rona moved in: ilx0rs with the bug report on their progress

my voice changed a bit yesterday.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RMvsEuT7gnU/hqdefault.jpg

lolz x 2

well, now this is fun.

tomorrow, I have to go in for my study and get officially tested there, as part of my original agreement.

I decided to confirm yesterday's result by going to a rapid PCR place. it was also self-collected, and I did it the same way I collected my result yesterday that was positive.

results....negative.

so now....is that test wrong? was the first one false positive?

now I gotta go in tomorrow and get it done a third time at my study, where they will collect sample. if that's negative, then maybe it is a false positive.

until then, not changing anything I'm doing. meh. this is annoying.

also going to keep an eye on the folks, so far they seem fine, but it's been short while.

and yeah, it doesn't matter if I'm taking precautions either way, but I would like to know definitively if I had it or not, as that has a bearing of my likelihood of immediate risk in the near future. antibody tests are good for that, i ain't taking one right now though.

went to my COVID study and got swabbed, but they told me results could take 3 days to a week. by then, they'll be useless to me. they're also having me do saliva tests, which don't start until the 19th.

I went to another facility and had another rapid PCR done (the Mesa-Accula, one of the best out there), and once again, negative. have also done about four rapids timed 12 hours apart over the last few days, also negative (and they should have started popping positive by now if PCR popped positive Tuesday at 9 am).

so what I have now is a likelihood that it was a false positive, esp since I feel normal, and the scratchy throat was probably the byproduct of drinking a lot for two days, yelling at the tv during the super bowl, and not hydrating. but....who knows. i'm staying cautious for at least one more day, might take one more rapid at midnight and then talk to the fam.

folks have been testing, negative so far all times. but that could also be due to our isolation working.

i hate this!

Hang in there, Neanderthal. At worst it's the mildest of cases; at best you'll be rarin' to go in 24 hours.

Look at it this way, if you are positive then you're in the clear for a few months! And if you're negative, you've still got a shot at getting it! It's a win-win!

So I've had quite the journey the last few days, physically and psychologically. Backstory: Last weekend I was a parent chaperone on a middle-school band trip to Disney World. I KNOW. An insane thing to do even under ideal circumstances, even more so in a waning but still present Omicron wave. I was admittedly lax about masking, mostly because so was everybody else, I admit it. Disney required masks on their buses, but that was it, so for three days it was just wall to wall mostly unmasked people, indoors and out. I of course had trepidations about this, but my kid had lobbied me to go last fall and I had agreed (and paid a whole lot of upfront money), so I just figured, what the hell. I'm vaxxed/boosted, this was one of those once-in-a-lifetime "worth getting COVID for" things.

So. The trip was ... I mean, kind of a nightmare, as you would expect, but overall the kids had fun and the grown-ups more or less did too, and we were all totally exhausted by the end. My son and I got home Sunday night. Monday, I started experiencing fairly severe intestinal upset. My first thought was that I'd picked up either food poisoning or a norovirus, if that gives you an idea of the symptoms. As it went on, I figured I should go ahead and do a rapid test, since such symptoms are also a fairly common COVID onset indicator. It was negative. From what I read, it's common for those particular symptoms to be followed by fever about a day later. Tuesday morning, still suffering, I went and did a PCR test, and also took another rapid test. The rapid test was again negative. By Tuesday afternoon I started feeling a teensy bit better and thinking that it probably wasn't COVID — and then BAM, out of nowhere, I got hit by severe shaking chills and fever. My temperature jumped from 99 to 101 in 20 minutes. Miserable. My wife and I went into total lockdown, she moved out onto the couch, we started masking whenever she came into the bedroom to check on me. Fever spiked to 102 before gradually subsiding through the night. At this point, I was 100 percent sure I had COVID, and in my feverish state started running through all kinds of thoughts and feelings about the whole situation.

This morning, temp continued to fall until it was normal by midday. Stomach is still funky but recovering. But I was still waiting on the PCR that I knew was going to be positive, and figuring I had at least 3-4 more days of lockdown ahead. BUT. The PCR results arrived late this afternoon and — it was also negative (for both COVID and flu). So now, after having basically accepting that I had COVID and also thinking that I was getting over it — and also would have some more immunity to it — it appears I don't have it at all. I have some other damn Florida nastiness. Swamp flu or alligator pox or what have you. Of course, at Disney I would have been exposed to any number of things from any number of places. Plus also it could still be food poisoning.

