Be careful, be sensible, be safe. Don’t be ignorant and think of others.
Diagnosed and dealing with COVID-19
On 24 December I met with some friends in their home to celebrate Christmas. It was a simple gathering where we had some food and played some games then left for home.
The following morning I felt faint and began to vomit. It was clear something wasn’t right and in the current world our first thought is COVID. Later I went to the doctors and waited for a test (3 hours!). Both my girlfriend and I were confirmed to have contracted COVID-19.
The instructions you are given are simple: stay home at all times, take paracetamol/ ibuprofen every 8 hours and if your temperature goes over 38°C, go back to the doctors.
I very much stick to the rules so I of course stayed home. Today is day 3.
Firstly, I have to say only a few people know about it. My work, the friends I was with on 24 December and my family (now LinkedIn).
We have all seen in the media people dying, huge numbers and variants we don’t understand but the majority of us think the same thing “ah it will be fine". Wrong.
So what’s it like?
It’s worse than I thought it would be. I am a reasonably healthy 36 year old although I don’t eat good and rarely exercise. The main difficulty for both me and my girlfriend has been we are always tired while having COVID. I’ve found myself out of breath simply from cleaning counter tops and doing dishes. Remember I said I’m only 36!
I have a constant blocked nose, my temperature constantly changes from anywhere around 35.7–37.3 quite quickly. Also occasional headaches which are difficult.
Sleeping is a problem as breathing is more difficult. I track my sleep via a smartwatch and have found a constant wave of light sleep to waking up. It’s rare I’m heavy sleeping for very long.
COVID really is much worse than it seems and I only have mild symptoms.
Interactions
The only interaction I’ve had is putting the bin outside(directly outside my house) and a large delivery from the supermarket. Today I will put out bins again as I can’t leave them to pile up.
You don’t realise how simple interactions are no longer available to you. For example “we are out of milk"….you cannot simply just go to the shop. A supermarket delivery with no contact is the best option. I ordered 6 milk in my last delivery.
Concentration
I find boredom comes in very quickly but when I try to focus on a task, it is more difficult to concentrate and as mentioned above you can get tired very easily.
How are you beating the boredom?
I am doing some cooking, reading, netflix, Amazon prime, planning a future without COVID and other simple things although it’s boring. It seems a good opportunity to get organised but you will get tired very easily so you can only do small things or things on your phone/laptop.
I don’t think I need to emphasize the fact that you need to be careful. Follow the rules, wear a mask, if you socialise make sure it’s safe. Be aware anyone can catch it.
You may get COVID like me and feel a bit bad but not exactly dying. But….it’s not about you! If someone elderly or vulnerable contracts this, it can kill them! Use common sense. If you don’t have common sense, stay home. Although if you don’t have common sense you will go outside since you don’t understand so that’s a lost situation.
The numbers you see in the news are not do we can learn to count to high numbers. People are dying, just be a good person with some responsibility and eventually we will get through it. Right now, it’s not going anywhere….
