I’ve been in two minds about writing this.
On Wednesday 13th October I tested positive for Coronavirus, and immediately went into 10 days of self-isolation. I know that’s not particularly sensational and certainly doesn’t warrant an article to that end. I am fully aware that millions of other people around the world have experienced the same and many have come off significantly worse. I’m lucky that I live in a nation where I have been given two doses of the vaccine in good time and I am able to self-isolate successfully.
There’s nothing sensational about my story.
I did want to make some observations though.
Stuff about the experience. Stuff I thought I knew. Stuff I found out along the way.
Feel free to stop reading now if you know all of this and I’m just another guy banging on about stuff he should have known about. I appreciate this is old news to lots of people.
So…in no particular order of importance…
1. Roulette wheel of symptoms.
When you come down with something, be in the flu or a bout of food poisoning or tonsilitis, you can expect things to get worse quite quickly, last for an amount of time and then gradually get better. Kinda like a normal distribution curve of sorts.
The thing about COVID was the sheer unpredictability of it all.
The first few days felt like a very feverish flu for me. Hot sweats, thumping headaches, aches and pains. Then it mysteriously turned into what felt like rotten tonsilitis for a day…the swallowing razorblades type thing. Then it appeared to clear up. Then it turned into sinusitis accompanied by what felt like a troll punching my lower ribcage repeatedly with knuckle dusters. Then it went back to a fever. It was bonkers.
Unpleasant and bonkers.
No rhyme or reason to the symptoms, their order, any sense of connectivity or severity. I can only liken it to a game of pinball. It felt like something was just bouncing around, randomly picking fights with differently parts of my body in no particular order and in some cases, having the same fight a few times over on different days. Each time I thought things were getting better (by any prior levels of understanding from previous illnesses), it would morph into something entirely different and confuse the hell out of me. There was no sense of improvement – at least not in my case. The last set of symptoms, which emerged on Day 10 of my isolation, felt like I had a perforated eardrum. Go figure. Just one ear. And I’ve still got it, 5 days after ending my isolation.
2. Youth is amazing.
So my wife kindly gave me the Coronavirus, which she no doubt picked up from one of the kids at the school she teaches at. Our geographic area seems to have been one of those affected by the false negative lab results that were prevalent at the back end of September and early October, so it’s no surprise we both came down with it. However, my eldest daughter (age 16) tested positive on the last day of my isolation so she is now holed up in her bedroom waiting out the 10 days. But she’s fine. Where my wife and I suffered with allsorts, my daughter has described her symptoms as “a bit like when you get out of a swimming pool…you know, with the chlorine?”.
What? That’s it? 5 days in I was a sweaty, moaning mess.
5 days in she ‘might’ have a bit of a headache (but that’s probably more to do with her sleeping patterns or the amount of time she’s been staring at a 4 inch screen than anything) and her nose feels “a bit sensitive, like when you’ve been swimming in a pool with chlorine for a bit.”
I can only assume that her youthfulness is fending off whatever pinball scullduggery is happening inside her body. Thank goodness. I just wish I’d been more grateful for youth when I had it!
3. Support networks.
We are an independent family and like to think of ourselves as pretty self sufficient. We are not overly reliant on others for our weekly routines and don’t really like asking for favours. So when both parents have to self-isolate at opposite ends of our house, we had to start calling on others to help. Thankfully our kids are teenagers and able to walk to the shops, use their own bank accounts to pay for things (although they tend to ask for reimbursement with interest!), take care of the dog and able to use things like the hob and oven without fear of burning the house down or setting fire to their hair. But even with this, we still had to call upon people to help and it’s remarkable how quickly you realise how much you do that is suddenly rendered complex as soon as you can’t move around your house or use your car or step outside. I’m very grateful to those that did help us out.
I have no idea how people with fewer support networks or with small children have managed in similar circumstances. I guess you just have to carry on as best you can and compromise the rules to suit your family circumstances.
