The Harbinger

I've always joked about being a hermit and that one of the benefits of that was managing to avoid getting Covid for over 5 years. Not going to lie, my husband and I are both pretty gutted to have had our streak broken after all this time.

I definitely do not recommend it. Although I think my husband's immune system should be studied. I would not be surprised if there is shark DNA in there. He definitely got sick. More sick than I ever see him. Usually, he'll report feeling like he has a cold in the morning, and by the evening, he's fine.

There were probably two solid days of him being quite poorly after he tested positive, but after a couple of big sleeps, he seemed to get through it with relative ease.

I thought my stint with Covid would follow a similar track. Reader, it did not.

I woke up feeling a bit fluey last Saturday. It was just a bit of a scratchy throat and a cold. I was still testing negative on Saturday morning. As the day wore on I started to feel a bit worse, particularly the sore throat, but nothing out of the ordinary. I did another test in the evening and there was the smallest hint of a red line on the test so I wasn't surprised when I woke up on Sunday morning feeling even more grotty and immediately testing positive.

I've not been at work this week. I kept in touch with work each day but it just completely wiped me out. I've spent most of the week in bed. At its worst it felt like my throat was filled with razor blades and like I had the worst flu. I've hardly eaten all week because I've either been in bed or not had the appetite.

There have been fever dreams, including a very upsetting moment when I was convinced that I could hear Aragorn crying.

I sometimes feel fluey as part of my usual chronic illness stuff, and Covid was in a completely different ballpark.

Nearly a week later since testing positive and I feel like I'm coming out of the other side of it. My body clock is of course completely off, and there's that general discombobulation from a week in bed, but my throat is not feeling nearly as sore and I'm not as cotton woolly-headed. I'm just trying to expel all the gack off my chest.

I'm sleeping a lot but remain very tired. I'm obviously glad to be coming out of this but I'm also feeling very fed up. I hadn't long recovered from a chest infection when the flare-up involving the trip to A&E happened, and then I caught Covid. It's just felt relentless.

It was demoralising to note that we both would have been better off if we hadn't gone to A&E. Such is hindsight.

Now I've got to try and get my body clock sorted out and get well enough that I won't be completely exhausted for going back to work next week.