Coronavirus Tales

Antichulius wrote:

I just don’t feel like myself.

I've been hearing this from several friends who are in the same boat. The good news is at least one of them has had decent success in getting rehabilitated. He hasn't been too forthcoming with the details, but he's been actively working with his physician and has gotten back to some semblance of himself. Lean on your doctor until they start helping you. There is hope.

And now the side effects are kicking in. Thought I'd got lucky but I guess it takes a day. Dammit.

This morning I scheduled a very promising job interview for next week. Tonight I tested positive for covid. Ugh. Also, it's a long weekend over here, but I'm spending it in iso.

Antichulius wrote:

I just don’t feel like myself.

I am sorry to hear you are going through this. I felt like this too after my suspected COVID case (although negative on multiple at-home swabs), but luckily for me it was only for about two weeks.

January wasn't that long ago and a lot of the 'long COVID' stuff I have read talked about improvements between 6-12 months. I do agree with others though, definitely talk to your doctor about it, and probably also good to talk to a therapist since the disability is affecting you mentally / emotionally. There are therapists that specialize in newly-disabled therapy, which is basically what this is. Also, if it is mostly the mental side, I have read that increasing your physical activity / exercise can help with the effects too, give that a try? Start small and just try to keep a daily streak alive is my advice.

Crud.

Had a mild soar throat sunday night that went away yesterday. Woke up this morning with a soar throat and lots of coughing. Today is day 2 of a 3-day bargaining meeting, so I tested myself this morning.

BOOM!!

The little f*cker got me good.

My 12-year old daughter tested positive on April 29th, mild symptoms - sore throat, slight fever. We isolated her on up on out third floor (which she loved!) - tested negative (by rapid test) after 8 days.

My wife had strong symptoms beginning April 30th - headache, chills, sore throat and tested negative by (multiple) antigen tests and PCR for a week after that and then finally tested positive by both. Took another week for symptoms to resolve.

I tested negative (by antigen test) until 10th of May when I'd had mild symptoms that turned into strong symptoms (headache, severe fatigue and sore throat) that lasted until the 13th of May. After that, it was moderate symptoms of the same but with the addition of ridiculous night sweats. By 21st of May, my symptoms had mostly resolved, but I still tested positive by antigen test. I was supposed to fly to California on Sunday, but not being an asshole, I did not. Tested negative by Monday.

The next week, I had severe sinus infection (bacterial) which was probably just an opportunistic infection.

15-year old daughter never got symptoms, never tested positive.

My wife and I were vaxxed and boosted (most recent dose in December), 12-year old as vaxxed as she's allowed to be (most recent dose in December) and 15-year old got her booster at the very end of January.

In brief: it's a nasty virus, get them boosters.

Went to a wedding a few weeks ago in Iowa. Zero masks, including my family admittedly. Bride's parents tested positive 2 days later, and my parents the next day.
They are double boosted so they just felt crappy for a few days. Not sure who else got it got from the wedding but there are a dozen people I know who did not catch it, including my immediate family (half of us who had it in April).

Also my older son was directly exposed at school recently but doesn't even need to quarantine or test because he had covid in the past 90 days. So I guess that's nice.

Downside to COVID isolation - I feel guilty about not interacting with my family and my dog.

Upside to COVID isolation - I can't interact with my family and my dog, so I can play computer games and not feel guilty.

mudbunny wrote:

Downside to COVID isolation - I feel guilty about not interacting with my family and my dog.

Upside to COVID isolation - I can't interact with my family and my dog, so I can play computer games and not feel guilty.

Thus is the total quantity of guilt in the universe conserved, in accordance with the sacred laws of physics.

mudbunny wrote:

Downside to COVID isolation - I feel guilty about not interacting with my family and my dog.

Upside to COVID isolation - I can't interact with my family and my dog, so I can play computer games and not feel guilty.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands came out not that long before COVID hit me. Tina and I spent a lot of time together blowing things up.

