It’s been two weeks since I posted about my positive COVID test, so I figured I’d do a brief check-in and let you know how I’m doing.
When I last wrote, I was going through pretty active symptoms. Luckily, I didn’t need to go to the hospital or anything, but it still felt like one of the nastiest flus I’d ever experienced (and I rarely get anything more severe than a cold or nasal/sinus infection). It took a few days before the headaches and nasal congestion started going away. My laryngitis had already been starting to let up when I wrote my last post, but I knew it was going to take a few days for my vocal cords to fully heal up. I normally don’t take NyQuil when I get sick, but I did end up using it for about 3 or 4 nights for its fever reducing and cough suppressant properties, and it did help me sleep a little more soundly, although I still had issues waking up at like 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning.
I still deal with a little bit of coughing and dry mouth, but other than that I’m feeling pretty good right now. I will say that I hope I never have to go outside while running a fever in the middle of summer ever again. (Hey, when Roxy’s gotta go outside, she’s gotta go outside whether I want to or not.) It. Felt. Awful.
I never officially took a test to confirm I’m negative now, but given that I’ve been symptom-free almost two weeks with no further developments or complications, I think my body’s officially knocked out that sucker. I was quite fatigued for much of the week that I was actively sick; I pretty much only had energy to try and stay caught up on laundry or dishes and I didn’t try to cook anything more than ramen noodle soup until the day after my post, and even then I ended up using the slow cooker (broccoli beef with brown rice).
The one lasting effect this thing left on me thus far is that I currently have little to no sense of smell. I knew something was up when I couldn’t smell the sesame oil I was using for the broccoli beef. 😢 It’s not surprising, actually, since much of this infection was in my nasal cavity. I may be starting to gain just a little bit of it back, but from the sources I’ve read, it will likely be a month or so before I might get a substantial sense of smell back. My brother lost his senses of smell and taste when he had it in March of 2021, and the dominant strain at that point, I think, was the Delta variant, which was more virulent and deadly (remember that my sister-in-law’s grandmother died from it during this time). Mine was more likely one of the Omicron subvariants, which is a little more resistant to the vaccine I got last summer (I, unfortunately, had not yet gotten boosted) and more contagious than previous variants, but it also hasn’t been as deadly. For my brother, though, his loss of taste and smell was temporary and I think he’s made a full recovery. Thankfully, my sense of taste has remained intact, otherwise I probably would have felt quite depressed.
My dad had developed symptoms before me and ended up testing positive the same day I did. He only ended up missing two days of work due to COVID (they had his isolation period retroactive to when he first started showing symptoms) and was able to return to work last Sunday (although he did mask up last week as a precaution, just in case he was still shedding virus, but not showing symptoms). He’s doing pretty good now as well. And unlike me, his sense of smell has remained intact.
I finally got a chance to get groceries over the weekend and I found some extra Lion Brand Summer Nights yarn on clearance, so I got a couple of balls of it and a crochet hook and I’m working on another Virus Shawl. (No pun intended.) It’s my first time working one in a fingering or lace weight yarn, and the pattern itself is relatively easy for me to memorize.
So, that’s what’s been going on with me since my positive COVID test two weeks ago. How have all of you been doing?
The Snowless Knitter 
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