Six Weeks of COVID

Fifteen Days Six Weeks of Covid

If you read my post on Portugal you may already know that Leslie and I brought a guest home with us – the COVID virus. I am writing this post to be informative for those curious to gather anecdotal evidence about what it’s like to get COVID. Here’s the timeline of my experience to date.

UPDATE at 6 Weeks: The information below was written in real time for the first 15 days, when, near the end I felt I was better enough to consider myself near done. However, now at the 6 week mark, I will tell you that weeks 3-5 were more difficult for this asthmatic blogger than the first couple weeks were. While I kept active throughout, when I felt up to it, I was struggling with the dizzies and difficulty breathing for more than half the time during those latter weeks. As of today – the six-week point (9/11/22) – this was the second day my breathing was somewhat normal, and my light-headedness was almost non-existent. I truly hope this is my last update on the subject. Be well.

Day 1: Woke up feeling dryness in my throat. Thought it was perhaps a result of sleeping with my mouth open, or perhaps some bad air quality from a nearby fire. The dryness was very mild and I could notice it when I thought about it, but it was mostly off my mind.

Day 2: (Walking around Porto) Just like day 1, but the dryness was slightly more than it was the previous day.

Day 3: (Train ride to Lisbon) More of the same, but on this day I took measures to stay indoors incase the outside air was really the problem.

Day 4: (Flight home) Feels more like a cold that got progressively more so as the flight progressed. Seemed to enter my lungs more and irritated my nasal passage more. Started to suspect a cold or COVID for the first time. Took a COVID test as soon as I got home: Positive.

Day 5: Woke up feeling some energy, so took a morning bike ride. Feeling like COVID was going to be super mild and go away quickly. Was able to work with good energy until about 3pm – then felt like crap for the rest of the day.

Day 6: Feeling like a real cold – no energy. Worked some, but didn’t feel good most of the day.

Day 7: More like Day 5 – took a morning bike ride and felt some real strength toward the end of the ride, but good feelings dwindled quickly and was dragging the rest of the day. Felt pretty bad that evening.

Day 8: (Saturday) – woke up feeling horrible. Was it the Benadryl? Was it COVID making me feel that way? Need to get the yard work done, so did that, but otherwise lots of nasal dripping and dry (unproductive) coughing.

Day 9: (The day I started to author this post) Slept pretty well. Woke up feeling better than the day before. Took a nice hour-long walk. Will see how the day goes. 5:50PM… kept somewhat active today, though energy level was pretty low most of the day. Nothing too serious, more nasal congestion dripping into the bronchial ways – clearing my throat all day. Nevertheless, I thought I would do a home test to see if I can get some indication that I am free and clear of the virus.

No such luck. Think I’ll sip some Johnny Walker Black.

Tomorrow’s another day.

Day 10: Woke up this morning feeling pretty normal. A little nasal congestion. Almost no coughing. PulseOx reading was 95. I haven’t mentioned PulseOx yet, mostly because I am not very knowledgeable on the topic. I will say that yesterday my average was in the low 90’s and on day 8 it was consistently at or slightly below 90. I am glad to see some improvement on that today.

Day 15: Days 11-14 were will filled with congestion, coughing, breathing tightness, low blood-oxygen, and a little bit of feeling OK in between. On day 13 I called the doctor to see if I should get attention, but the advice was to keep doing what I’m doing (symptoms described are common, and add some Zyrtec to the mix. On day 14 I nearly killed myself with a 28 mile bike ride – all good except I was ready to pass-out during the last mile or so – I think mostly heat exhaustion. I call it an exorcism. Well, it may have worked – today (day 15) I woke up feeling 95%, and stayed at that level for most of the day (it’s late afternoon as I write this). With that said, I am ready to call this the last entry for this Covid-19 experience. I prefer not to do that again, and count my blessings that it could have been worse.