Our dance with Covid

Dean taking his first test Thursday morning.

We’re part of the shrinking group of people—at least in our part of the country—who still wear masks when going to crowded places. I now completely work from home and go out mainly to stalk new coffee shops and exercise. Although, I had made a ton of plans for last weekend in a fit of social-ness. I was actually a little worried about my energy level when I saw everything I had stacked up.

I needn’t have been.

Dean woke up on Thursday morning feeling unwell. He took an at home test, which was negative, so he went to work, thinking he was suffering from allergies. He continued to feel unwell at work and there was a company social event that night. Out of an abundance of caution, he went to a clinic to get tested as soon as he left work. He was positive.

Since we weren’t sure when he was exposed, I cancelled all plans for the weekend and the following day. We also made plans to isolate from each other in the event that I didn’t have it. Dean was told he couldn’t come back to the office for two weeks. He took Friday off sick.

Isolation was a pain in the butt. We have an 800 square foot house. Friday wasn’t too bad as Dean literally slept all day. He didn’t eat anything. I think he used the bathroom once. We agreed to use masks if we had to venture into each other’s side of the house, and to try and keep that to a minimum. At first I tried to text Dean when I was coming out, but this quickly became useless as he was sleeping most of the time. I spent a lot of time outside.

Me and Cloud, hanging out before bed. Dean and I text a lot of pictures of the cats to each other.

Dean tried not to touch or take care of the cats. We couldn’t keep them locked in one end of the house as, not only do they have things all over the house, but the caterwauling would have made our ears bleed. We didn’t feel this was conducive to a restful, healing environment. So, we tried to keep the doors closed and open them when the cats wanted to get to the other side. If you know cats at all, you’ll understand that we spent a large part of this week opening doors for cats.

Saturday Dean was able to move around a bit more, although still not much. He also had no appetite. This is when the cough started developing. He still slept a lot, though not as much as Friday and did go sit in the sun a bit more. I had some zoom and phone conversations on this day, one with someone I was initially supposed to meet up with in person, one with a friend from Chicago. Those were nice respites.

Somewhere during the weekend, I really started feeling 2020 PTSD. I was stressed for ‘no reason’ and completely unmotivated. Even though my daily routine really hadn’t changed that much. I mean, yes, I had to cancel some plans, but there are still weekends where I spend much of the time at home. Yes, I didn’t have full access to the kitchen or living room, but I spend a lot of time in the office regularly also. I was also still slightly afraid of catching it. I do still have asthma and have been in physical therapy desperately trying to recover from a running injury for three months. I’m going to be ready to start running again just as my lungs get destroyed by Covid, I thought more than once. Probably not, I mean, I’ve been vaxxed and boosted, but the thoughts were there, and I spiraled more than once. I mention this just in case someone else goes through it. I’m pretty sure it’s normal.

I did to a lot of writing on my lap desk. The cats were happy to take over Dean’s side of the bed.

Sunday Dean started coughing and I started feeling tired and like I had a sore throat. I took a test and it was negative, but I was pretty sure this was it. I don’t normally suffer from allergies, and I was definitely more tired than normal. My left tonsillar lymph node also swelled up like a grape. I made an appointment with a clinic, got tested. Negative. We sent off for a PCR test. Since the clinic was in a Kroger, I ran through quickly and grabbed a few foods we were out of, ready to hunker down for a long haul, thinking I was in for it.

Monday, Dean was back at work virtually, although he mostly kept to his nest on the couch with the computer set up on the coffee table. I was a little more tired, a little more scratchy, lymph node was painful. I warned my team at work, vowed to get as much done as possible in the next couple of days, anticipating going down like Dean did. We discussed breaking isolation, but Dean said to wait until my PCR results came back. I grumpily agreed, because it was so tedious. I canceled my physical therapy appointment for the following day, sure that I was Covid positive and would be getting worse.

Tuesday, I woke up and felt better. The swelling in my lymph node had gone down. My throat was less scratchy. I went for a bike ride, thinking it might be my last one for a few days. Dean was starting to feel better also, but still coughing like crazy. He began to clean up his ‘nest area.’

Example of a picture that I sent to Dean from the other room.

Wednesday, I felt completely normal. Dean was also feeling better. Technically this was his day five. We still didn’t have my PCR results, so we continued to isolate. By this point, we were starting to believe that perhaps my body had manage to fight off the virus before it took hold as we both thought I should be further along if I really had it. I got my PCR results at around 8pm that night. I was negative.

Dean is now done with isolation, although we’re still sleeping separately out of an abundance of caution and have avoided most contact. I’m glad that we didn’t cave during those two rusty days for me. Who knows, perhaps the fact that my body had less virus to deal with helped. Dean tried to completely avoid the bedroom, and I did spend a lot of time on our porch.

He’s almost back to normal now. He still has a cough, but he’s heard that’s one of the symptoms that lingers the longest. He’s still wearing a mask anytime he leaves the house, of course.

One of the friends that I talked to on Saturday said she and her husband had almost a mirror experience of ours three weeks prior. They tried to distance, but on the fourth day she started showing symptoms and tested positive. She said that she was hearing of more and more people who had never had it before getting caught with whatever this variant is.

Just a reminder that it’s still good to be careful.