I feel weird and anxious about the fact that my partner and I seem to be the only 2 people in our social and work groups who have never contracted COVID. Like, the longer we go without catching it increases the chance that we're going to catch it at the most inopportune time like right before our vacation or something.

I'm in the same boat, kuddles. Add in to the mix that my wife and I have a son that went back to in-person schooling this year and I'm amazed that we haven't contracted it. I'm hearing more and more stories from people who I have direct contact with getting it that I'm convinced it's only a matter of time before it also hits this house.

I'm just constantly reminded of a video that went viral two years ago

You probably had asymptomatic infections already.

kuddles wrote:

I feel weird and anxious about the fact that my partner and I seem to be the only 2 people in our social and work groups who have never contracted COVID. Like, the longer we go without catching it increases the chance that we're going to catch it at the most inopportune time like right before our vacation or something.

We were actually somewhat relieved that we got it in May since we're travelling to Croatia in a week and a half. I'm taking the silver lining of the suffering as a "booster" with good timing.

kuddles wrote:

I feel weird and anxious about the fact that my partner and I seem to be the only 2 people in our social and work groups who have never contracted COVID. Like, the longer we go without catching it increases the chance that we're going to catch it at the most inopportune time like right before our vacation or something.

My partner and I thought the same... Now my child has been diagnosed with long Covid... except none of us have ever had it. Anytime we've had a symptom we have tested diligently and daily to no avail. Possible low viral load and strong immuno-response?

Old Man Pi wrote:
kuddles wrote:

I feel weird and anxious about the fact that my partner and I seem to be the only 2 people in our social and work groups who have never contracted COVID. Like, the longer we go without catching it increases the chance that we're going to catch it at the most inopportune time like right before our vacation or something.

My partner and I thought the same... Now my child has been diagnosed with long Covid... except none of us have ever had it. Anytime we've had a symptom we have tested diligently and daily to no avail. Possible low viral load and strong immuno-response?

The home tests have a decently high false negative result. Especially since Omicron, people really need to modify their method for testing, from just the nose, to tonsils, then nose.

I have no tonsils...

Old Man Pi wrote:

My partner and I thought the same... Now my child has been diagnosed with long Covid... except none of us have ever had it. Anytime we've had a symptom we have tested diligently and daily to no avail. Possible low viral load and strong immuno-response?

There have been studies done that have shown that people can get long COVID without ever getting COVID. I know it sounds silly but the studies have found that many of the long COVID symptoms can be linked to things like being stuck in your house for two years without meaningful contact with others, paranoia caused from worrying about catching SARS-CoV-2 from any person who happens to walk by you in a store, etc... It doesn't mean that long COVID is not a thing, but that it is possible to get the long COVID diagnosis without ever having caught virus. Did this long COVID diagnosis include an antibody test or are they just matching symptoms?

mudbunny wrote:

The home tests have a decently high false negative result. Especially since Omicron, people really need to modify their method for testing, from just the nose, to tonsils, then nose.

While I have seen reports saying that a negative home test can be wrong, I don't remember seeing any concrete numbers about how often that is. The recommendation I have read is to not use the rapid home test until a day after you start showing symptoms as with Omicron it won't show a positive result right away.

I do have anecdotal evidence of how effective the at home tests can be. When we got COVID (Omicron), my 6 month old daughter was the first to catch it and after 3 days we did a test and within 10 seconds of applying the drops into the test strip the COVID positive bar appeared. The same was true for my wife and I a few days later.

kazar wrote:
Old Man Pi wrote:

My partner and I thought the same... Now my child has been diagnosed with long Covid... except none of us have ever had it. Anytime we've had a symptom we have tested diligently and daily to no avail. Possible low viral load and strong immuno-response?

There have been studies done that have shown that people can get long COVID without ever getting COVID. I know it sounds silly but the studies have found that many of the long COVID symptoms can be linked to things like being stuck in your house for two years without meaningful contact with others, paranoia caused from worrying about catching SARS-CoV-2 from any person who happens to walk by you in a store, etc... It doesn't mean that long COVID is not a thing, but that it is possible to get the long COVID diagnosis without ever having caught virus. Did this long COVID diagnosis include an antibody test or are they just matching symptoms?

mudbunny wrote:

The home tests have a decently high false negative result. Especially since Omicron, people really need to modify their method for testing, from just the nose, to tonsils, then nose.

