Last Monday night in bed I felt a sore throat coming on. With me that’s usually the first sign I’m about to get a flu. The next day I was supposed to have a meeting with some of my co-workers but luckily I scheduled it as a web conference so I didn’t have to be in the office. Two-thirds of the way into it I had to bail out due to a rising fever.

I figured it was a flu all right. But it felt a bit odd for a flu. So just in case I used the second and last of a two pack COVID-19 home test kit I had to make sure it wasn’t You Know What after all. I’d used the first one in that box some months ago after going down to Disney World to make sure I was safe to go back to work. You can be infected and infectious for days, some say over a week, before your own symptoms show. That test came back negative.

This one…

I wasn’t terribly worried, as I’ve had a total of six vaccinations against it, starting with the two part Pfizer vaccine and four boosters spread out over the years. What bothers me mostly about this is I am a heart patient now, and I have an ablation procedure scheduled for just after my birthday. I’ve put a message up on the hospital patient portal to the surgeon asking if he would want to postpone it now and reschedule.

I was weak as a kitten, and running a fever, so I didn’t dare go outside, but I needed groceries. This brought me to use DoorDash for the first time. It’s a shopper/delivery service that will go to your local grocery store and buy things for you from a list you provide, and bring them to your door. Those of you reading this who are not single have no idea how massively this helps those of us with no close by family or significant other to bring food to us when we’re too sick to go get it ourselves. Running out of stuff in the fridge especially, since all that is perishable and you can’t keep a large supply of it on hand (I have a chest freezer for things that can withstand freezing), and also suddenly discovering that my flu meds are all out of date and now I’m too sick to go get more, was one of my big problems with getting sick and I’m all by myself. Now I don’t have to worry about that.

I keep telling myself I need to schedule a bi-yearly reminder to check all the expiration dates in my medicine cabinet and first aid kits.

Also…yes, I know…Amazon. I needed a new mouth thermometer because the one I had failed to restart when I put a new battery into it and I procrastinated about getting a new one. Things you don’t think about until you’re sick. Amazon got me a good one the same day and it was very helpful.

How bad was it/is it now? I did a little searching and found this list of common COVID-19 symptoms…per Google AI…

Fever or chills: Check. But as of my writing this it’s gone. Body temp is 98.6 on the nose.
Cough: Check. Not a very bad one though and it is going away.
Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing: No
Sore throat: Yes, but only Tuesday
Congestion or runny nose: Yes
New loss of taste or smell: Oh Definitely Yes! Wednesday-Thursday it was all mucked up. Better now
Fatigue: Also definitely yes, but also getting better.
Muscle or body aches: Sort-of, but not very.
Headache: No.
Nausea or vomiting: No.
Diarrhea: This would be oversharing.

So all in all I think I’m okay. Had this happened before the vaccines I’d probably be dead by now. But I’ll need to wear a mask any time I want to go outside until I know I’m clean. I’ve ordered some more COVID-19 test kits and KN95 masks.  I’ll use one test kit every week until it comes back negative. Then I can dispense with the masks.