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

Aaaand now my wife has a fever too. No positive test yet, but I imagine it will come tomorrow. Fun. At least we’ll be able to stop wearing masks in the house I guess.

Ugh, good luck, my friend.

Yeah its harder with no one to schlep for you :( my sympathies.

tips! how are you?

I don't even know what Paxlovid is.

I was looking for this thread the other day but couldn't find it for the life of me so I posted in the Outbreak! thread instead. My dose is still no worse than a nasty cold, not much fever, the sore throat has abated (thank God), still coughing quite a bit though and it's generally unpleasant but not horribly so.

One fairly comic incident. When you're off sick where I work you're supposed to phone in and leave a message on an answering machine. So I had a bit of a rough night on Tuesday with coughing fits and when I woke up in the morning and tried to leave a message to say I'd definitely tested positive for the rona all that came out was this croak like a cross between Dalek and coffin lid being opened. Still at least they'll know I'm not faking it!

Get well.

Seconded.

hang in there you auld bawbag

I did all the right things (social distance, mask, vax, boost, latherrinserepeat) and none of the wrong things (attend indoor megachurch services, etc). And for two and a half years, it worked!

And then, five days before I am to get on a plane for a long-anticipated trip to Iran, it fucking happens.

Need I mention how challenging it was for an American to get a visa for Iran?

So now I am sick as a dog and not going on a dream vacation, which was particularly for me after the summer where I HAD FUCKING CANCER AND MY BREASTS WERE CUT OFF and also MY BELOVED CAT DIED, FROM CANCER.

Fuck u COVID.

Also: Paxlovid mouth is real. All I can taste is burnt grapefruit pith sauced with tin.

aw quincie :( i'm so sorry

Thanks Neander. I'm being indulgent with the the First World Problem self-pity, but jesus christ what bad luck.

And of course I am out of sick leave because, well, this summer's CANCER.

Get well soon Tom and Quincie

Aw jeez quincie, so sorry. That makes my canceled NYC trip seem paltry by comparison. I hope you recover quickly and can reschedule that trip, sounds amazing.

I'm basically recovered I guess, it's always a little hard to say when you're actually over something. I don't have any lingering symptoms, but I feel kind of fragile — like anything strenuous would wear me out fast. My wife has had essentially the same experience as me, at this point we're just both working from home and chilling out as much as possible, waiting to feel like actually doing anything. Which we won't do anyway until we have negative tests, of course. She was still showing strongly positive yesterday, and I had a very faint positive line — mine may just be picking up dead virus at this point, but I don't want to go wandering around and inadvertently expose anyone. We'll test again tomorrow and see where we're at.

Overall I'd just classify the experience as "being sick." A few days of fever, several days of feeling pretty bad and rundown, several days of steady improvement. If I had to estimate I'd say I'm at about 85-90 percent right now — but that last 10 percent is the difference in, you know, feeling like vigorous exercise or whatever.

Not something I'd be in a hurry to repeat. Definitely as I've gotten older I just resent the hell out of being sick with anything, it's not like I have an infinite number of weeks left on the planet and the fewer of them I spend feeling lousy the better. And of course I've been reading about all the heightened risk factors for people who have had it — gray matter shrinkage, increased risk of heart disease and stroke etc — which seem bad but there's nothing much one can do about it.

Best wishes to all currently suffering!

dear universe, please stop shitting on quincie asap

<3

I am feeling better today, which makes it easier to not be so sad. Spouse and I are starting to laugh about it. And the bright side is that it won’t be so fucking hot in Iran if we successfully get visas for November!

Also I basically just had the best booster ever so DONE WITH YOU covid for ever and ever or at least this particular go-round

Feels like little more than a mild cold now but I'm still testing postive. Another week off work then.

quincie, so sorry your trip got ruined. Hope your case is mild and you get an even better trip this fall.

(xp) Apparently not. Government advice is, after 10 days, even if you're still testing postive - and provided you're not very ill - it's fine to go back to work.

testing positive is not an indicator of contagiousness iirc

So I believe.

Or so Her His Majesty's Government tells me.

Having both officially had it in January, it looks almost certain that we had it again about 6-8 weeks ago, despite testing negative. As mild as it was, we're both still experiencing pronounced and prolonged fatigue. In my case, this actually got worse last week; I couldn't complete a shift at the pub, and I've since resigned completely. I now spend 1.5 to 2 hours in bed every afternoon. The brain fog is generally very mild, but working at the pub most definitely brought it out. I'm still DJ-ing, and I'm absolutely fine during the sets when the adrenalin kicks in, but there's a price to pay the following day. I've been told numerous times to "listen to your body", which is good advice, as the body can sometimes contradict the brain, and the brain is not always to be trusted. Having shielded my sister for 10 months during the pandemic, who has ME/CFS, the parallels are very clear, and the knowledge gained then has proved useful. So, this is long COVID then. I'm just leaning into it and not stressing about it, as that would be pointless.

Feel better, everyone!

I think the "listen to your body" thing is real (and logical). The few folks I know who had more than just mild cold symptoms made the mistake of going out and goofing around the first day after five they tested negative, and they seem to have struggled more with after effects. That's not exactly hard data, though, since most people I know who caught covid had lingering fatigue. It's rough on you, even at its most mild, and certainly disruptive. That's why I've always been a flu shot proselytizer. I can't remember the last time I had the flu, and no one in my family has had it in recent memory, either. But those who do catch the flu are suddenly reminded of how much it sucks, and how much it just sticks around. People I know that never used to get the flu vax and eventually caught the flu are some of the loudest pro-vax people I know.

