I haven’t written here in a while, because I’ve been focusing my writing energy into my novel. However, I don’t want to give up this blog completely so what better way to start again than to write about the topic you can’t escape from these days…
Yes, I had Covid-19 last year. Most friends were shocked when they found out, but I knew it was inevitable. I was actually surprised that I didn’t contract it earlier. Everyone thinks ‘oh you’re so safe out there in the countryside’, but we regularly had many friends coming to visit us. We even hosted a few events during the year (yes, they were all permitted). It was only a matter of time until someone would bring the virus from Berlin. It happened mid-October and our friend that we caught it from was our 67th overnight guest of the year (yes, all legal stays).
We were extremely lucky. Our friend woke up with symptoms here so we went into self isolation straight away. We were meant to meet neighbours and even attend a flea market here (we’d organised the musician to perform), but stayed home instead, while we waited for our friend’s test result.
Our friend left on Wednesday and on Thursday went for a test. The results weren’t coming til Monday. On Friday I woke up sneezing and sniffling. It wasn’t something unusual for me though, as I often get cold symptoms. On Saturday I woke up completely fine. However that previous night, Artur started developing a fever and a terrible headache. Throughout Saturday he was bedridden with a headache like never before – he compared it to sunstroke. The pain was so bad that he couldn’t sleep. He took painkillers and kept an ice pack around his head to deal with it.
On Sunday I started coughing a bit and felt a bit sneezy again. Artur still had a headache but it was milder than the previous day. Monday morning our friend got the results back – positive. Artur no longer had a headache, but still felt that his body wasn’t 100% normal and I had very mild cold symptoms. It seemed clear that Artur was also positive with the virus but we were unsure if I also had it.
Tuesday we felt the same as Monday and we thought to go get tested on Wednesday. In the afternoon, while I was outside, I smelled this overwhelming, unbearable pungent smell. Something acidic, metallic, “a bit like vomit”. When I went inside the house, I could still smell it, but it was much fainter.
The next morning I woke up and discovered I had lost my smell. I started opening jars and putting my nose inside. I kept my nose in the kimchi jar, something I normally hate, but wasn’t bothered since I could hardly smell it. I opened all the jars of herbs in the kitchen and couldn’t smell a thing. I could still taste, but everything was very mild. Normally I can’t eat anything spicy, but I tried a spoonful of sambal olek and felt fine and unaffected. It was clear then that I also had the virus so we decided not to get tested and further overwhelm the system.
A couple of days later, I developed the infamous dry cough, but after about three days, it was completely gone. Overall, our experience wasn’t too bad, if I hadn’t lost my smell and had contact with someone that tested positive, I wouldn’t have even known I had the virus. The cold symptoms were extremely mild, I have had colds and flus much worse than that. I do think that irritation is probably a symptom, as Artur and I were very much on edge the whole time. My sense of smell and taste came back gradually after about three weeks.
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