People have been dropping around me like flies this summer, and I was beginning to think I was invincible. I had my two shots in 2020 and my booster in 2021. I was feeling great!
Thursday, August 18th, which is a day off for me, I woke up with what I thought was just a dry throat. I don’t know why I always think it’s a dry throat when I wake up with a sore or scratchy throat. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. I tried sewing for a while, but I just wasn’t up for it, so I came out to the living room and sat in my favorite rocking chair in front of our wood-burning stove. As I sat there, I realized I had a headache, and my skin felt a little prickly. I asked Mark to go to the drug store and get me a home Covid test. The result was negative, so I didn’t give that another thought. I called in sick for my job at the Welcome Center that Friday.
Friday I felt even worse. I was in bed all day and had Mark cover the window because it was too bright for my headache. The only thing I really had an appetite for were Outshine popsicles, which at least have the advantage of being made with real fruit juice and nothing added. They were cold and wet and just what my sore throat needed. I called in sick for work at the Noble house the next day.
Saturday, I tossed and turned so much that I had the sheets and covers all wadded up around me. This whole time, Mark was in conversation with his sister in Utah who is a nurse, and no matter how horrible I felt, she said, “It’s a virus. Her fever is low-grade. She’ll get over it.” I was trying to think of all kinds of things it could be — strep? the flu? Mark was worried and he kept checking in on me.
Sunday, I sat up for a while in the living room and thought maybe I was better, but towards the afternoon, my body started to ache and my fever returned. Monday, I was able to sit out in the living room all day, but I didn’t feel like doing much. It was just such a relief to not have a splitting headache and the pain in my throat didn’t seem so bad in comparison to what it had been over the weekend.
I figured that since my temperature had broken, I was on the downhill side of the flu, so I went to work at the Noble House on Tuesday the 23rd and wore my mask all day except when I had lunch in the staff room. Wednesday, I went to work at the Welcome Center, again masked up. I came home exhausted. Thursday was my quilt group, which I skipped, but there was a meeting of volunteers for our group’s 25th anniversary next year and I was on the committee. Mark took me there and I was listless during the meeting. I wore my mask. Then I went home and went to bed.
Friday, I was at the Welcome Center, certain that I was not contagious anymore, so I worked without my mask. Same thing on Saturday when I worked at the Noble House. I was dragging by the end of my shift at 3:00 in the afternoon and was very tired as I drove home. I went straight to bed and stayed there pretty much all of Sunday and Monday hoping that it would help me to rebuild my strength. I still felt like crap on Monday afternoon, so I forewarned my boss at the Noble House that Mark was going to take me to a doctor the next day.
Tuesday, the 30th, Mark took me an hour’s drive down to Sturgeon Bay to go to Urgent Care. They asked if I’d taken another Covid test after the first one, and I said no. I had assumed that once it said I was negative for Covid, that ruled that out. They took another Covid test and it came out positive. The doctor prescribed medication for me and Mark picked it up at Walmart while we were down there. While he went into the store, I texted both my bosses and told them I had Covid and would be out for the week. I made arrangements with my co-workers to cover my shifts at the Welcome Center. Then I went home and quarantined for a week and took my meds.
The meds helped with the tight band I felt around my chest, but I felt very weak and shaky. I still had a cough in spite of the prescription the doctor gave me for the cough. One day, I tried to take the laundry out of the washing machine and I felt nauseated. I took the laundry out to the clothesline to air dry, and the fresh breeze made me feel a little better. I sat out on our back porch for about an hour and held very still so I could watch the birds and squirrels and chipmunks without disturbing them.
I have never been able to go outside much during the summer because of the mosquitoes. I was considering spraying for mosquitoes and ticks this year (Tucson got Lymes disease from a tick bite last summer), but while we were in Arizona, I happened across a wild bird shop and learned about birds that eat bugs. Mark and I decided to give that a try. We put out all sorts of bird feeders, a birdhouse, and a squirrel feeder and we haven’t had a problem with bugs all summer. Not only that, but we get to hear birds singing all the time, and Tucson loves to chase the squirrels!
Today was my first day back at the Noble House. My biggest problem now is that my ears have been plugged for several days and it makes me dizzy. I was concerned about walking up and down the stairs. Thankfully, it was a relatively quiet day. There were only two tour groups today of three people each, so I spent most of the day out on the front porch reading a novel about a quilter in Door County that my boss had left on the table for me. She knows I like to quilt. My dizziness is such that I would look up from the book I was reading to see what was going on across the street and things would start jumping around. My boss came in to check on me this afternoon and told me to take it easy. It’s been a long time since I’ve cleaned the staff bathroom which I usually do every other week, but she said it will be OK to leave it until I feel better. She said she has taken care of a few things in there. Bless her soul!
I should also mention that a few days ago, my boss from the Welcome Center brought me a box of tomatoes she had grown herself and she included some fresh herbs and some marigolds to make it look and smell pretty. Last week, Kadar brought us four bags of groceries and she brought me a calla lily plant. Mark had also brought me a bouquet of flowers and he’s been wonderful about washing the dishes and cooking and taking care of me. Everyone has been so kind!
Tonight is the first night where I have felt like I could sit up and write a blog. I wrote three blogs last month that I suspect most of you didn’t get last month because no one responded to them and they were doozies! There was a glitch with my blogging program, so Jamey fixed it for me and hopefully, you will all get this blog. Respond so I know you’re still out there! If you want to go back and read the ones I wrote last month, you can go to my website at https://www.denisefuller.com. I tried resending them when I realized no one was getting them, so they may all appear to be from the same date. If you read them, I’d like your reactions to those too.
I hope you are all well and safe. If you haven’t had Covid yet and there’s any way at all you can avoid getting it, please do so! It’s nothing to take lightly.