COVID Lands

I guess COVID will find us all, eventually. We’ve been two of the most careful people you could be: truly hunkered and isolated (we could work remotely and really limit outside interactions during the first year of COVID), triple vaxxed, always masked when indoors, eating at home or outside when case rates are high, and, you know the whole OCD hand washing and sanitizing routine we had even pre COVID, only subsequently amplified to a near disturbing degree.

Then, I got it. It isn’t confirmed as I tested negative on an at-home test, but it was COVID. How am I so sure? 1. A contractor doing work inside our home (maybe both of them by now) tested positive. Confirmed. While he wears a mask most of the time, he isn’t 100% with it and I had direct contact with him. 2. If it wasn’t COVID, whatever IT was had the strange combo of symptoms I’ve heard about. Fatigue, aches, chills, mild headache, (maybe) that weird metallic taste in my mouth (though I’ve been since told that may not be a thing with Omicron, but I had it, psychosomatically or not, before I was told it wasn’t a thing) mild cough. It was COVID.

The good news, I think, is that I’m writing about this in the past tense purposefully. My symptoms were two days ago and now appear to be gone. Melissa had none aside from a weird wave of fatigue which overtook her for a day. With a negative follow up test mid-late next week and no additional symptoms for Melissa we will be out of quarantine soon. I crack this up to two things: 1. We are vaxxed and boosted. I believe the hype. If you are vaccinated and boosted it probably will be mild. For me, super mild, one day of not feeling hot (basically the same as my second dose but with a cough and that weird taste thingy) then back to normal. That won’t be the case for all, I realize, but I count me in the growing population of “the lucky ones”. 2. I think my exposure was passing. Very passing. If the contractor is how I got it, and it was Omicron (both ifs, but pretty small ones, in my view) then Omicron is as crazy contagious as they say.

So, why do I share? No, it’s not driven by my desire to overshare my medical info, although some close friends know that I do have that tendency. First, as a testimonial to the power of the science that has been laid before us. I believe it worked. There’s no way to tell what the outcome might have been without the vaccine, but I’m glad it was what it was. Secondly, and more importantly, I really hope that this little global pandemic of ours is shifting to a “live with it”, endemic state. I read more and more about that possibility every week. I will continue to choose optimism and hope in 2022 until proven wrong. Now, back to quarantine. Be safe, stay well.