So I’m fifteen days in to this virus now. Fifteen days and all I can say is, this is the most unpredictable illness I’ve ever been through – you can’t put Covid in a box and label it nicely and neatly. I’ve spoken with others who have also had it and they all say the same thing, yet no two stories are the same. There are similiarities and some common symptoms, but we each experience this thing in a unique way.

Let me start by saying, I am one of the lucky ones. I have personally known people who have fought this virus and lost their lives. That in itself is part of the unpredictability. I lost two weeks of work, spent my time in isolation, and was pretty miserable… but I am here to talk about it so for that I am thankful. I know people who have had it worse than me, and some that have had very mild to almost non-existent symptoms; many of them no more or less healthy than the others.

For me, it has been sort of like a cross between pneumonia and the flu. My illness began with a day of horrible, nagging, coughing to the point of wiping out my energy completely as I couldn’t get a deep breath in. On day two, the cough was mostly gone and the fever set in, lasting several days. I shivered until my teeth chattered; it felt as if I could not get warm no matter how many layers I put on. I am like my dad (we never get cold), and I almost never turn the heat on in my home. I have the AC on when needed, and the windows open even in the winter. While I do live in Florida, I open windows in winter when I head north as well; I love the fresh, cool air. On the days I had a fever, I wore several layers and I had the heat turned up to 76 degrees. This was all while taking Tylenol to try to reduce the fever. It was a constant change from shaking to sweating back to shaking. I tried to sleep, but although the cough was gone my chest hurt and I had to sit up in order to feel like I could breathe well.

After several days of fighting fever, I had a day of nausea followed by a few days of terrible headaches. In addition to all this, around the third day I lost my sense of taste and smell. (Still don’t have those completely back.) After about 4-5 days, my appetite skipped town. I’m sure this was partially due to the lack of flavor of food. All I could sense was sweet versus salty, and the texture of food. The texture of flavorless meat is very unappealing, by the way, and flavorless coffee just made me sad.

Just over mid way through this and after the nausea, I became very tired and weak. I assume that was just from the constant battle my body was fighting. There were a few moments when I thought I might go to the hospital. My biggest worry was my dog and leaving her with someone. I had an oximeter at home and had been monitoring my oxygen levels along with my temperatures. They weren’t good. One particularly bad night I checked it every half hour or so, and I decided if it wasn’t better in a few hours or if it got worse, I was going to the ER. I prayed a lot. After several hours, my numbers began to go up and I felt safe staying home. That was probably the worst of it for me.

So here I am on day 15 and the cough has been back for a few days now. My energy levels aren’t where they need to be, but I can do a bit before getting tired now. I go back to work on Monday (from home) and I am actually looking forward to it. I feel safe in saying I’ve seen every episode of every crime show from the early to mid 2000’s and I wonder why I didn’t watch some of them back then because I feel like I missed out. I’ve also seen several documentaries, finished a series on Amazon Prime, watched a few days straight of MST3K (if you know, you know), and watched a lot of news.

I pray for those who have lost their battle with this nasty virus. I pray for those who are still fighting it. I pray for the families who are just trying to stay safe and I pray that if you haven’t had it, you do not get it. All I know is that I do not want to go through this again and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. For those who think it is “just the flu”, or that it doesn’t exist, or that herd immunity is the way to go… I pray you don’t get sick. My story just describes the tip of the iceberg; this has been unlike any illness I’ve ever gone through and it’s very hard to put into words. I think of my sweet grandson or my mother or my daughter or my neice going through this and it terrifies me. I have no problem with agreeing to disagree about this virus, but please, help me keep them safe. Help me keep you and your loved ones safe. I truly believe that putting others ahead of ourselves will go a long way in getting us through this.