Still not a hundred percent. I keep running out of energy. This after sleeping most of the last 48 hours.
Saturday, I decided to do a rapid-type home COVID-19 test;* I was ticking all the boxes except my senses of smell and taste were (and are) okay. These tests are pretty good at telling if you are sick, a little less accurate at telling if you aren't, and (well, duh) the sicker you are, the better they work.
It's an interesting procedure. If you ever did any of the experiments in your childhood chemistry set -- or the lab work in High School Chemistry class -- it'll be a snap. It's easier than coloring your own hair. Last step, apply the nasal swab to the test strip in the recommended manner and wait fifteen minutes. Tick-tock, tick-tock....
Test says I don't have the pandemic bug. I may have something else. (Maybe it's the hipster flu -- "an obscure virus, not a lot of people get it." More likely, some kind of bog-common cold.) Or possibly I do have a very mild case -- but that "still able to taste and smell" thing augurs otherwise.
Whatever. I'm not so weak or spaced-out that I feel unable to do easy housework, so I'm starting there. Maybe I'll feel better later. Maybe I'll feel worse. Either way, it'll be indicative of something.
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* Instacart put a test from a nearby drugstore on the front porch within 45 minutes of ordering it. Our corner grocer uses them for delivery, too. I tried that a few times back when things were awful, and they have never given me cause for complaint.
Update
16 hours ago
3 comments:
Best wishes for a quick recovery. I was at my new doctor last week, since my last doctor moved back northward to his hometown, and got my yearly flu shot. Last year, I didn't get one, as I was masking and socially distancing. This year, I have both my 64 year old wife, with co morbidities, and a 25 year old daughter, with auto immune issues, and so we all need to be cautious. Especially me, as I have to be their caregiver if they get sick.
Hopefully, you just have a nonspecific bug of sometype, and your body will fight it off, the way it normally does, and you will feel up and about soon.
Glad it's not THE bug. Sorry you have any bug, hopefully it goes away soon.
there are ALL KINDS of dumb little viruses making the rounds; my unscientific wild-ass guess is that after 18 months of largely being isolated, our immune systems have forgotten about these. I've had two stomach bugs in the past two months (though one could have been food poisoning), I have had multiple students out with "I don't have covid, I got tested and it's negative, but I just feel like utter crap and want to sleep," I've had colleagues report that they've had colds...
it could also be that 18 months of low level stress have tanked all our immune systems; I remember in college I always used to get a cold or stomach bug the week after finals. It seems....maladaptive? for our immune systems to go down because of stress fostered by a pandemic, but maybe this is a new-ish thing, where the HIV pandemic (which did not affect everyone equally) and the 1918 flu being the first real widespread (in a global sense) pandemics humans experienced, and the first where there was news from the outside (I imagine during the Plague many folks simply believed it a specific judgment from God on their little community)
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