Covid Journal 1

 Hey. Let's get down to it.

Last Friday (Sep. 18, 2020) My four-year-old had a crap ton of snot coming out of his nose at the beach. He was coughing a tiny bit, but nothing to be concerned about. He has allergies, and we were staying in a moderately dusty hotel, so we weren't super concerned. 

Anyways he's doing great now :) But I'm sick and having a hard time breathing. I'm in my upstairs bathroom right now running a very hot shower as I sit on the (closed) toilet. The warm moisture is helping my breathing, which is neat. 

I had a very tiny sore throat and headaches on Saturday. Sunday was a little more sore, and Monday started having a small cough with lots of sinus pressure. Today has been accelerating tight-upper-chest coughing. I was doing fine-- even fell asleep with my CPAP machine around 8pm. After the nap, I tried to sleep again at 1am and couldn't breathe well enough. So now I'm doing this whole humidity thing and then I'm going to try to sleep on the ancient recliner. 

I got tested for Covid today. I should hear back Thursday or Friday. Not that it matters, right? I've got some sort of virus, my whole family is exposed to it, and it's sorta hard to breathe. The official diagnosis doesn't really change much. It's not like they can treat it differently once they know what it is.

I don't feel great. I'm worried. Earlier today I was grumpy that I probably had Covid, but pretty confident that we'd be fine. We're young, healthy-ish (screw you diabetes...), and the vast majority of people that contract the virus in my age group are right as rain pretty quick. 

That's still the likely outcome. I didn't expect things to deteriorate so quickly though. I've never had this much trouble breathing in my life. I'm okay and not at the "lets' go to the hospital" stage of discomfort. I'm hoping that tomorrow gets better and not worse. 

So what happens if Kate feels this bad tomorrow? What happens if my kids start showing breathing distress? We can't really ask someone to come help-- we're biohazards over here. I'll do my best to take care of everybody, but my capacity is more limited than I'd like right now. I'm still in good enough shape to navigate all that, for sure, but I won't be if things deteriorate a lot.

It'd be nice to be at home right now, but we still wouldn't be in a place where we could ask someone to take care of us. We're sort of on a virus-filled island right now. It's probably going to be okay. But, I don't know, maybe it'll get dang rough before it gets better. That's a worrisome feeling.

Do I know where we were infected? Eh, I've got some theories, but it doesn't really matter. We've been  careful. We've done the best we can-- masks everywhere, no restaurants or in-person shenanigans. We did go to church once (and it was testimony meeting, sigh), but that was a pretty safe scenario. At the end of the day we're in a pandemic. And the virus is, well, virulent. The likely vector of my infection comes from a family that was also being really careful. I don't judge them at all. 

And, once again, I may not even have Covid. But I do have the worst head-cold I've ever had, and my breathing sucks worse than it ever has. So I've got that going for me.

The timing is unfortunate. We took a few days off work last week to take a trip to the beach. We drove down to Padre Island (not South Padre Island. The regular Padre Island). We stayed at a very sparsely populated hotel. Masks in and out. Went to the beach twice a day. Social distanced, outside, pretty dang safe. I don't feel like our exposure there was worse than it is here. Given the onset of symptoms, it's almost definitely the case that we were infected before we traveled. But, you know, I still feel like I will be judged for that. 

It's weird to preemptively be positive for the virus. Now I'm one of those people. 

Side note: I have left the bathroom and am now sitting on the ancient recliner. I can breathe quite a bit better than before. My butt is also far more comfortable here than it was on the toilet. I daresay I should be able to sleep tonight. I'm going to rig up the kids' humidifier in here and sleep like an old person. 

So, yeah. I think I'm sick. I had some scary moments tonight. But we're doing okay. I hope my family doesn't have to go through this same stuff tomorrow. I hope y'all are doing okay.