The One Where Covid Kicked My Head In

The One Where Covid Kicked My Head In

So, this week was the week that Covid caught up with me.

Covid Dick

I felt a bit rough last Friday and kept needing to go to the toilet (number one’s) – I was even joking that I had ‘Covid Dick’ (man, I’m so funny, aren’t I?) –  but nothing to write home about. However, before I went to bed my throat felt as dry as the Sahara Desert and I was having trouble swallowing. Still didn’t think anything of it. On Saturday, I felt a bit airy-headed and I was cooking dinner whilst watching Sky News. They were (obviously) talking about Coronavirus so thought I might as well do a lateral flow test just to rule it out, and it came back positive. If I’m honest, I’d just had some Marmite and I’ve heard about things like grapefruits giving false positives so I totally thought that’s all it was.

I told my wife and she went full panic, gathered the kids together (who weren’t happy; it’s half term and they hadn’t even got out of bed, not even at 5pm), and drove down for a PCR test. 24 hours later, I’m feeling a little more grotty yet still don’t think I’ve got it, and the results came through – positive for me, negative for all the others. Damn.

Tingly Fingers

I got really bad. It started with the runny nose, sore throat – not too much coughing though – head felt like it was in a bubble. At one point, I thought I might be a hospital job – my fingers went all tingly and white, then a couple of hours later they were bright red. My body was fighting a battle and I didn’t know how I was going to end up. I know this sounds melodramatic, but even almost two years on from the start of this virus, you genuinely don’t know the course of this virus or what signs to look out for. As far as I was concerned, my breathing wasn’t too bad so I thought deep down that I was going to be ok, but the other symptoms you get are pretty crazy and these unknowns are what scared me.

With other illnesses, you can take a medicine too. This one, you can take paracetamol. That’s it. I know they’re good and they have a value, but it sort of felt like fighting a blazing inferno with an eggcup of water. I would have felt better if there was a drug that I could have taken, even if it was a placebo.

Sofa of My Lethargy

The fatigue was overwhelming too. I’ve literally not moved from the sofa all week, and it’s only now that I feel a sense of non-lethargy (urgency is too strong a word) to get anything done. Literally, I haven’t done any work all week. I couldn’t have done any. And when I say I haven’t moved from the sofa, I mean I’ve been sleeping on it too. You would have thought the ill person gets the bed, but that’s not the case in our house. In some skewed, backwards logic, it made sense for the living room to be the plague room, so my living quarters they became.

I lost four pounds in one day and became obsessed with watching programmes on TV about wrong-un’s. Ghislaine Maxwell, Bin Laden, Putin: I couldn’t get enough. I assume this is a symptom (along with Covid Dick) that hasn’t been widely reported in the press.

Water From a Spoon

The closest thing I can compare the whole thing to is when I had Glandular Fever when I was seventeen. With that, I got sent home from my Saturday job, went to bed and woke up a week later, having lost over a stone in weight because I could only be fed liquid and my mum had already done the big shop that week and hadn’t bought any soup, so she could only feed me water from a spoon.

The main thing that’s been rattling round my head, is where I caught it from. I know it’s impossible to pinpoint, but I’m pretty sure I got it from a woman in the local shop. A rotund woman, who had to squeeze past me in the aisle. I say ‘squeeze’ because she was so rotund. She huffed right into my face and I remember thinking ‘I really hope you haven’t just given me Covid’. Given her size, I really hope she didn’t give it me, because given the factors for hospitalisation I think she might really struggle. A few people that I know and have seen since that fateful shopping experience have tested positive since as well. I know I can’t say for sure, but there is every chance that I passed it on. I’m probably a super spreader.

Anyway, I apologise if this is rambling and nonsensical, my head still isn’t fully back in the game, but at least it’s done. Hopefully, I’m coming out the other side of it now, and back to full-strength next week.

This week’s boxset: Bin Laden: The Road to 9/11. Epstein’s Shadown: Ghislaine Maxwell. The Man Putin Couldn’t Kill. (Told you. They really should report this a symptom).