A Series of Shitty Adventures, Part I

Hi all, it's been a while, so let's catch up.

After three full years of avoiding it and weaving around some close exposures, our luck finally caught up with us...and during the first week of February, we got Covid.

Daisy was exposed to a coworker who had it and began developing symptoms a few days later. After close to a week of feeling weird/bad, after three tests, she finally tested positive. I remained pretty normal until the evening/overnight hours that same night, when I started to feel a little strange and began running a very light (99.0) fever. I didn't feel sick per se, but I wasn't feeling good, either.

I let my bosses know that Daisy had tested positive, which likely meant that I would too and I'd also get it. Daisy was a mess. At that juncture I told work I still planned to work normally but I'd keep them in the loop if that changed. I took a test. I tested negative. 

By around 2am on one of the weekend nights before I'd return to work -- by which time I'd developed a cough that was hard, dry, and painful -- I went to sleep. I slept for ten hours straight, only getting up to use the bathroom and move to the bedroom from my overstuffed lounge chair around the middle of that time. By the time I'd awakened for the day, Daisy had gone to and returned from Walgreens (fully masked and basically in a hazmat suit) to pick up the Paxlovid she'd called our doctor to send over for her. I took a test. I was negative at that time.

She'd also made sure to update my own insurance information with the pharmacists at Walgreens so that inevitably, when said Paxlovid would be called in for me, everything would be good and ready to roll. 

Most of the following Sunday, while Daisy was still dying, I was mostly okay. I had the cough. It was getting worse and more frequent. But I didn't have a fever, and physically I actually felt sort of light and energetic. I didn't want to take another test yet, as we only had three left and I didn't want to burn through them -- especially as I don't think they're incredibly accurate. So I decided I was fine enough to attempt to work all night, as per the usual.

I was. Mostly.

By the middle of the night, the 3am, 4am hours, I was coughing so hard and so frequently I saw spots and was getting very dizzy. I made sure the crew knew, again, that if I could power through it for Monday night I'd do the same, this thing wasn't gonna take me alive, etc. -- but it really, really was not looking good.

It was around this time that I for sure knew I had Covid. There was no denying it, no way in hell that's not what it was. I was loopy, I had major brain fog. It took me twenty minutes to remember my password to login to my work computer, and even then it was mostly muscle memory. 

I was coughing so hard by 6am (I get off work at 7) that I'd awakened the wife upstairs multiple times. She offered to come downstairs and help me take another test, because I was, well...almost unable to move, and I was keeping her awake. She tested me with a different kind of test this time (apparently there are a lot of different ones) and we waited the prerequisite amount of time before it told Daisy what we both already knew -- yeah, positive. I couldn't see the line on it (my eyes are bad) but Daisy could. I did see the line eventually; it got darker a bit later.

I took my temperature. 101. Daisy called in the Paxlovid for me. It would be a while before it was available. I took a double-dose of liquid NyQuil and went upstairs, where a short while later I passed out in my chair for four hours and then moved to the bedroom for another three.

When I awakened...it was bad. I knew I was really sick. I haven't felt a sick like this in decades. I had Flu B in 2015 and Flu C in 2018. Flu B sucked to be sure, and Flu C slightly less, but it was nothing like this. The closest thing I could describe it as was when I had mono for like two weeks in the 3rd grade. I remember being low-grade miserable, sleeping a lot (a lot), and not having an appetite. Well, this was like that, except it was high-grade miserable, not low-grade. It's the closest thing I can describe it as, honestly.

Daisy had gone out while I was asleep (again) to pick up my Paxlovid. She also picked up eight more tests -- did you know that your insurance, well maybe not all insurances, but ours -- will pay for eight more tests per person, per month? For free. Because I sure as hell didn't. 

Our doctor had called in these little gelcaps for me too; I can't remember the name of the actual drug, but they refer to them as "pearls" and they're supposed to stop you from coughing so much. They're basically prescription Robitussin in a pill, from what I read about them online. I'm supposed to take 2-3 of them a day as needed, and they interact with some of my other meds (they make them less effective, but not much else). I took one, and I did notice a vast difference in my coughs within 2-3 hours.

[EDIT: the drug is called Benzonotate.]

The Paxlovid, if you are not aware or don't have experience with it, is basically Tamiflu for Covid-19. It's an antiviral that stops the virus from being able to reproduce in your body and attempts to flush it out. Okay, sure, whatever. It is free and covered by insurance so yeah, might as well give it a go.