I don't know. I'm still pretty beat, probably need at least one more day in bed before I'll be functional. But now I'm having to adjust to NOT having COVID. Sort of pisses me off tbh — if I'm going to be this sick, I ought to at least get some useful immunity from it. It's a weird headspace to be in. (And I know this is the thread for people who actually have COVID, so I apologize, but it's been quite an experience overall.)

Shit, tipsy, that sucks. I follow a couple Disney blogs who've said the last couple weekends have been the busiest since before COVID, and I forget if I read indoor queues still required masks.

No apologies necessary, tipsy.

It finally got me - tested +ve and I'm now living on the sofa. felt like I had a mild cold yesterday that I'd put down to a string of late nights. today I feel somewhat worse but nothing really outside the realm of your average bad cold. Am coughing and sneezing a little bit which makes me worry about passing it on to the rest of my family (my wife has a compromised immune system due to a long-term medical condition). really want to open the windows in here to ventilate the area and let the germs out, but they seem to have seized up due to the wet weather (they're old wooden sash frames that swell up when they get damp), so that has upped the claustrophobia. have spent the day either sleeping, or digging through my records trying to find good tracks for a radio set I'm supposed to be doing, so it's not been all bad. Talking to my family through a closed door really sucks though and im a bit worried about my loss of income - I'm self-employed and only just getting by at the best of times, and this has wiped out at least 3 or 4 days of work. Just hope it doesn't drag on too long.

Good luck tipsy though, at least I don't have the shits! :)

good luck, tipsy and Nick

yeah <3 to you both

Thanks all, and best wishes Nick. My Covid-chondriac brother reminds me that even PCRs return 1 in 5 false negatives so who knows. Whatever this is does not appear bent on killing me, but I sure am tired. (And yeah, no masks required anywhere inside the Disney parks, just on the buses — which I guess is probably because of federal regs?)

that's kind of misleading because that assumes one test. if you get tested more than once, a day or two apart, the chances of you testing negative twice on PCR but actually having it is much lower.

not sure if you have taken more than one or just the one, but wouldn't hurt if possible. Regardless, I hope you beat whatever you got <3

xpost My wife's theory is that you caught a bug, but did so when you were run down from chaperoning, which made you even more susceptible.

Hope you both feel better!

I've done multiple rapid tests but just the one PCR. I don't know if it's worth doing another PCR at this point.

And Josh, your wife is definitely right about being run down, I had that thought too.

by all means

I had a false alarm two weeks ago, and the PRCs exonerated me.

The People's Republic of China?

Don't ask me about the bribe I paid.

definitely through the worst of it here, had one day of being completely wiped out but feel mostly on the mend now. still snotty, still testing positive though. three days of living on the sofa in my underwear, eating crisps and weeing in a bottle and that's just the highlights reel. but inevitably, my wife tested positive today, so we're waiting for some sort of treatment plan from the support team for her condition. i sense she's quite cross with me about it, but i know she's just worried about it and annoyed in general. hope i'm clear soon so i can be of some actual use, but the kids really seem to have stepped up and are being really helpful, bless them. eldest even bought me beer tonight. so yeah, hanging in there!

living on the sofa in my underwear, eating crisps and weeing in a bottle

Living the dream is more like it.

Lol

Odd postscript to my situation: I did take a 2nd PCR, which also came back negative today. I feel better though still fairly weakened, but my digestive stuff is returning to normal. So, figure some kind of stomach bug. BUT. Then I heard from one of the other chaperones in my group — i.e., somebody I spent many hours in close proximity to, inching through Disney lines with the kids — that she just tested positive. Her symptoms are mild, sinus infection type stuff. So she has mild symptoms and a positive test. I've had moderately bad illness and a whole bunch of negative tests. I even did another rapid test after she told me that, just out of extra caution, still negative. Who knows man.

I would be surprised if you had COVID, with three negative tests spaced out that far. esp given how similar to a stomach bug those symptoms sound.

glad the digestive stuff returning to normal. out of all symptoms I ever get when sick, that's the one I always pray to avoid.

Yeah, food poisoning is the closest I've ever felt to death (knock on wood).

anything that involves rapid dehydration because then that causes a myriad of other physical maladies

Food poisoning was my thought when it first started, so that's a reasonable place to end back up at.

my kid's school had 100 people out because of a stomach bug yesterday, so today they just shut the whole thing down.

mens (diar)r(h)ea

The only time I had food poisoning in my adult life was from a chicken taquito sample at the Wal-Mart in Yreka, California.

Still don't know what I was thinking.

I woke up with allergies today and had a moment of freaking out.

