The One Where I Got COVID

This isn’t as unique as I thought it would be by the time, I started typing this blog. I never really thought I would ever test positive at this point for COVID, but all it took was dinner at my boyfriend’s grandparents’ house Christmas eve for this to come true (or so I think).  We can never really be sure when we were actually exposed. Was it going to the new spiderman movie in the theatre that Wednesday night? Was it the gym? What could it have possibly been? The possibilities and unpleasant thoughts of wondering, how did you get into my body are endless.  

I feel like at some point (from my own perspective) I viewed COVID as this horrific yucky virus that I truthfully would have never imagined getting myself. But I did, and the cruel reality of it is that in a way I kind of felt dead inside, I don’t know if that makes sense. I think being cooped up in the house for 15 days straight was giving me cabin fever and being sick just didn’t help at all. Just laying around in my room barely moving made things even worse. The only thing that kept me entertained was playing hours of animal crossings new horizons on my switch.  

The funniest thing to me was that after seeing new variants coming out on the news every so often I kind of became numb to the thought of COVID. New variants seemed to turn into memes and because it never physically hit home for me, I thought I was going to be able to walk out of this pandemic with never facing its health consequences but boy OH boy, I was wrong. 

It all started with annoying headaches for 2 days, and in the past, I’ve suffered with migraines and figured that they may be knocking on my door. But then the sore throat came, and I was really trying not to overthink and freak out but getting a phone call that Sunday morning from my boyfriend, saying his brother was positive, sealed the deal and gave me all the reassurance to start freaking out. I was all like what??? Could it be??? No way. Mind you I was being so ignorant and telling myself it was just 54 degrees on Christmas day and today it’s 30 degrees, it’s just the weather that’s got me feeling this way. Either way my mom, sister, and I began quarantine that day. But then Monday morning I was just in pain. My whole back, and specially my lower back was killing me, my head was pounding, and swallowing made me want to shrivel up and die. 

I started looking for a test that Monday and quickly realized that getting an appointment to test for COVID would be like getting that golden ticket to willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. CVS, rite aid, and Walgreens could only offer me a test any time after January 7th. My primary health care provider told me they’d ship me an at home test that would take 3-5 days to arrive. But I am a very persistent person. I sat on hold with my insurance for over an hour, and I was miraculously able to self-test and drop my specimen at my doctor’s office!  I felt so cocky like yeaaaah, I got a PCR test 😊 but it wasn’t anything to be cheery about because deep down I knew I had it.  

Every day after that Monday I seemed to show new symptoms. May that be a stuffy nose, congestion, sore throat, etc. The only thing that never failed to appear was body aches. My theory is that, yes body aches are a symptom of COVID, but laying around all day and night definitely had something to do with it feeling so severe.  

It took 5 days to get my results back. Figuring how long it had taken for them to reach out to me, my brain started thinking, “hey maybe I am negative after all”, WRONG!!! New Year’s Eve at 5am I turned to look at my phone to receive the lovely message that I was positive for SARS-COV-2. I started freaking out again, for no reason. If you can’t tell by now, my brain goes into spiraling spells.  

Believe it or not I got tired of tik tok. It seemed like endless pointless videos to the point that I just became sick of the app. I got really into Instagram reels because they kept showing me yummy food videos and I would just droll and make myself hungry.  

At this point I would say a good amount of people I know have been affected by this virus. I hope that we are done with this all and it just turns into a common flu type of thing. Thinking about life before this and what it is now is just a constant fear of being near people and their germs. People would sneeze before, you said bless you (or not), and didn’t think anything of it. Now if someone sneezes near me or I sneeze myself, I’m all like could it be? Should I go get tested? But it’s just annoying anxiety kicking. Getting the virus wasn’t the end of the world. It was just boring. I’m glad I was vaccinated and that my number 1 problem during my whole sickness had to do with being bored. I’m grateful that my mother, sister, and I didn’t end up in the hospital and that we are now healthy once again. 

Just a friendly reminder to wear your mask properly. Meaning covering both your mouth and nose. Wash your hands whenever it’s possible and just think of others. I have been finding myself double masking ever since I had it just to give myself peace of mind but also thinking of others’ health. 

To wrap things up I want to also give my appreciation to all the medical lab teams who are relentlessly working around the clock 24/7, 365 days a year, you have been heavy on my mind. Thank you for choosing your profession and grinding extra extra extra hard these couple of years with COVID. I know sometimes medical lab techs can fall under the radar but what would we be without you guys? Thank you!!!!!!!!!