Look, I have diabetes. I'm overweight. I smoked for over fifteen years. I don't feel like I'm taking the drug away from someone who could give it better use. Those are the three biggest risk factors for severe Covid as well as long-haul Covid. 

It comes in a box with five blister packs, six pills per pack. Take the three "morning" pills in the morning, and take the other three "evening" pills at night before bed. For five days. Oh, and if it doesn't kick the virus out of you completely, you could have a resurgence and get sick again the day after it ends, testing positive again and becoming sick again until it all works its way out of your system.

But, I mean, I guess that doesn't happen to everyone. It did happen to my mother, who had a bout of Covid around the turn of the year and still hasn't completely recovered, so I was willing to take the chance.

I was miserable, and my fever began creeping up again. The early part of that week was likely my own "worst days" of the sick. I told Daisy I wasn't going to work, there was no way I could sit upright for many hours and end and think critically and be stressed out when I was this sick -- or talk on the phone with clients for that matter. 

My company has a policy where, even though all of us work at home and have done so since March 2020, we still need to report positive Covid cases (for ourselves, or for our agents). It's more important with the groups who still work onsite in the last remaining physical office we have in Omaha, as they have to follow distancing protocol and the like. But, we don't work onsite and the Covid reporting is also ammo they use every time our parent company gets some sort of idea about "Covid's over now, let's move everyone back to an office" -- so that our leadership can point to the numbers and be like "no, look at X cases reported this week by people who are working at home and would be bringing that back to the office" etc. It's ammunition that has seemed to work really well overall, even after most infection numbers began to die down in most cities. Secretly, I also think it's because when the symptoms aren't killing you, most people can work through them when they're working from home instead of just quarantining themselves and hurting production by not being onsite to work even if they're mostly okay, because they'd still be spreading the virus.

Anyway, I let the team know, including my executive director and head of HR, that yeah, I had it, was on Paxlovid and self-isolating, wouldn't need to go onsite for anything, etc etc, and that I would definitely be out of office for a bit, time unknown, but 1-2 days at the very least.

Mind you, I'm salaried; the correct thing to do is to put in the PTO for that, and I did so, but even if I hadn't...I'd still get paid regardless. 

At that juncture, I left it open that I did not know when I'd be able to return to work. Given how I felt at the time, I wasn't going to commit to anything yet. I also left my out of office messages both on my phone and on my email intentionally vague, just saying that I was out of office due to illness and would respond to inquiries upon my return. This would serve me pretty well as a saved message for future use as well (keep reading, I'll get to it). 

I asked Daisy, who was feeling a bit better by this point on her second full day of Paxlovid, but still sick, if she'd make her famous vegan chicken noodle soup for me for dinner. Meanwhile, I had on my fur/sherpa lined hooded bathrobe and I was still freezing, yet sweating. She made the soup and I ate it, because she is an amazing wife, but I also felt my fever creeping upward with little I could do about it -- there are a lot of things you can't take with Paxlovid because of potentially serious drug interactions, and one of them per the research I found was acetaminophen -- which is in the NyQuil I was planning to do another double-shot of before going upstairs.

[EDIT: while there are some potentially serious drug interactions with Paxlovid, apparently the reason you can't take some of the aforementioned OTC medications with it -- including decongestants, allergy pills, acetaminophen, etc -- is because it somehow interacts with the Paxlovid to either neutralize it or make it FAR less effective. So there's that.]

My fever hit 102, then 102.2, then 102.5, then capped out at 102.7. I couldn't take anything to reduce the fever.

My blood oxygen was anywhere between 91 when I first checked it (which is bad-ish news) to generally, consistently hanging around 97, 98, which is much more ideal. 

Daisy was very worried about how my fever had kept creeping up. Aside from knowing I had a fever, I felt mostly okay by the time she showered and went to bed. Good enough to where I should've been at work? Hell no, but good enough to where I felt I wasn't going to die. I took the "night" dose of the Paxlovid, and she did another search and found that ibuprofen, another fever reducer, did not have any known drug interactions with Paxlovid, and I took two of them to ease her mind. 

Over the span of about forty minutes, my fever began to slowly drop -- first to 102.4, then to 102.0, and then it moved back up to 102.2. It was clearly fighting the ibuprofen. By the time I was tired enough to go to sleep, it was back down to 101.8 and my blood oxygen was well-stabilized at 97. I wrapped myself in a queen-sized fleece blanket like a burrito and went to sleep in my chair -- if I burst into coughing fits in the night, I didn't want to wake Daisy up. And if I were in the bed with her, I absolutely would. 

