COVID-19 Chronicles: Six Feet Over or Six Feet Under

I CAN SMELL AGAIN!

Suddenly realized it late last night, my mouth dropped open, started opening every bottle, tube, and jar in the bathroom and sniffing them

Ran into the bedroom to tell my husband

I CAN SMELL EVERYTHING! My lip balm smells waxy!

Ran out to the living room

Put my face in three different books, ahhhh

If I could only smell one thing, that’s what I would pick, now it’s back

Maybe I overdid it because my sinuses have been swollen and out of control all day, sneezing like a cartoon character

Troubling new symptom, tingling in hands and feet, also a very weird head rush feeling in my forehead, uhh, what the heck was that??

Finally after three weeks, I feel like a 7/10, still symptomatic though, still under quarantine

Maybe you saw the news but one of the Cuomo kids has the virus now, making me feel some kind of way, my guess is that it spread up the stairwell from dad to mom to kid, just took him longer to develop symptoms 

This thing is very sneaky

Read something else indicating that people may still be infectious as long as 8 days after they stop having symptoms

Research is still coming in, we won’t have a complete picture of this thing or how it behaves for a long time

From my perspective, I don’t trust it at all, which means I don’t trust myself, werewolf woman

I’m not leaving the house for at least two weeks after my last symptoms and when I do I’m wearing two different types of masks, I might actually carry a pole or wear a sticker

There are murals and signs all over the world, marks on the pavement, SIX FEET

I don’t even want to be within six feet of my own self right now, much less anyone else

I think it should be at least 12 feet, probably 15 to be safe

See those pictures of people with water cooler bottles over their heads, that actually seems like a fantastic idea, we would do a lot better with see-through masks, motorcycle helmets

This would be a fine time to learn sign language if you have the inclination, I want to, seems handy for backpacking too

I kinda think we are going to keep moving in the direction of more heavy-duty masks, makes me think of so many sci-fi films, cosplay, superheroes, Daft Punk, if we all had some kind of Dune suits we could safely get in airplanes or whatever again

Or at least those who could afford it

Today I took a risk, gave a short speech about having coronavirus, my intention for weeks has been to do some kind of AMA and get the word out

On the bright side it was probably one of my more compelling speeches

Not so great part, I was completely breathless, 7 minutes plus 2 minutes for questions, utterly wiped out afterward, it literally took me the next 2 hours to catch my breath

One of the questions was, how do you know that you got it from the person you think you did?

This is a perfectly legitimate question 

Many people have no idea where they got it or even which day they were exposed

My case is unusual for a lot of reasons, one was that we had a false alarm on March 1 and had been self-isolating for two weeks, hubby had stayed home from work, we hadn’t even gone to the store

The day I went out was the first time either of us had left the house in two weeks, I had already made the decision not to go anywhere else after what turned out to be Virus Brunch

So through a weird coincidence it was the only place I went in a month

The person I suspect was the only person we know who tested positive, only solid data we have is that she was a carrier and had active symptoms that day

If I didn’t get it from her, it would have to have come from the groceries or the mail, unless someone in our apartment building coughed in the hallway and it blew under our front door

We got a notice in the mail that “someone in our building” was sick (it was us, the board told us they would be sending it) so if anyone else here got sick enough to be diagnosed, we would know by now

1. Exposed to person who tested positive
2. Five days later, had ambiguous symptom
3. Thirteen days later, felt ill, “wrong” symptoms
4. Fifteen days later, actually found out I had been exposed
5. Sixteen days later, bedridden
6. 22 days later, husband shows symptoms
7. 38 days after exposure, still sick

There has been speculation that people quit shedding active virus particles at some point before symptoms go away

Would I let someone lick off my ice cream cone right now, heck no

People aren’t focusing on this nearly enough, the emotional sickness of knowing you have infected someone, I imagine it feels a little like being a hit and run driver
​
I am mildly worried about being re-exposed, or encountering a different strain, I have read a bit about how viruses work

I think it’s quite likely that if I got COVID a second time it would take me out

Especially if it was in the next few months

But I am far more concerned about giving it to someone else

One time I made a batch of brownies and somehow I didn’t whisk the dry ingredients enough, a clump of baking powder somehow made it through intact, tasted probably like fresh cat litter

I was so grateful I got that brownie instead of one of my friends

That is one of the few consolations of having COVID-19, that it’s me instead of one of my parents, or my brothers, or at least 200 other people I could name who are special in my life

If sharing my story makes you think twice about going out, or makes you more fussy about putting your mask on, or makes you measure out your standing distance...

If sharing my story helps keep anyone safe and stops the spread, it would almost be worth it

Especially now that I can smell books again