My bout with Covid-19
So let me preface this with, I'm fully vaccinated and boosted and I'm so grateful that I am. It was a Friday that I started feeling a slight cough come on. We had been working on our kitchen for the past 2 weeks and there was a bunch of dust in the air with recent tile and wood cutting. I thought nothing of it really but to be on the cautious side I decided to take an at home antigen test which came out negative. As Sunday rolled around there was no change in my cough and that got me worried. Monday I had to do a week long in-class training so I decided to test Monday morning to make sure. Well when Monday came around I woke up with fever, body aches and a headache. I took the test immediately and boom I got the positive test result. My wife and I were sent into an immediate panic. We heard all the things to do as far as isolation and my work had a set protocol on how to notify them but my family was my first priority. So many things to think about so my mind was racing all over the place, yet I still hurt and couldn't think straight.
Luckily for me I have a fast thinking wife and she locked me down. She put on a mask and got all the meds in the house that we had to help combat cold and flu symptoms. As soon as she knew I was comfortable she went and made the rest of the preparations. The house was in disarray because we were in the middle of a kitchen remodel. She informed my in-laws as they were the ones installing the cabinets. Thankfully everyone tested negative and continued to test to ensure they stayed negative. As of this writing I have been in isolation for 8 days, I only left the house to get a PCR test done in a drive-thru testing site for work. Other than that I've been in our room. As the week has progressed the symptoms have improved.
If I was to rate my case of Covid, I would have rated this as a bad cold. I do chalk up my case to being mild because I am vaccinated and boosted. Had it not been Covid I would have already been out and about maybe a few days ago just wearing a mask. For myself the scariest part of this was the anxiety I had just hoping that my wife, kids and in-laws didn't get it. My wife and I are both immunocompromised, my youngest can't be vaccinated and my in-laws are both in their golden years. The worst part of Covid wasn't actually having Covid, it was what I couldn't have because of it. I couldn't be around my family.
On some of my better days I would have lunch out on the front porch. I'd always walk through the house with a mask on and make sure no one was in the same room as I made my way to the front of the house. I would sit in the sun and the kids would come up to the window and we would FaceTime so they could hear me. We'd chat about baby boy's day at school and baby girl would sit and sing ABC's and play patty cake with me through the window. Sunday was my baby girl's 4th birthday, the wife got the kids a jumpy house which she thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. I had to watch it all from the window of our bedroom. The kids had a blast and the in-laws came over to join in on the birthday fun, everyone wore masks and stayed in the backyard. All you could hear is "it was the best day ever" as they bounced and bounced and bounced. We decided that since I couldn't be there we would throw her a follow up party and make a bigger deal of it when I got better. Even so it doesn't take the sadness away of not being able to be there on her birthday. It even opened my eyes to what could have happened if we didn't take the precautions we did.
Back in November we installed an Air Scrubber on our furnace. If I was to explain how it works in laymen terms it acts like a salt lamp but for the whole house. We replace our filters every other month or so to keep the air entering the furnace as "pure" as possible and any other particle that gets past the filter this unit is suppose to catch and release "charged" particles in the air to attach to pollutants in the internal air to supposedly help keep the air cleaner. When we watched all the reviews online everyone said the same thing. It's not going to stop family members from getting sick but it helped stop the spread to the whole house from getting sick. So far I'm the only one that is sick and if this unit, coupled with the wife's efforts in keeping the house disinfected, helped keeping everyone else from getting sick it was worth every penny.
Over the last few years we have complied with every Covid restriction, we haven't seen some friends in years. We've kept our gatherings small, got vaccinated, social distanced etc. Not because someone told us to but because it was the safest course of action. As a the provider for our family it's my obligation put how I feel about something aside and think about what's good for the family. I wouldn't trust a politician to get out of a wet paper bag let alone my health. As I think about it I don't think politicians are experts at anything. So we're going to continue to follow the CDC guideline and keep on to keep on.
I'd like to send shout out to my Wife for holding down the fort as I recover and to my Mother In-Law for sending some awesome food, including the Chicken Long rice pictured above. I can't wait to be able to hug these little people again. So as the Covid wave rages on, all we're going to do is grab a surf board and ride the wave. Stay safe everyone...
Sean Flac 2.0