I did not sleep well. It's like my body didn't want me to sleep. I was full of aches/pains and felt extremely stiff. I was cold and hot at the same time. My blanket was at times too hot and other times not hot enough, and I was constantly, constantly sweating -- I would soak the back and chest of any shirt I was wearing, repeatedly.

Eventually I got up when Daisy was beginning to start her work day -- still sick, but working from home in any capacity she could -- and was up for an hour or two checking my email and trying to figure out how I felt. The major fever had broken, and I felt relatively lucid (or so I thought at the time). The biggest problem was a debilitating, almost blinding at times, stiff and painful neck, to the point where I couldn't even turn my head or really, easily lift by body out of chairs, out of bed, etc. 

By mid-morning, after taking my next dose of Paxlovid and taking more ibuprofen for not only fever control, but for my screaming neck, I laid down in the bed with the cats and slept for another six hours. 

I returned to work the following night. My boss was surprised I was back so fast. I started the night by apologizing for being this sick, and told my crew that I was feeling at about 60-70% and was trying to fight it off, but hey all, no sudden moves or anything. 

Translation: I'm here because I have to be, not because I want to be, so don't pile a bunch of bullshit on me and expect me to be as quick or as talented in handling it as I normally am, because I am very much not that person this week.

The next overnight was mostly fine. I was still running a low fever around 100, and I still had the cough, but the biggest pain of it all was the incessant sneezing and the need to blow my nose probably fifty times in the course of the night. Oh, and my neck was still killing me, and I was still sweating through my clothing, but again, I thought I was mostly lucid -- lucid enough to do the job, anyway. By the time I went to bed the next morning, aside from the congestion and other symptoms I could do nothing about (because, again, couldn't take DayQuil/NyQuil), I was beginning to feel like I was on the mend.

Oh, I was wrong. I was so wrong.

By the next afternoon -- with Daisy now having been sick for a full week and with me entering my fourth full day of sickness myself -- it's like we had a rebound. I was really sick again, coughing and really out of it, feverish, aches/pains and my screaming neck (which had not gotten better and was worrying me that maybe I'd contracted meningitis or something). Daisy, who had begun feeling better, also crashed again and began feeling horrific once more. My sickness slowly began to subside once I took my evening dose of Paxlovid, but make no mistake about it, we were both still quite ill.

When I went downstairs at like, 7:30 PM, I found my work computer to be on -- screens on and everything -- and showing me an error message. This is odd because it had been working just fine that morning when I'd rebooted it after I'd logged off for the day, and I turn my monitors off.

Daisy said there had been a brief 30-second power outage in the day while I was asleep, but that would not have caused the error that my computer was giving me -- which said my hard drive had been encrypted for security reasons by a program called BitLocker and that I would need a 47-character security key to get back into it. 

I...don't have that key. I don't know anyone who does have that key. Even if I were able to get into my computer, that key is locked away from me at the admin level, because even though I'm an Operations Manager™ and have been one for almost seven years now, I don't have admin access to my machine. Nobody does for any of their machines -- that's the job of the IT folks. 

So, frustrated and sick, I call up our IT guy, who tells me...he's never seen this message before on a PC. He does some research on the back end to find where we can get that info, and he logs into my account from his side (I gave him my password and full authorization to do so) to see if he can get this key with the security clearances he has. He cannot. He involves the Identity and Access Management team to see if they can, involves our Executive Director, and they begin escalating up the chain to see if there was anyone available in the overnight who could get it.

I made a little something to eat, and went back upstairs to my normal, actual computer (this one) and actual office.

I am lucky -- or maybe I'm just talented and skilled enough to know how things work -- that I can access and do about 90% of my job on any given night, if necessary, from my normal computer. The only things I cannot access on my normal machine are our client tools, which our teams must access via VPN. Everything else, however, I can get into on my normal machine with no special tools or skills necessary. I can pull up both my personal email as well as our shared box, I can pull up our admin system via MyApps, I can pull up our spreadsheets (all of them are online shared sheets), I can pull up our organization's CRM system, and I can sign into and use our company Teams as normal. I'm sure if I wanted to, I could even access my desk phone and have it route to my cell, but that's wholly unnecessary anyway as my email signature lists my cell as well as my desk phone. It is remarkable that I can do 90% of my job at any/all times without needing to touch my work PC. My normal home PC is faster, it's much more reliable, and it doesn't run off the company network -- so in my other browser tabs I can play a game, or watch YouTube, or do anything else I wanted to do. 

