My older brother has had it twice. My sister, younger than me, and her boyfriend came down with it a couple of days after a Thanksgiving get-together I had to miss because of a non-COVID bug (yes, I tested). So far I haven’t caught it, but I’m vaxxed to the max, mostly a hermit, and still mask up in stores and such.
All of us are in our 70s, all vaxxed, but I’m far less engaged with other people and live in a low-risk area.
Welp, seems like I held out about this long. I was feeling rough for a few days last week then it suddenly escalated into something that felt unusually nasty for a cold. Tested and turns out it’s COVID.
I had previously wondered if I had it earlier, because I did experience a change to my sense of taste (it was weirdly specific - cucumbers just began tasting foul) around about the time when the pandemic began, but in the context of how I’ve felt over the past day or two, I now don’t think I’ve had it before; this feels different.
Yesterday was the worst day and I’m starting to feel a lot better today. Completely lost my sense of taste yesterday (not just the olfactory part of taste - I couldn’t even taste salt or sweet), but that’s coming back now. Unfortunately, the missus is now down with it, despite my attempts to quarantine myself in different rooms - I think her symptoms are trailing mine by about a day, so hopefully she’ll be feeling at least well enough to open a few presents tomorrow,
I’m sorry it got you, Mangetout, and your missus as well.
Don’t rush to get back to your normal routine, even if you feel better. Give your body a lot of time to kick it thoroughly out. I felt a lot better after two days and started to do a bit of housework and went out for a modest drive to get out of the house, and I paid for it. It surged back on me badly and I spent all yesterday in bed in spite of cabin fever.
Mr. brown was liberated from isolating yesterday, and he went to the market for convenience foods for meals and herbal tea. He felt pretty well, but the little trip caught up with him and he spent from noon to six in bed recovering.
This is my last day on Paxlovid, and tomorrow will be my first day out of isolation. Too bad it’ll be Christmas day and everything’s closed! Or I’d indulge in a comforting bowl of chicken pho at our local Vietnamese joint as my first excursion.
Yeah, sound advice. I’ve done the rush back to normality with just a bad cold before and ended up having to take another whole week off work.
Gentle activity and fresh air seems to help, but I’m not going to overdo it.
Fortunately, almost presciently you might say, I have been doing loads of batch meal prep for the freezer, and looking through the cupboard this morning I have somehow accidentally managed to buy like eight tins of mulligatawny soup, so I think meals shouldn’t be too tricky while we’re stuck here at home recovering.
Well I still have no taste or smell and I am slow to get better, but I had an asthma attack last night which made things worse.
I tested this morning for COVID and the result was what looked to me like a very faint line. My husband saw it too. I guess COVID is the most likely explanation for what I’ve been experiencing, so I am going to say there is an 80% chance I have it and act accordingly.
I do feel better than I did Friday, but I’m still mostly useless.
My husband is starting to get a sore throat too. Lovely.
Unfortunately I had to cancel our Christmas plans. We had to cancel Thanksgiving plans too, so this just sucks.
My husband and i have a probably-not-covid cold, and we’ll probably cancel Christmas too. 
I plan to cook a nice dinner, but my son probably won’t come over, and we won’t be going to the movies.
(He tested negative on a home test. I’m waiting for results from a pcr test i got at the CVS clinic, since their rapid test machine was broken.)
Yay, I’m done with the damn Paxlovid! Took the last dose last night and I’m finally getting rid of the constant bitter flavor in my mouth. That’s a nice Christmas present.
Well, I’m out of isolation today, but since almost everything’s closed, I’m limited as to what I can do. At least I’ll fix a modest Christmas dinner (tri-tip roast, potato casserole, peas and carrots), and maybe go for a short drive in the country. I’ll stop at whatever grocery store is open and go in and get a frozen dessert for today, since I’ve been too sick to bake one. Does Sara Lee still make coconut cake?
I hope everyone who has this plague during the holidays is feeling better soon. Take care of yourselves and don’t overdo it too soon.