While I have seen reports saying that a negative home test can be wrong, I don't remember seeing any concrete numbers about how often that is. The recommendation I have read is to not use the rapid home test until a day after you start showing symptoms as with Omicron it won't show a positive result right away.

I do have anecdotal evidence of how effective the at home tests can be. When we got COVID (Omicron), my 6 month old daughter was the first to catch it and after 3 days we did a test and within 10 seconds of applying the drops into the test strip the COVID positive bar appeared. The same was true for my wife and I a few days later.

Symptom matching, diagnosis from pediatric head of Rheumatology (family friend so we got in fast). Fatigue, muscle pain/cramping, sore joints, recurring headaches, stomach aches. Blood work all normal, with the exception of high ANA, thus the referral by GP. Both GP and specialist say "It's probably not lupus". Of course, child is 13 and could be partially not wanting to go to school, etc. Sigh.

Well, it's been a week since my first symptoms, and my retest today barely had a line. So a couple more days and I am free!!

The order of symptoms, if anyone else wants to play along, was as follows:

Probably exposure - Friday night the 3rd of June
Sunday night - Sore throat.
Monday - mild sore throat
Tuesday - mild sore throat (tested positive tuesday morning). Also a headache, but this may be due to caffeine withdrawal.
Overnight tuesday - Mild fever (no other fever other than this night)
Wed - friday - Decent amounts of dry coughing to the point of giving myself a bad headache
Saturday to today - Much less coughing

I still have shortness of breath, and if I take too many deep breaths (or laugh too hard) I still go into a coughing fit.

Aside from the mild fever, I can get any and all of that from seasonal allergies, including the occasional debilitating cough. I'm often worried about getting a mild case, not realizing, and exposing somebody vulnerable...

I have a CPAP and used to have seasonal allergies. Sore throats are regular if the CPAP is a bit off in the middle of the night.

The two strongest symptoms I had after catching Omicron about two months after my booster were fatigue and brain fog. With my (mild) asthma I was expecting all kinds of other stuff...but fatigue and inability to focus lasted strongly for three weeks, and much less so for another three weeks. So, you know, YMMV and all that.

Nose self tests for me were a very faint line, while my kids lit up the line in 10 seconds, like kazar posted above, with very dark obvious lines. According to doctor, this represented viral load...all three were fully vaccinated (ages 15, 13, 5).

Tach wrote:

We were actually somewhat relieved that we got it in May since we're travelling to Croatia in a week and a half. I'm taking the silver lining of the suffering as a "booster" with good timing.

Hope you have a good trip! We did Slovenia/Croatia in late September last year and loved it. It was totally worth the 12 hours of wearing a mask on airplanes to do it.

I also have a trip to Italy booked this fall but my province has yet to open 2nd boosters to the general public which I kind of hope happens before we go.

Just tested. Line still there. Still very faint, but still there.

Antichulius how are you doing?

LeapingGnome wrote:

Antichulius how are you doing?

Oh, thanks for asking. I'm okay, much the same over all, but okay. Despite all the good advice earlier, I haven't really done anything but survive the day to day. That's still about all I can muster and I haven't really tried to push myself for more. Mostly I'm functioning at a day by day level, maybe occasionally holding on to 2-3 days at once, but it really doesn't lend itself well to following good forward-looking advice, and I can't really function beyond that yet. So I'm holding on for now and hoping for a window to try to do more at some point, or for my capacity to stretch enough that a single day doesn't overwhelm me. But I'm here and I'm still going, and for now I'm trying to let that be okay.

And thanks again for asking. That means a lot.

Hang in there, Anti.

Yeah. To put it in perspective, Anti, that sounds like me on my bad cancer days. Take it seriously, get active when you can, rest when you need to. Recovery is a long process.

Finally tested negative!!