Surprise! Not a Cold After All

I don't think I'm that dumb but sometimes I'm wrong and I'm actually super dumb. What was it....about TEN DAYS after Peter and Sheri were at our house with their "colds" I started feeling a little sick myself? And even then I thought, oh no, there's no way this is Covid. I would KNOW if this were Covid. I would just be able to feel it. This just felt like I was a little under the weather. But in the interest of science and the well-being of my fellow man I decided to get tested one Sunday morning in January. 

Boy was I floored when I got my little text message that read, "You have tested positive for Covid-19." And then I felt really stupid. And like a total pariah. (I had to sleep in a far away corner of my attic bedroom and no one would come near me, rightly so.) We immediately got everyone else tested too. Only Romney came back positive. She had mild cold symptoms for exactly one day. The other three were negative, but got re-tested by the end of the week and then Troy and Emma both tested positive. Chase remained negative, and never did contract the illness as far as we could tell. He even got tested one more time after that when he had a mild headache for a day - but still, nope, he was negative. We attribute this to the fact that he never leaves his room and prefers that none of us talk to him. Ever. 

So yeah, we got it. And since that has happened I have realized that many many people that I know also got Covid. Some know where they got it and some don't. Some people were extremely careful and still got it, some were a little more carefree. And some people I know didn't seem to take precautions at all and never have gotten it yet. It's really weird. And hard to not feel ashamed that we caught the pandemical disease.

It was also quite strange that we all had pretty different symptoms. Like I said, Romney seemed to have mild cold symptoms for about a day, maybe two. Emma had a pretty bad fever and felt totally miserable one Thursday afternoon and evening but was pretty much fine the next day. My main symptom was a lingering and persistent headache that ibuprofen could barely touch. No sore throat, barely felt like a cold at all, but man that headache would not quit. And then really tight breathing for several weeks afterwards. Like, it hurt to take deep breaths and still sometimes does when I go for a walk. Troy's main problem was also the breathing, and has been much more severe and long-lasting than my issue. He still has days that are pretty uncomfortable. Oh yeah, he and I both lost our smell and taste but not 100% completely and only for a week or two. Other people I know lost it completely for months. Isn't that just weird, that the symptoms varied so widely, even in just one family?

So there you go.  We were very grateful for people who went grocery shopping for us and people who brought us dinner. That was so nice. We had an extra EXTRA long boring January because, even though we were doing a pretty good job already of staying socially isolated we really locked it down for the duration of our illness and even for 10 days after that, due to the fact that it was possible for Chase to contract Covid on the last day of our contagion, thus making him need to quarantine the longest out of all of us.

 

Romney spent quite a bit of quarantine watching cooking videos on YouTube and cooking up some very tasty grub. We love Binging with Babish. 

I made a list of the shows I watched while in quarantine and it's actually a little alarming. Here's a sample of what I covered in January and February. (And, by the way, I did not just sit on my behind this whole time. I watched while doing laundry and dishes and cooking and cleaning and knitting and other stuff too. Still. It's a lot.)

Cobra Kai season 3 - with Troy and Romney. That was so funny actually - it totally stressed us out. OH the bad choices that they made over and over! (Here's Troy burying his face in horror at yet another terrible choice made by Danny or Robby or Johnny, who knows which one this time. I watched while stress-eating my fingernails.)

Merlin, seasons whatever the last two were. I had watched the beginning years ago and never got around to finishing. Oh how I loved the characters and OH HOW I HATED THAT ENDING. Traitors. 

The Crown, seasons 3 & 4 - basically had me speaking in a British accent, especially because also:

Downton Abbey, seasons 4-6 plus the movie. I finally got over the ending of season 3 and let myself watch it again and immediately got so hooked that my friend Becky had to find something else for me to watch as a detox which was....

Gilmore Girls, seasons all-of-them. (Now I'm trying to detox from those)

A LOT of The Great British Baking show including the master classes (more British accents)

Parks and Recreation, also with Troy and Romney

Attack on Titan, Chase's favorite anime. It's gross and engrossing. I'm starting to understand a little Japanese I think.

Wandavision. The MCU continues to delight and amaze even when I had low expectations for this show.

And I've started the new All Creatures Great and Small. 

WOAH that's a lot of shows. Talk about checking things off of my to-watch list!