Plus, my normal PC has a working CD player. 

I am tempted to just be like "oh, my client tools aren't working correctly tonight" once in a while and just do all my work from up here just to get a break and some more calming headspace.

"Look at it this way," I told Daisy, "if my computer's fucked and they can't get this code or can't fix it, I can't take it to the office to have them look at it because, well, Covid. If they ship me another machine to replace it, that'll take a week and it's basically a free vacation for me, because, Covid -- can't work in the office even if there was a machine there to use. So, they either fix it and everything goes back to business as usual or I get a few extra days to rest and recover -- I don't give a shit either way."

So, about...ehhhh, 90 minutes early, give or take, because I was already working with our IT guy, I just logged into everything from upstairs and dove in. I let the team know what was going on, let them know that unfortunately it would likely not get fixed in the overnight, but I was here and going to do everything I could to help out as per the usual, but I was a bit hobbled and for stuff requiring client tools, I'd need to utilize my coworkers' hands and eyes and sometimes screenshots when necessary.

I do want to state here for the record that I could have very easily told the crew "oh well, guess I get a free night off, catch y'all later." My computer was busted, I was feeling like shit still, and I knew with absolute certainty that nobody in corporate IT would be able to get the code to "fix" my machine until the morning/daytime hours. I could've peaced out and just gone back to bed for the night. But, honestly, that's not who I am. If I have the ability to do something and help out, I will. So I logged in upstairs and pulled everything up, and didn't give it a second thought, really. When my Executive Director asked me what I could do without the work PC, I told him 90% of the job (as mentioned above), and would get assistance as necessary for the last 10%. He seemed impressed, if not outright surprised. 

What followed was a night of calm, zen-like work, where I felt freed from the constraints of the work PC downstairs. I sat in my comfortably lit office, listening to classic metal records and taking care of business. On my lunch hour, I took a long, hot shower to soothe my neck (since the bathroom is about fifteen feet behind me). I took and made calls. I handled all of the email and spreadsheet updates I normally would. I did two loads of laundry. I compiled and filed the nightly reports as I normally would. I closely monitored my temperature and blood oxygen levels (both remained normal and good). I watched an entire episode of American Gladiators on YouTube. I told one of my underlings on the side how I didn't care if they ever fixed my work PC, because I was having a blast working this way. It really was a good work experience, is what I'm saying, for the first time in a while -- all while still fighting Covid.

By around 7:30 Thursday morning I was still working -- 12 hours at that point, even though I'm supposed to get off at 7 -- when an email came in that said they'd found my computer's passcode thing. It was sent to me and, yes, it did let me back into my machine. However, two more hours of troubleshooting followed that to make sure everything was going to work correctly. I made sure our IT guy knew and made sure my Executive Director was aware that yes, I was in, and that I had basically reached my limit and was going to bed after working 14 hours straight when my shift is 8. I told him I now knew how the director-and-above folks felt when they had to pull long hours.

"I appreciate you sticking with it," he said. Said Executive Director is fully aware I have Covid and was fighting through that anyway to continue to work and help out, and was also fully and very aware I could've just said fuck it for the night when I couldn't get into my computer -- it would've been understandable and justified, and moreover, nobody would've been able to give me shit over it.

"That's what I'm here for," I said. "Just remember this if I ever get a shot at a Director gig in the future, lol."

Yes, I included the "lol," because I have a good relationship with my big boss and don't want him to think I was put out by the whole scenario. I was, but I mean, I didn't care. I'd rather help than not when I have the ability -- I have a sense of duty and a strong work ethic. There's also no better person to show that off to in any corporate scenario than the man at the top of the power structure over your entire program.

"I will," he said. 

Over the course of the next few days, I finished up my Paxlovid. I felt mostly okay. Each day I felt a little better than the last. I still had a cough, I still had head congestion and the incessant neck pain, but I wasn't feeling as horrible anymore. Daisy, who finished her Paxlovid a day before me, was feeling somewhat better, but wasn't completely 100% either. I'll also note that most of this time, she spent working from home so that she wouldn't infect anyone in the office -- and while she was at home with Covid, no less than three other people in her office had been stricken down with it as well.

The following weekend was the Super Bowl, and...I felt fine. I'd taken Super Bowl Sunday off work anyway (I always do, regardless of who's playing). I felt almost normal and was thankful that I was finally shaking off the sickness.

Oh, how wrong I was.