We rely heavily on technology as a family. WhatsApp has been a constant. Amazon is incredibly helpful (for all its critics) and the prevalence of TV content accessible on any device has been a godsend. Whilst none of these things are essential, it facilitates harmony and simplifies communication when you need it most. If you are elderly (for instance) and don’t have this stuff at your disposal, it must be downright complex. Almost impossible.
It certainly made me think a fair bit about how we have come to rely on certain platforms and systems to live our lives and quite how critical they become in times of need. The first thing anyone went into isolation asking was “Do you have a charger?”.
4. The gov.uk website rocks.
The internet is brilliant. But as a parent and patient, I’ve been really impressed with the Gov.uk website. In truth, I’ve always been a firm fan of what the design team have done to simplify many of the things that were historically, mind numbingly complex to do. Like submitting a VAT return as a business owner, or getting your car tax renewed, and this simplicity has been deployed when you need to order more lateral flow tests, or book a PCR or summarise your movements once you’ve tested positive.
They’ve managed to apply the principles of asking simple, direct questions with easy, comprehendible answers in a simple to follow system, to ascertain the information they require from you. It seems so simple when you do it that you can’t possible understand why it would be any other way, but just go back 5 or 6 years and try to use what was incumbent at the time. It was chaotic and confusing and frustrating and scary. What they’ve done is remarkable and they should be rightly congratulated for their efforts.
5. FFS get a vaccine.
I still don’t understand why you wouldn’t…assuming you are medically able to do so (I appreciate there are a small minority in our society who can’t have the vaccine for very specific reasons). It still baffles me why relatively sensible educated people wouldn’t allow two small injections of scientific brilliance to help them battle against the biggest threat to their life in this modern age.
No amount of reasoning to the contrary can dispute the fact that without it, my wife and I would surely have ended up hospitalised or possibly worse….it doesn’t bear thinking about. I couldn’t care less if I’m riddled with 5G beacons (if it helps with my poor mobile phone reception in the old cottage I live in, then I’m all for it!) or it’s a ruse for the Government to monitor my whereabouts (as if that isn’t already happening…EVERY. SINGLE. SECOND anyway!) or that my DNA is being somehow altered (which might not be a bad thing…there are a few things I’d like to eradicate!).
Sure there is a risk. Blood clots. Fatalities. They are heartbreaking to read about. But it hasn’t stopped me wanting it. If I was that worried about the percentage levels of risk they are talking about, I wouldn’t get on a plane, or eat eggs, or use a mobile phone or breathe any form of city air.
This thing hit me like a freight train, and I felt it. I’m still feeling it. And that is what it feels like when I’m fully protected with the full force of science behind me.
Thank fuck for science. That’s all I can say.
6. Gradual complacency.
It’s so easy to get complacent about COVID. I did. Absolutely.
After multiple lockdowns, the gradual reduction in cases in the news, easing of restrictions, you can’t help but start to feel a little more invincible. If it hasn’t got me by now…sort of thing. You start to forget wearing your mask every now and again. You don’t wash your hands as often as you should. You stand a little closer than you used to when chatting. All stuff that feels easy enough to excuse and because you are vaccinated, then why not?
This has been a bit of a wake up call for me. This thing isn’t going away. It’s just that we’ve found ways to minimise its impact. But if ‘minimal impact’ is feeling like I did last week, then I for one will be being a little more cautious and a little more diligent in my actions from now on. I could argue that I’m now effectively bulletproof, as my body has fought it off, but I can’t help but wonder that I might just be a more ignorant carrier of it from now on if I’m not careful. For sure, I won’t feel the effects of it as I’ve had it (at least until my antibodies start to fail again), but that doesn’t mean I can’t transmit it onwards.
It’s almost a little scarier…if you think about it. Does herd immunity mean herd ignorance? Like bees carrying pollen.
We as a family have become more diligent in our testing, and have actively been encouraging our respective parents and family to test more. I have no doubt that complacency will kick in again as life moves on and the memory fades a little. But for now at least, we should try a little harder to maintain some of those standards that were drilled into us in the early days of COVID.
