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Thursday, August 11, 2022

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!

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