COVID Finally Got me: My Experience

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Somehow, I’ve made it this long without getting this stupid virus. A year and a half working on the COVID unit in my hospital, and nothing. But if I’m being honest, working on that unit was probably the safest place to be during the pandemic.

COVID is a rather well known disease at this point in time, but each person seems to have a different experience from the next. Not sure if that’s just a human thing, a blood type thing, or maybe just the particular viral strain.

Who the heck really knows?

Although, I will say, during the first wave of COVID the presentation was nearly cookie cutter. They’d come in with shortness of breath, high platelet and CRP (C-reactive protein) levels, headaches, and just over all unwellness. O2 levels would drop with even the slightest bit of movement. A course of IV steroids and Remdesevir (IV antiviral medication that has proven to be very effective against COVID) would usually do the trick.

Once Delta and other variants began to make their way around, the way COVID was hitting patients began to shift.

We began to see more of a roller coaster sort of effect with these patients. For a few days they seemed to be improving and just about ready to be discharged. Then suddenly their O2 sats would drop back down into the 80’s or lower and a fever would spike. We’d need to crank their supplemental oxygen back up and keep them hospitalized for a few more days.

It wasn’t as dramatic of an experience as you might imagine

Now, as for my experience with having COVID…I was lucky enough to have been able to ride this thing out from the comfort of my own home (during the week that was supposed to be my honeymoon nonetheless). After everything I’ve seen over the past year and a half, I will definitely say that I am VERY lucky.

I had been experiencing a “scratchy throat” for about a week.

This was also the week leading up to my wedding, meaning tons of guests were flying in from out of town. Getting any kind of sick right now was not allowed. So I drank some tea, kept my self hydrated, and hoped for the best.

My scratchy throat either subsided or I had just stopped paying attention to it as the days leading up to my wedding overtook all of my attention. No other symptoms came up that caught my attention either.

Here Comes the Bride

The day of my wedding came and I had all of my girls and I have our hair and make up done here at my new house. The hairdresser and make up artist both wore a mask the entire time they were here, which I was thankful for.

The limo arrived to get us around 2:00, and my hairdresser came out to take pictures and send us off. And of course, give the bride-to-be a hug.

The wedding goes by without a hitch, and was the absolute best night of my life. Lots of hugs and love, especially from friends and family who I haven’t had the chance to hug in a long while now. Mostly because of COVID and distance.

So, my wedding was on a Wednesday because apparently venues are THOUSANDS of dollars cheaper in the middle o the week. The Sunday following the wedding comes along and I get a text from my hairdresser than she had tested positive for COVID from a swab she had done that past Friday, and was feeling terrible.

Not the Positive Test I was Hoping for After Getting Married…

I happened to have one of the home tests you could buy at the drug store, left over from a family member who wanted to test themselves before the wedding. So I went ahead and used that….it INSTANTLY came back positive.

I immediately called every single person who was at the wedding and told them the news. They all got themselves tested as well, and by some miracle not a single one of them came back positive. I was beyond relieved.

I was feeling perfectly fine at this point in time. Maybe it was just all the dopamine left over from the wedding or maybe I was just going to be one of those asymptomatic people? Or so I thought. By that afternoon I had begun to feel pretty crummy.

Of course I went to get a PCR test done (The one that tickles your brain and tests for other viruses, like the flu, in addition to COVID). Just to be sure, but also because my work required it. And of course that one came back positive also.

So, I spent my honey moon week, plus about a week and a half after that, quarantining at home. Ugh. We canceled our plans and thankfully got a refund on the tickets we bought.

I ALWAYS get trip insurance. Especially during a freaking pandemic.

So my symptoms (aside from the aforementioned scratchy throat) began that Sunday that I tested positive. By Tuesday I had a fever of 101.2, body aches that were especially awful in my legs, and fatigue. DayQuil and NyQuil were my best friends for the next 4-5 days after that.

My fever never really got higher than that 101.2, thankfully. My now husband was also an amazing nurse to me while I got through my worst days of COVID. He was completely asymptomatic and tested negative, as we expected (that’s a story for another day). So he used his good health to care for me during out honey moon time.

My husband is naturally a night owl, so throughout the night he would come into the bedroom and see if my fever was spiking, check my breathing, and always make sure I had a glass of water at the bedside for when the coughing attacks woke me up in the middle of the night. He really is a rockstar husband.

Back to Work

So about 2 weeks after I tested positive and my symptoms began, I was clear to go back to work. My fever was gone and I was (mostly) asymptomatic. In general, coughs tend to linger for weeks after being sick, unfortunately.

So, back to work I go. I didn’t exactly feel comfortable going back, as there’s not sure way to test whether a person is still contagious or not. But my fever being gone was reassuring.

After about a week of being back to my normal life of going to work and leaving the house to run errands, I felt 90% back to my old self. The noticeable shortness of breath and lingering cough were the only things I was still working through.

Do I think the vaccine had my back and that’s why I didn’t get super sick? Or was it my strong natural immune system? Or the pack of Emergen-C Immune Plus I drank every day?

Again, who the heck really knows??

The reason I went ahead and got the vaccine in the first place was not because my job made it mandatory, unless I could come up with a good enough reason that qualified me for exemption. I got the vaccine because I had witnessed first hand how ruthless this novel virus really was, and picked my poison.

I’m neither “pro-vax” or “anti-vax”. I’m pro “it’s your body, you should decide what chemicals go into it.” I had seen the worst that COVID had to offer to humans all through 2020. The vaccine and any of it’s supposed possible side effects didn’t seem nearly as terrifying as the pain and suffering that SARS Cov-2 brought to people.

How about l talk more about the vaccine another day? I’m honestly sick and tired of the subject, and I’m sure you all are too.

But there you have it: My brief battle against COVID-19. Personally, I think I had the Omicron variant. Judging by the symptoms and severity. The test didn’t tell me the strain unfortunately.

OH, if forgot to mention. I did lose my sense of smell and taste as well! Although, I only truly noticed this symptom at the tail end of all of my other symptoms. My senses have returned about 75% at this point. Hoping that part will go back to normal sooner than later. Literally the WEIRDEST experience of my life.

My message to you all, on the matter of COVID: Be precautious but also keep living your life! Get married and go on adventures!

August 2024 Update: I tested positive for COVID 4 days ago. This is only my second go round with it since the time I had it when writing this blog post originally. I will say, this time hasn’t been nearly as terrible of an experience as the first time. A lot of the symptoms were about the same, but not nearly as terrible as the first time.