COVIDing in Summer 2022

So after two and a half years, COVID finally caught me (and my wife). We tested positive on Tuesday morning.

First thing is first: We're both doing okay, with only mild symptoms (mine slightly more severe than Jill's, though part of that might be attributable to me being much more of a baby about being sick). Over the past 36 hours or so, I've gone through essentially every symptom even remotely related to a flu or cold, including:

• Sore throat
• Sore chest
• Cough
• Vomiting (from the coughing)
• Congestion
• Runny nose
• Lost voice
• Loss of appetite
• Upset stomach
• Fatigue
• Muscle aches
• Fever
• Chills

Individually, none of these symptoms were that bad -- I've had worse iterations of all of them (and the one symptom I haven't had is low blood-oxygen levels). But having every single one of them in rapid succession wasn't exactly fun.

Right now, I'm feeling okay -- mostly the congestion and lost voice linger. My biggest worry is the timeline for recovery, which seems markedly inconsistent across cases. Some people shake it off after a few days, others linger more or less indefinitely. I already had to cancel a surgical procedure I had scheduled for next week (great timing!), and my parents who were visiting this week have checked into a hotel (really great timing!). I really hope this won't endure into the school year. I doubt it will, but again, the uncertainty is weighing on me.

Most of all, though, I'm grateful that I'm fully vaccinated and boosted. Even under the best of circumstances, I have breathing issues (initially, I thought the COVID symptoms were either allergies or GERD), and I can easily imagine that if I were unprotected my experience with COVID could've been a lot worse. It is a sobering thing to realize that, if this had happened two years ago, I could have died. The development of these vaccines, in such a compressed timeline, is a true miracle, and I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who worked so hard to make it happen. It's not implausible to say I owe my life to it.

Here's to feeling better very shortly!