The week that followed -- and I'm being brief because I don't remember most of it -- was hell. Once the Paxlovid was out of my system, I found that I was in that (apparently small) percentage of people who got a second wave of Covid after the fact. And, unfortunately, Daisy was too. I got incredibly sick again for close to another week, so sick that I honestly do not remember much at all. I struggled hard through that week of work. I couldn't stop sneezing. I went through an entire box of tissues in two days, and filled multiple handkerchiefs with snot because of the incessant nose-blowing. I had multiple nosebleeds. My lungs felt like they'd been replaced with gummy bears. I had a fever that would go between about 100.5 to 102 at almost all times, with no real reprieve. I completely lost my senses of taste and smell, when I hadn't on the first go-around with the virus. When it did slowly begin to return, everything tasted off, or tasted rotten, and things I had previously loved I no longer had any desire to eat or drink. I lost any desire whatsoever to drink coffee, for example. I didn't really have any built up time I could take off work, and my goal during that week was to get through it and to just fucking sleep through most of the following weekend. Luckily, as I was done with the Paxlovid, I could drink DayQuil and NyQuil with impunity, and they helped. I think. I say I think because one of the symptoms that took the longest to go away was intense "brain fog."

Daisy, meanwhile, had a delayed onset of the second wave -- she was mostly okay for a few days, and then slowly went back down, like a balloon with a pinhole in it. There was a lot of ebb and flow to it for both of us, but more so for Daisy, who would go from feeling relatively normal to feeling sick again in the evenings, to getting up the next morning and feeling like she was going to die -- and then would feel better in the afternoon for a while only for it to take her down again a few hours later. She also lost her sense of taste and smell, and for her that particular symptom lasted a good while. It took me another full week to start feeling better for good, but it took Daisy close to ten days -- and even after she felt fine, she was still testing positive every time she checked (I didn't bother to continue testing; I work from home and I knew I still had it -- I don't have to leave the house for anything, so fuck it). If she had a bad day but was lucid enough to actually work, she would work from home, and as she didn't have a fever any longer, she transitioned back to her normal in-office schedule by the end of the following week.

Eventually, we both got better. Little by little, more every day, until it was all completely gone. 

Having lived through the Covid experience, I need to tell those of you who have been lucky enough to not get it over the past three years some pointers:

• It is not the flu and it is real. This isn't some bullshit that the media is blowing out of proportion. It is real and it sucks. If you have not had it, you do not want it. I will stress again that I have never felt a sickness quite like Covid. It doesn't feel like a cold or a flu. 
  
  
• I mentioned briefly above that I have diabetes and I smoked for fifteen years (I still vape, but we'll cover that later, and I'm quitting that too). I am overweight and have been for most of my life. The above story is how bad I got it after four vaccines (two normal shots and two boosters) and with Paxlovid. I am alive; I survived, but Covid kicked my ass badly. I'm not sure, without the vaccines and Paxlovid, that I would be alive today. So, get vaccinated. Get the boosters.
  
  
• Daisy does not have diabetes, is not a smoker or a vaper, is six years younger than me, and also had the same four shots and Paxlovid that I did. She's vegan, eats pretty cleanly and organically, and despite her weight, is very healthy and exercises/is far more active than me in general...and it still kicked her ass too.
  
  
• If someone says they've been exposed to Covid, or is already sick with it, stay the fuck away from that person.
  
  
• If you do get it, get on the Paxlovid immediately. Call your doctor, have them call it in for you, do whatever you can to get it in your system as soon as you can. I can't imagine how much worse off I/we would've been without it. 
  
  
• Paxlovid's major side effect is that while you're on it, and even for a few days after you get off it, you will develop a sour, bitter, metallic taste in your mouth. The taste? Very similar to grapefruit. And it's incessant, especially for the first two hours or so after you take your dose of it. Plus side, it does fade and disappear once you finish your run of Paxlovid. Almost everyone gets this, and yes, you will still taste it even when/if you lose your sense of taste and smell. It powers through.
  
  
• Bonus tip: if you get the grapefruit mouth, drink a Fresca. It counteracts it. Fight fire with fire.

Finally, after some of the worst two and a half weeks of my life, I was feeling much better and finally tested negative again -- on the same day Daisy tested negative as well. This was good, because the morning after testing negative, I would have my scheduled A1C and other bloodwork follow-up appointment with my doctor.

What do you think happened there? Well, there's a reason this is a "part I" and a reason this post is called "A Series of Shitty Adventures" ...