made me feel a great deal of sympathy for those who are chronically ill and live alone. Something that helped me tremendously were the texts and messages from family and friends. COVID is such a universal experience now that so many have undergone that I received a lot of support and kind words. Those words and prayers sustained me. It made me feel less alone knowing that people were praying for me.

By day 5, my congestion started clearing up. On Day 6 I tested negative. On Day 7, most of my symptoms were gone except a slight, lingering cough. But I was still deeply fatigued. I still had to spend most of the day in bed. I heard from friends on social media that the fatigue could last anywhere from a couple weeks to several months. I don’t know if that will be my case but I hope not. On Day 8 I woke up feeling more energy and more like myself. I don’t know if I’ll continue to feel fatigued but I’m just glad I’m through the worst of it. Many others had a far worse experience than I did. I’m convinced the vaccinations and booster protected me from the worst symptoms. I dodged the disease for two and half years. But when it came for me, there was nothing to do but lie down and wait it out. I’m thankful my infection was relatively mild. I know it could have been so much worse. Thank you to everyone who prayed for me and offered kind messages and words of hope. That helped me more than I can say. I’m forever grateful.