Well after two years thinking I should have caught it after being in so many social places: clubs, pubs, restaurants, and even not isolating from my wife when she had it, I’ve finally got it. It was a bit surreal to see that bottom line finally show after so many lateral flow tests, and not only that to show immediately when the liquid hit it, not even reaching the control line.

So far I’m just a bit achey with a sore throat, wish me luck.

Same! Tested positive last Tuesday and the line is pretty faded today. Last one in my family to catch it. Caught it from travelling I’m pretty sure. Has been pretty mild, all said; had the terrible headache the first day but has otherwise been quite like a cold. I lost smell and taste for about a day but that’s something that happens to me every time I have a cold. It’s nice to know I haven’t been doing lateral flow tests wrong the whole time.

I've been painfully careful for two years, did one risky thing two weeks ago (visit my office) and immediately caught it.

On Day 10 now, still testing positive but the line is barely perceptible and should disappear by tomorrow or Friday. Symptoms like a lengthy but not very severe chest cold.

Agree was surreal when, after diligently waiting 15-30 minutes for my test results for so long, the LFT was like "lol you covid" in about three seconds

Hope your line disappears soon gyac! The cold and stuffy breathing has been manageable but isolating and keeping away from my two-year-old (and feeling guilty about how much my partner is doing without me) has been horrid

Ah sorry to hear you’ve had a rough time of it, can’t be helped on the other stuff. We can hopefully both attend an ilb fap in full health soon!

Loads of Rona round our way at the moment - at least five kids in our son’s class have it - and the key symptom now seems to be a blinding, puke-inducing headache. Not heard of that one before, maybe it’s an indicator of the BA2 omicron variant. In any case, it’s really nasty.

Get well soon all of you who are currently suffering.

Definitely

Good to know our lateral flow lines are matching up, I thought it would never end!

Somebody I know tested negative from Day 5 so my expectations were probably a bit high for how long it would last...

xpost

I missed the headache but my chest is super tight! Although that could be allergies from sitting next to an open garden window for 10 days

My sister had it three times and she had the terrible headache at least two times iirc, have also had friends with it. It seems to affect people across variants so feel lucky to have missed the worst on that one.

yeah that was a memorable feature of the OG strain. i'm somebody who knows headaches and it was the worst i'd ever had.

Re LFTs - they can really vary in how long they take to show negative, and this isn't necessarily a factor of how badly you had it! Friends had very mild cases but showing positive for 10+ days, others felt awful for a couple of days but went negative by day 5.

I've not had it yet. Kid and partner have what seems like bog-standard colds.
We're the last household locally I can think of that haven't had a case (so far - it'll be waiting for that weekend away we've booked in a couple of weeks no doubt). But loads of people within those households didn't get it.

Have only heard of one fully jabbed case feeling effects for a long time (a very sensible HCP). Fingers crossed everyone gets through it with a mild case.

Most bad colds take me about three weeks to get over (I'm in my forties now) so I'm guessing this will linger a while once I'm testing negative

I just ordered two coffees from my local coffeeshop on Deliveroo for a tenner, it felt like the most lavishly indulgent thing I've ever done lol

Over this thing finally - bit of fatigue towards the end but basically back to normal now. Hope the same for you, C_T and anyone else currently dealing with it. Everyone I know who’s never had it seems to have it now or has recently had it.

i would add to all the above (finally shaken it after the - yes - customary ten days, hadn't officially had it before), but my symptoms were essentially identical

Honestly my symptoms dropped off after five days drastically to the point I woke up and actually felt tangibly better - it was waiting for the second line to go that was annoying. I got a much much much milder (and faster) dose than my other half to the point he was suggesting I got a milder variant than him lol.

your other half has (presumably) been watching the worst two teams in world cricket for three weeks tbf, would exacerbate any pox

also finally got it after 2 years avoiding. Like a bad cold, so was also very surprised to finally see a clear line on a rapid flow.... on day 5ish now and feeling a lot better. my wife who was sleeping beside me for the first 2 nights where i was coughing (before i had a positive test) - still testing negative, no symptoms. she's a primary school teacher so probably superhuman immune system / or maybe has had it 5 times asymptomatically already and never noticed.

anyway feels like a relief to have it and that its not been bad at all; if i'd not seen a positive test i'd never have known it wasn't just a cold.

I assume everyone here is vaxxed and everything - are we at all concerned about long-term side effects?
I don’t have it, but am very nervous I’ll catch it now that my province has dropped all mandates etc

Yes boosted, if I have long term side effects there’s really nothing I can do about it. I would rather not think about it.