This is for those of you lucky enough not to know what today’s covid can be like. I had questions, since I kind of quit paying attention to the latest protocols except for the fact of Paxlovid and bounce-back, have long since been fully vaxxed as possible and still masking, then found a big surprise early this month. We all are different, but here’s what I experienced and learned along the way. I welcome your experiences and/or questions.
After a week of driving back to Arizona, hauling luggage in and out of motels, touring a National Park, and very interrupted sleep patterns in not-my-own beds, I wasn’t surprised at first to be totally exhausted when it was time to unload the car. Even though that is unusual for me. Loading it was simple, quickly done including the packing. This time I had to pause half an hour or more between loads from the car. Almost nothing got unpacked once inside. I pushed it off, thinking perhaps it was the return to heat, inside and outside. I bounced back enough the next day to meet with friends I’d missed all summer in an outdoor walking pool. Later that evening I started running a fever. Were it not for the fever, I would have assumed spending twelve hours sleeping except for bathroom runs to be a logical catch-up on the former sleep patterns, very disrupted by travel, aka “normal”.
As bad as I’d felt all night, I decided to use one of the covid test kits from Uncle Sam, just to rule out that as a cause. After all, I’d met all kinds of people in briefly unmasked circumstances over the previous week: motel staff, people in public restrooms, Park Rangers while we went through entry routines. I’d gotten used to feeling immune, or as much as one can be these days, all four shots with the latest two months old, and a long practice of masking indoors in public.
It was positive. They tell you to wait 15 minutes to tell. Mine was a definite positive within three. It still is, kept as a “souvenir” in a zipped plastic snack bag. Just perverse that way, I guess. I showed it at the ER window for an explanation of why I was there. I walked out with Paxlovid from their hospital pharmacy. Busy as they were, I was the one they rushed through the system. Go figure. Especially when I overheard another couple being assured there was no room to send whichever one of them was sick to, that they still had patients waiting 24 hours already. What’s going on? The snowbirds haven’t started coming down yet. Has the expected fall outbreak begun? I wasn’t up to asking. The local news networks don’t seem to be commenting.
First couple days my symptoms were general misery, a nose running like there’s a marathon for noses, requiring me to stuff my mask with a fresh tissue every half hour or so, exhaustion, long naps, some coughing, fever, and brain fog. Most of my day was in bed, accompanied by my dog. (She shows no symptoms! Just devotion.) Finishing the trip unpacking would have to wait, and I couldn’t care. We are still waiting to see if my husband gets it and how badly, because we just started masking in each other’s presence since my positive test. We shared a car all week, so whenever I became contagious, he was exposed too. At least he’s also fully vaxxed, whatever good that does right now. I’ve taken the precaution of notifying people I know I was in contact with over the last couple weeks of possible exposure. I have not checked back in yet to see how they are doing.
Whoever packages Paxlovid did a great job of making them stupid-proof, or brain fog proof. Each day’s doses are on a single card, bubble packaged but easy to get into, unlike, say, Immodium, which nearly takes a buzz saw and a jackhammer. One half of the card is gold (morning), the other silver (evening), denoting the time of day one takes them. Pick a time, whenever the first set of 3 pills is taken. Mine was 8:30. Every 8:30 that rolled around was time for the next dose. Three pills are in each half of the card, to take with or without food. Only thing you have to forgo is any meds they do not, must not, combine with. I was warned one of the pills could cause diarrhea. I guess you have to eat something before you can get that, or I was just lucky.
I had a bitter incessant taste in the roof of my mouth. It started 20 minutes from taking the first set of Paxlovid pills. Covid was wiping out smell like an ordinary cold does for me, plus parts of my taste system. Actual food still had a tiny bit of flavor, but not as much as expected. Food doesn’t take away the bitterness in the roof of my mouth but I successfully covered that with my huge supply (pre-covid) of sugarless cough drops. I wasn’t hungry anyway. Just ready for another good nap. About a day after ending the Paxlovid, the bitter taste left and normal taste started to return. So did my appetite, but not before having lost 5 pounds — one blessing for me from this.
Like normal head colds for me, I began to get a morning cough about three days in, plus an intermittent one throughout the day. My chest sounds were clear in the ER but not tested since. My doc gave me a telephone interview, ordered a chest x-ray for me, which is a walk-in no appointment process here. Since I didn’t bring proof of a negative covid test, they kicked me out the door until I could. As I write this, no go. There is one home test left, and I’m trying to save it till I’m pretty sure it will be negative. We’ve used the others making sure my husband has stayed negative. Worst case, I could drive one or both of us to our doctor’s parking lot, give them a phone call to come out and test us. I now feel well enough to drive, and have driven him or my son to places they need to go, but stayed in the car myself except for that initial “restock the groceries after vacation” trip. But I always mask for that, and hadn’t felt sick yet, just a little tired.
CDC now says I can rejoin society after 5 days. The ER person forgot to specify 5 days after what, exactly? After Paxlovid? After a negative test? After a combination of the two? I’m hoping for a negative test five days after the end of Paxlovid, which means tomorrow. Things to do, places to go, feeling some energy. Got to call a plumber into the house for a stopped shower drain — still stopped, not just slow. We all need showers! My nose has definitely returned!!!
I’m getting less tired, and unpacking is slowly progressing. There’s a to-do list growing, but it can wait. Not quite there yet, but dirty laundry is begging. Brain fog seems to be clearing… until I do something really stupid again, like forgetting to feed the dog. It did take me four days to remember I was returning to a house with a bidet system and to start using it! Took as long to remember what I learned here at KOS, that a combination of cetirizine and Pepsid AC (generic) would help prevent a cytokine storm, which can cause the most damage, and dig those out from where they’d been packed and toted half across the country twice. Back at the ER visit I would continue answering one question when the triage person was four questions down the list. Luckily I have long since prepared a written medical history I can whip out when needed, like “what are your medications?” That one was particularly important because I had to stop my statin while taking Paxlovid, and my doc extended that two more days.
Questions remain as to where and when I caught this. Was it that final outdoor party the day before we left, a last chance to see the great-grands tlll next year? Both are in day care, that infamous germ factory. Mom reported when I called her that the whole family “had the ick”. I told her to be careful. Could it be one of those people at a motel who insisted on joining me and the dog in the elevator? Somebody upwind at the gas pumps? A park ranger doing a close check of our “timed entry” documents? A stop at a drive thru food place window where maybe something attached to the food bag or our change for a couple seconds? Even more pressing, how its it possible my husband shows no symptoms at all, and will that last? We shared common space and common interactions (except restrooms) for weeks. Due to his medical conditions I am the driver, packer / unpacker, errand runner unless where he needs to go has electric shopping carts, so it’s logical I get more exposure to whatever. I am not released from worrying about him yet.
I’m feeling pretty well right now, like I’m just finishing a regular head cold. We have a finger blood O2 monitor, and while it dipped to 88 while walking through the house for a few minutes with a mask on, it regularly sits at 98, bounding back as soon as I unmasked while alone. However, I keep hearing about the post Paxlovid bounce back, and am watching for it. The brain fog seems to be clearing, if I can be trusted yet as a good judge of that. The appetite is returned as well, and my body thinks it needs to reclaim those 5 pounds. NO NO NO! Maybe if I tackle that unpacking now, distract myself from food?
Oh, and FYI? I’m a little less arrogant about having avoided covid for 2 ½ years.