According to Walmart online, they carry it. Go for it! It’s just about my favorite store bought cake.
My husband had to make a run to the drugstore and I said, “Hey. Get me some Coconut Dreams.” And he did.
And I forgot I can’t taste anything. I now have delicious cookies I can’t taste.
I do feel considerably better today. For the first time I don’t feel like laying in bed all day. And this is the first time in days I’ve been able to engage with my son. We built a gear robot together.
I’m really grateful to be able to get well enough in time to enjoy Christmas Day with him.
And Spouse Weasel just tested positive, making my ambiguous test a sure thing. However, we are both doing pretty okay right now.
Let the record show we held out for nearly four years!
We’re both past the worst of it now I think. Most of my sense of taste is back, although bitter flavours seem weirdly amplified; for Mrs Mangetout, it’s salt, so I cooked a sort of subset of Christmas dinner today, with low sodium in mind.
However electrolytes are important when you’re drinking extra to keep hydrated and soothe a burning throat, but it seems like salty snacks are ok (things that are supposed to taste salty taste normally salty to her; things that should be normal taste overseasoned)
Of course I never wished to catch COVID, but I am sort of relieved to know the course of the thing on me, because even with the common cold I often get it going to my chest badly. Thos didn’t do that any worse. It was different from a bad cold. But only in the details, not so much the severity.
Mine was pretty much on its last legs, as yesterday was the tenth day since I started coming down with it. I was doing normal activity, albeit masked, like a small walk and a trip to a grocery store. But last night it rebounded on me. I spent the night congested and scratchy and feeling sick again.
I’ve been reading about Paxlovid rebound on Yale Medicine, and they feel the term is a misnomer. You can get rebound whether or not you take Paxlovid. Whichever it is, I’m back to sickly again, though it’s not as bad as when I first came down with it.
Anyone else experience a rebound?
Well, fuck me. I didn’t hold out long as I would have hoped.
Well, damn, it’s depressing that so many of you smart, sensible people got caught nevertheless. Heck, I saw my cardiologist yesterday, and learned the reason we’d had to reschedule my original appointment was that he and his family all came down with COVID, and he’s vaxxed and takes precautions.
I’ve been lucky so far, probably because I’m fully vaxxed, a semi-hermit, and mask up when I go indoors anywhere there are other people. Also live where there’s a low rate of transmission. But I still worry about catching it eventually.
My husband saw a nurse practitioner for his diagnosis. She asked about when he first felt sick and when he first tested positive, and said that he probably caught it on the 15th. I looked back through our bank records to see where we were on that day, and we were at Costco. Yep, that must have been where we picked it up. It was more crowded that day than usual due to holiday shoppers. We weren’t masked, more fools we. We’d grown complacent.
My Paxlovid rebound is on its way out. I guess I’m still infectious, so I should continue to isolate. I’ll start testing in a couple of days to see what’s what. The rebound phase was just as awful as the initial infection, by the way.
I’m mostly better with some lingering asthma. Spouse Weasel is a bit behind me but seems to do better every day.
I’m tired but I’m always tired. It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes. All I know is I’m not doing much to exert myself.
Today. Damn. No symptoms until this morning. Checking with TeleHealth doc in an hour to see about getting Paxlovid.
And I had dinner at a restaurant last night in a very small booth with 3 friends.
I still haven’t gotten covid that I know of. I’ve only had a single, 48-hour long head cold without a cough the past 5 years, and I tested negative 2x at the time.
So either I still haven’t had covid, or it was indistinguishable from seasonal allergies which would make it far milder than every one of the chest colds I had from 2012-2019.
Sorry to hear that. I hope you are feeling OK, symptom wise.
It’s my turn. I hadn’t had so much as a sniffle since this started.
Yesterday I awoke with a scratchy throat and last night I got the chills and joint pain.
Just tested positive.
So far it isn’t that bad- Ibuprofen knicks the chills and joint paint to where I can work (remote, of course)
I’m supposed to be in Belgium at the end of the month and I really hope it’s all good by then