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Pop Goes The World Joann Ware
Despite my best efforts, I ended up testing positive for COVID last month.
Well, this isn’t exactly true. My best efforts would have included an up d a t e d C O V I D vaccine that for one reason or another I ju st never got around to scheduling. I thought being smart about hand washing and keeping my distance from people exhibiting symptoms would keep me safe. But somehow I was exposed to the virus and it left me sidelined for a week.
I have suffered from seasonal allergies ever since I was a kid. Early one Monday, I woke up with a stuffy head and a runny nose. I got up and took an antihistamine and went back to bed. When I got back to sleep, I dreamed that I saw my cousin Jeremy with George Harrison and Tom Petty. They were all dressed like the Three Wisemen. In that same dream I was shivering and trying to get warm. I woke up not feeling well and went straight to the medicine chest to retrieve the thermometer. I had a fever of 101.7. There was a COVID test leftover from the last time I thought I had COVID and I took that. It didn’t take long at all for that second pink line to materialize.
I had been in contact with several people that weekend. I was out at my friend Anastasia’s mom’s house in Amherst. Anastasia’s two teenage sons were also there. Her mother ended up testing positive, but was able to get a doctor’s appointment and a prescription for an antiviral to treat the infection. My partner Roma’s daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter had visited us that weekend also. None of them tested positive for COVID.
Having had COVID back in 2022, I knew that the first day was going to be the toughest. The fever combined with extreme fatigue was going to make the prospect of staying in bed impossible to pass up. But this year there was a complication. Roma had fallen recently and suffered a number of broken bones. She came home from the hospital with a boot on her broken foot and a cast on her broken wrist. She needed a walker to get around. I needed to look after her and take care of myself.
That first day after testing positive was pretty much a blur. I did manage to take Roma to her appointment to see the orthopedic surgeon, but I stayed out in the car, alternately blasting the airconditioning and cranking up the heat.
Thankfully the next day was not quite as rough and I was able to help Roma fill out some of her paperwork for her supplemental insurance. By the third day I was still fighting a fever and fatigue, but feeling stronger. Roma was getting around better and didn’t need to use her walker as much. She ended up testing positive for COVID too. She has asthma so her cough was much worse than mine.
By Thursday of that week, I was feeling well enough to venture into the kitchen and make something nourishing for us. We had both been subsisting on buttered toast, ginger ale on ice and fever reducer for most of the week. It seemed the right time for a batch of vegetable beef soup. I put all the ingredients in the slow cooker and let it cook all day until the vegetables were nice and tender. This time my sense of taste was not as affected as my sense of smell. My last time at the COVID rodeo, I couldn’t taste bacon or coffee for weeks.
The vegetable beef soup was comforting and I made grilled cheese sandwiches with plenty of gooey cheese to go with it.
Roma and I are both getting back on our feet. We were able to attend a concert in Washington, D.C., last week that Roma had bought tickets for back in the spring. We both needed long naps when we returned home the next day. The lingering exhaustion affects me the most; for Roma it’s the cough, though each day it decreases in severity. She is managing well with her injuries, experiencing a twinge every now and then from the pins that were surgically positioned in her wrist.
It is important to keep up to date with COVID vaccines. It is equally important to take a test when COVID symptoms present themselves. Don’t just say, “Oh, it’s just a cold.” COVID is still easy to catch and for some people it can be a dangerous diagnosis.
