Well, it finally happened. I came down with COVID. It was every bit as annoying as I had heard it would be.
Of course, I am grateful to have gotten four immunizations, which made my infection minimally miserable, but I really prefer the idea of being bulletproof. Having to admit I am not made me a little sad.
Intellectually I knew I wasn’t, because that mutating little virus is so good at costume changes.
Still, I had managed to escape it for over two years, while children and teachers at school were getting hit daily, and it missed me when it swept through the newsroom.
That all made me just this side of cocky. I believe this current variant should be called the hubris variation.
Just to complete the picture, I had a touch of most of the classic symptoms. I had a low fever for a day or two, body aches for several days, enormous fatigue and a tiresome, deep cough.
The cough and fatigue are still with me two weeks later. I had the added joy of a headache throughout, but I believe that was from dental work I had done the week before I got sick.
I am pretty certain that I shared the virus my son-in-law brought home from working at a preschool. He went down and we tried to isolate him, but my daughter got sick three days later and I followed suit in another couple of days.
We were able to save my husband from infection, but it wasn’t easy. It required banishing him to his office, using an industrial-sized drum of disinfecting wipes and KN95 masks all day, every day.
I was happy to also make the sacrifice of lying atop my bed all day like a well-fed slug, napping, watching reruns, eating ice cream and learning how to order food online. One does what one can, after all.
Go ahead and get your shots. Maybe wear that mask at the market. At the very least, treat your hands like germ ground zero and continue to be antisocial.
Even the mild version will ground you worse than your parents and put a real cramp in your plans.
Jean Gillette is a freelance writer glad to finally not feel like a walking ball of contagion. Contact her at [email protected].