Sorry you’ve been saddled with this, Mike t-d

yeah Mikle t-d sorry to hear that, hang in there.

coming up for air now after getting absolutely wrecked by this. line on the tests didnt start fading until 2 weeks in, didnt test negative until nearly 3. paxlovid seemed to keep the fever down after the first couple days, but was just hammered by severe fatigue & joint pain until about day 10, was all i could do to shuffle to the kitchen a couple times a day and then get back into bed. after that it turned into a more familiar flu type thing which gradually let up over the following week. symptoms are mostly gone now except for brain fog, feel like my brain is only working at abt 80% capacity, short term memory is rough and noticing blank spaces in my vocabulary, trouble pulling words out in conversation. which is a bit alarming but hoping i'll see it gradually fade. not the brightest bulb to begin with so i need every scrap of grey matter i can muster.

mom and best friend both hit at the same time (total coincidence, though mom is in tennessee in the middle of a bubble and best friend got it at burning man). Both are doing fine after an initial flu like period of a week and a half but still testing positive.

A close friend caught it at Burning Man too. A mild case, he says: runny nose and on the first day a sore throat.

yeah that was her experience too.

so it turns out this sucks pretty bad, huh

I'm actually past the worst part (fever, aches, general feeling of impending demise), but the mental & physical fatigue is still strong. Also not leaving my apartment for days and having to take nasal decongestant has led to intense insomnia, which is not helpful.

Hope you’re over it soon. Even if you feel ok, take some time to get better if you can: the fatigue was hard for me to shake off cos I was an idiot and was like oH I FeEl FiNe I cAn WoRk

thank you, gyac! Luckily I am in a position to pretty much ignore work for a while--not to mention that I probably literally couldn't do it right now if I tried (writing, editing). But it is really hard to put life on pause like this, plus my partner (also sick) can only rearrange her schedule so much, so I'm worried for her.

Yeah that’s understandable - obviously do what you can to help her out but just go easy, the fatigue took me about four weeks to shake (all ok now, irritatingly the fatigue was harder than the actual infection which was mild…)

Yeah, I think all of the advice about really taking some time to rest before getting back up to full speed is important. Of course, not everybody is in a work situation that allows that. But for me, since I work from home mostly anyway, I was able to really take some time before having to push myself physically. It was probably a month before I trusted my body enough to get back to regular exercise routines and so forth. (Not only because of lingering fatigue, but because the stats about stroke/cardiac incidents in the aftermath of infection spooked me.)

we're getting groceries delivered today (thank god that's an option though, we are out of coffee) that we'll have to carry up two flights of stairs, which I'm not excited about. but that's helpful to hear about your exercise routine tipsy, I can already hear a voice in the back of my head being like "dude at least go for a walk, why are you being so lazy"

In the week after I tested negative I did start some mild exercise, walks around the neighborhood, etc. But deliberately did a lot less than I felt like I probably could, it's definitely not a situation to push yourself.

I decided to go out to eat the first full day I'd tested negative and after about an hour I was like "well that was nice and I'm going to go home and lay down now"

I've started having bouts of awful fatigue and really inflamed joints/aches (to the point I went to an osteo yesterday). Ive no idea if its related to covid, drinking, poor fitness or age or a shitcombo of all of that urgh!

sounds like fibromyalgia which is the catch-all for “my shit’s all fucked up”

I've been having a lot more heart palpitations since covid, it's getting to the point where I probably have to accept that this is a long covid thing that's not going away any time soon.

husband and I both tested positive today. mild for me so far other than a terribly scratchy throat, mr roz otoh is feverish and ache-y and the rest.

what I’m actually worried about though is that we both started feeling ill only after a full weekend of seeing people we wish and hope and pray we did not infect. both of us visited my cousins who have a toddler and a newborn at home yesterday, while I had lunch with my mum and her sisters, all of whom are above 65 (all vaxxed and boosted as far as I know, but still…)

we rarely meet other ppl on the weekends and for this to happen right at the time we both decided to be social fucking sucks.

Ugh, sorry.

I still haven't had a bout of covid yet. They had to close my son's college early this week because there was a covid outbreak, also a vomiting bug, chickenpox and diarrhea circulating amongst staff and students. My son came home coughing and looking like shit. Then I felt terrible the next day and I thought it must be covid this time. I've done two LFTs and both have returned negatives. It's just a nastier than average cold.

I had rona back in APril - for a long time and maybe even still I feel more tiredness - fatigue and getting worn out - but better lately - it sure has lingered

I did start taking UnoCArdio 1000 fish oil which seemed to help somewhat

I've had it for ten days now. Caught it on the plane coming back from holidays. I've been in bed for a week. I'm so bored with being this sick. Husband is negative and feels fine. I don't know how I would manage if he wasn't able to work from home and take care of me and the dogs.

shit! you are fully vaxxed i take it. how are you feeling? 10 days is a lonnng time with covid.

Vaxxed and one booster. Husband did have the second booster right before we went away which we reckon is how he escaped. I was going to get mine as soon as we got back. OH WELL.

I'm lucky in terms of symptoms. I don't have a temperature or aches and pains. I'm just completely drained and exhausted, with a bad cough and occasional dizzy spells.