7. The age lottery.
The more I think about it and the more you hear of strategies from the Government about vaccine boosters, the more I am aware of the age lottery that comes to play when dealing with COVID.
I’m in my mid to late 40’s, and my last vaccine was back in early June. We know that the younger you are the less affected you are by this virus (at least statistically), and the phrase I keep hearing when it comes to priorities and boosters is the ‘over 50’s’. I can’t help but think that my age has put me in a position where I’m neither considered vulnerable enough to need additional support or a booster, nor youthful enough to fight it off easily. My vaccine protection is anecdotally valid for 6 months (so we are led to believe – I don’t know the true value) which would mean that I was expecting my body to fight it about 5 months after my last vaccine dose. With that in mind, I’m not surprised it hit me like a tonne of bricks.
Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m thankful as hell that I have had the vaccine and that there was some form of protection in my middle aged body to fend off the little blighter, but it feels like we need to start considering the timelapse of protection and learn to accept that we may need to live with a constant ‘phasing’ of vulnerability. I don’t think that this thing is going away any time soon, and trying to manage it in a household of different generations needs some thought.
8. The long, long tail.
The thing that has hit me the hardest is what I’ve called the long tail of COVID. The sheer time it is taking both myself and my wife to get ‘back to normal’. To my first point about the ‘normal distribution curve’ shape of recovery, you typically expect things to improve incrementally to a point where you can return to your daily routine and go about your business, albeit it with the “gradual return of your sense of taste and smell” and the annoyingly persistent “continued cough” which the NHS are clear to warn you about. I get that these will take time.
However, even after I completed my 10 days of self isolation and took numerous lateral flow tests to conclude I wasn’t contagious anymore, the sheer feeling of exhaustion and lack of ability is quite overwhelming. It feels like someone has tied a knot in my lungs about a third of the way down. There’s nothing.
You empty the dishwasher and get dressed and you need to sit down to recover.
There’s no doubt which organ this thing likes to punch about. The lungs.
It’s like I’m running on batteries that need a recharge. I’m having to consciously and actively think about my breathing to get in the air I need.
I’ve likened it to your home being flooded (not that I’ve had the misfortune…but I’m imagining). You get the initial flood water approaching your home, you do what you can to defend but ultimately the flood water enters and fills the first floor of your entire home with filthy, putrid water. It stays there for a bit, slowly rotting and destroying your home and you can do nothing about it. It then gradually subsides and the visible water has gone. But the home is still damaged and no matter how much you sweep away or dry out things, the damage is done and the water will continue to rot and destroy the fabric of your walls, your floors and your décor…no matter what you do. The only thing you can do with that is wait. Wait until it is absolutely dry. Then you can deal with repair. That’s how I feel about COVID.
I’m certainly not complaining. My body in combination with lovely science and a healthy helping of luck and circumstance, has dealt with a virus that has claimed the lives of millions. For that I am eternally grateful. I’m dealing with stuff that is inconvenient but ‘dealable’. I know things will improve. I just need to be patient.
Like I said at the start, I don’t really know why I wrote this. I’m not unique. This shit has happened to millions of other people. Many people I know have dealt with much worse and with greater dignity. I think I just wanted to capture my thoughts, as I’ve done throughout the last 18 months or so.
The last few weeks has certainly made me think about a few things, and those things are important. Adaptation. Complacency. Consideration.
Most of all I just feel lucky.
On a sidenote…It’s also thrown a spanner in the works.
The 25th October 2021 was a key date for me. It was the date I was finally allowed to operate as a freewheeling, ‘no holds barred’ design consultant at large again. No more contractual handcuffs or limitations. I had planned to launch something to that end on my website and make some noise.
But COVID had other plans. My plan has had to wait a few more weeks until I sound less like a wheezy old man….or the toy penguin from Toy Story 2!
Good timing huh?
