It Happened

After two years of avoiding covid, it happened, we came down with the plague. On Easter Sunday we were driving home from visiting my parents and Christopher started feeling a little under the weather. When we got home he had a fever and was sneezing, so we took at home covid tests. He tested positive and I tested negative so the next day we went to get rapid PCR tests done and got the same results.

I moved into the guest room to give Christopher our bedroom and bathroom for his quarantine space and that night he started Paxlovid, antiviral medication for Covid. After the five day course of meds he was feeling a lot better, just some lingering congestion and coughing. Then I woke up that Friday with a cough, a fever, a headache, congestion, and a little bit of ear pain. And even though I had JUST gotten my 3rd covid vaccine two weeks before and was feeling a little invincible after a week of not catching the plague from Christopher, I tested positive. I worked through that first day because I was on an interview committee hiring new student workers and didn’t want to miss the interviews, but as soon as work was over I got in bed and have barely left since.

Right now I am on day 13 of feeling like garbage. I was also prescribed Paxlovid the day I tested positive and at the end of the five days of medication was feeling improved, but still super tired. The next day I spiked a fever again, got even more congested and lost my voice. Now my lips and nose are super chapped from all the nose blowing, and I am still sleeping a ton more than usual, coughing, and my voice comes and goes. I haven’t had a fever in a couple of days, and I’m starting to have some energy so I am going to try and slowly ease my way back to normal life, but covid sucks. 0/10 stars, do not recommend.

We are lucky that we were vaccinated and that neither of us were hospitalized or worse. I am crossing my fingers that the last of our symptoms resolve themselves quickly and that neither of us have lasting side effects.

It’s incredibly frustrating that we have spent more than two fucking years being extra careful, getting vaccinated and boosted, continuing to wear masks in public, and somehow we still caught this shit. I am extremely grateful that my parents and brother didn’t get it and that Christopher and I were lucky enough to take time off and/or work from home while we had the plague in our house.

If you still aren’t vaccinated and are eligible to be, please go get vaccinated. It takes all of us looking out for one another to end a pandemic.