Getting COVID: My experience

 About 3 weeks ago, on a Friday, my wife started feeling a little under the weather. If I remember right it was a headache. She gets migraines about every month but she said this was different. And she was feeling tired and congested. 

That day also happened to be when our area got completely blanketed with lots of smoke from out-of-state wildfires. Even when we went up another 1500 feet in elevation the smoke was still bad.

She was ill that weekend, as was a daughter who was mostly fighting an ear infection, though she also had a few other symptoms that we attributed to the body fighting the infection.

I made the mistake of staying up late that night and the next night. I indulged and was playing some video games. I play some video games once or twice a week and end up staying up late once or twice a month.

I mention that because I believe it (staying up late and not getting enough sleep) combined with the extraordinarily unhealthy (smoky) air combined to weaken my immune system.

By Monday I was starting to feel more congestion and a general sense of not feeling well. I brought my work laptop home that day as I anticipated staying home for a couple of days.

Sure enough, the next day I had more congestion as well as body and muscle aches (primarily in my shoulders and neck). I had head pressure as well. Headaches that were mostly behind my eyes and from temple to temple.

Tuesday afternoon I had an elevated temperature of 99.4. Not really feverish, but warmer than my normal temperature. That temperature remained on and off through Wednesday night. Wednesday afternoon it got up to 99.8. Still not really a fever. However I was experiencing some chills and was wearing warmer clothes than I usually do, especially for an August summer day.

Wednesday night the temperature broke.

I worked from home Thursday figuring I probably had a "fever" and it'd been less than 24 hours.

Symptoms improved and I was mostly feeling normal (aside from some fatigue, continued mild congestion, and muscle aches) by Friday morning. 

Sunday morning I started feeling a little dizzy and light-headed. It got to a point where I needed to sit or lay down because I wasn't sure if I could walk straight. A few times it felt like things around me were moving. Later in the day I turned off the ceiling fan because the flicker of the light through the fan blades was tripping up my sense of equilibrium.

Sunday mid-afternoon I ate a cookie couldn't taste it. I ate two more with the same results. I picked our first ripe peach, cut it, and took a bite. I couldn't taste it. Without telling my wife, I offered her a bite. She said it was really good and then I knew I was missing out.

The next morning the dizziness and light-headedness was mostly gone. I was brushing my teeth with my peppermint toothpaste and I could feel the mint vapors on the back of my throat, but I couldn't taste it. That's when I decided to get tested for COVID.

And the lady who tested me said the test results came fast, within a couple of minutes. I was positive for COVID. 

My wife got tested an hour later and was also positive.

So I couldn't go back to work for the rest of the week because it hadn't been 10 days since the onset of the first symptoms. I was feeling better each day. 

Everyday that week by mid-afternoon I was feeling fatigued and a little light-headed. I still had achy shoulder and neck muscles, but those aches were subsiding as well.

Throughout the whole time, including the first two days when I actually had cold-like symptoms, I always went on my morning walk of about 30-35 minutes. Those first two days I didn't take my 10-pound weight (I do some weight lifting while I walk the dog on weekdays and then I give my arms a break for the weekend) but I did on that first Thursday and Friday. And I did my mild weightlifting all of last week. I didn't take my walk on the Saturday (after my "cold" symptoms) because I went camping Friday night.

This week I've been back to work. 

Monday afternoon I started getting a headache that persisted the rest of the day. It wasn't responding to essential oils or turmeric so I ended up taking half of a naproxen before bed and by morning the headache was gone. It hasn't returned as of my writing this (which is on Thursday)

The fatigue and light-headedness are hitting me later each day and I expect by next week I'll be almost back to normal.

So here're some thoughts about having COVID. By the way, the test didn't specify if it was variant or not. Most likely it was the delta variant.

For those who haven't ever lost taste, it's the strangest sensation. You can feel the food, the texture. It's like your mouth knows what it's supposed to taste like, but there's nothing. Sometimes we eat something out of an emotional response, to feel better, but there was a couple of times when I grabbed something and there was no satisfactory response because I couldn't taste it.

The light-headedness and dizziness I felt was similar to feeling the effects of altitude, e.g. altitude sickness. It wasn't until the next day that I realized the symptoms were hypoxic and I wished I'd remembered about our pulse oximeter on that Sunday. By Monday the blood oxygen levels were consistently 96-97%. There was a couple times when my pulse was a little high for what should have been resting, but it wasn't worrisome. 

I can definitely see how someone might need some oxygen therapy if those symptoms had persisted or gotten worse. I could breathe fine. The congestion I had was way back in the nose and it didn't obstruct my breathing in any way. But, looking back, I realize I was experiencing mild hypoxia.

Bouncing back to full energy levels isn't as quick as getting over a cold.

Overall, having COVID for me was like a weird cold. 

Until the half-naproxen this past Monday night, the only medication I had taken during the previous two weeks was a couple of Aspirins about a week earlier...I was wanting to take the edge off of some sore muscles from a two-man saw competition I'd competed in at the camp.

Most of my treatment was rest, drinking water, upping my vitamins (especially C, D3, and zinc), and essential oils. This past Sunday I had the impression my body was needing vitamin K so I started adding that as well.

Interestingly, after the thought to take K I did some research and found some studies showing promise in vitamin D3 and K treatments. I had been upping C and D3 because I'd read some studies last year showing that those helped and most hospitalized patients were low on D.

Anyway, in no way am I dispensing medical advice. I'm just sharing what I did.

From my experience, for me, I see no need to take the COVID vaccine. Just about everyone at work, when I returned, asked if I had received the COVID vaccination. I told them no and that I didn't see an need for me to get it now.

Interestingly, I found out my coworkers knew of three people who had received the vaccine and still got COVID and died. One person was an in-law and the other two were friends or family out of state.

I'm neither recommending nor dismissing the need for the COVID vaccination. It may be helpful for some people. 

For most people the vaccine probably doesn't do much except make them (or a loved one) feel better, and that psychological benefit can be real. But the vaccine is in no way a guarantee that you won't get COVID or any of its variants.

From my experience, COVID seems to affect the blood more than anything. With blood going everywhere in the body it's no wonder that symptoms run the full spectrum and can potentially affect different parts of the body. In a way COVID almost seems like a blood parasite. I think it'll be interesting what's discovered and revealed about COVID over the next year.

I certainly don't want COVID again. But I don't want the cold or flu or any other illness either. I'm just choosing to not live life in fear of them. 

And I'm not putting my trust in "experts" to tell me what magic pill or vaccine I need. Medical professionals have valuable training and experience, but their problem is they are trained by the pharmaceutical industry and most receive very little practical health, wellness, and nutrition training. So, most in "healthcare" do what they're trained to do: diagnose and prescribe. And they listen to what their experts tell them. And the few who might venture from mainstream medicine do so at the risk of losing their licensing, especially if they start publicly promoting anything that is contrary to the mainstream medical advice.

If you get ill, monitor your symptoms. Pay attention to your body and don't be too proud (or scared) to seek medical help. While there are multiple symptoms that could be worrisome, in particular monitor your blood oxygen, pulse, blood pressure, and breathing. My experience was probably bordering the blood oxygen. I know someone who had pulse rate in the mid-100s for about four days and was seeing a doctor. He credits his extensive training in meditation as being helpful.

Yes, there are lots of things you can do on your own. Rest. Drink lots of water. Take vitamins. But there is also a valid place for our modern medicine.

One of the worst things our society does where health is concerned is to get people back to work/school/normal activity too soon after being ill.