This is probably the 9,000th blog that someone is using to document their journey with COVID. I have to do something, though, because it is driving me slowly insane. So, this is the 9,001st blog dealing with COVID and I hope you don't mind me taking a break from talking about writing and horror and horror writing.
I got the 'VID on Monday. I guess that was the 21st. Woke up in the middle of the night and it felt like this was a live tarantula doing fan kicks in my chest. It was a cough that HAD to cough, if you can dig it? Like, when I started to cough, it felt like maybe I would never be able to stop coughing until my head exploded. I knew this was not normal.
The first test I took in the morning was negative, but things did not get any better as the day wore on. My head started to pound and I started to feel like my brain was full of steel wool or something. I knew this was bad and took a second test. Surprise! The faintest of second red lines appeared on that test strip.
This was my first go-round with the 'rona. I have a cousin who has had it three times. I almost made it three years. Hell, I hadn't even had a cold or flu since early January 2020. I am more pissed that my streak ended than anything.
So, it is now day 5. Overall, I had about two days of feeling really sick. By the third, I felt like I had a head cold. By the fourth, like I was getting over a head cold. Now, on the 5th day, I feel like I am having one of my allergy attacks with mild sniffles. Thanks Science for vaccinations and boosters, cuz I have all of them and without them, I don't think I would be feeling this good just 5 days later.
But see here is the true insidious nature of COVID. Sure, it can make you sick, and I am worried about long COVID symptoms, but the true thing it does is - drive you crazy. You see, my wife has not gotten sick and to stop me from giving it to here, I have now spent 5 days locked away in the bedroom and staying as far away from her as I can. I could not sit with her and watch TV shows tonight or eat Thanksgiving dinner with her on Thursday. Whenever I leave the bedroom, I have to wear a mask and gloves.
Basically, since it is unseasonably warm out there, I am going stir crazy. This room is nice when I feel like doo-doo, but it feels very small and dark when I feel better and want to go out and do things. But COVID is insidious and I am still "shedding virus" right now. Which means, I gotta stay locked up. I can rejoin the world, but while wearing a mask, by Sunday. I won't be able to take off the mask until December 1. For the next 90 days, I will likely test positive for COVID, and at any point during that time, might spike a fever or get a coughing fit or just run out of breath.
I miss my wife. I miss my goddamn living room. I miss my dogs something fierce. I hate that I was feeling down about the holidays already, and then this made me even more isolated than I already felt. This hardly puts me in the holiday spirit, Universe. Just sayin'.
I did finish the first draft of a novelette, though. And I am going to start editing and doing rewrites on that now. So, there's one good thing. One bad thing? Allie James, my amazing podcast narrator and producer, also got COVID (as did her husband), so there was no new episode this week.
Anyway, despite all my whining, I am alive. I am feeling better. A lot of people have not been as lucky with this virus. The death toll of this thing is astronomical and hard to fathom. Stir crazy is so much better than being in a hospital room, unconscious, on a ventilator.
So, there's day 5. Stir crazy. Blogging about COVID. Complaining. Missing my wife and dogs.
I hope your holiday weekend has been going much better. Be well. Wear a mask. Get vaxxed. Be kind to one another.
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