Covid Chronicles Day 13: Update

Covid 19, Day 13: Update

Finally...I feel better, bordering on "good" in fact. I can breathe through my nose, head congestion is almost gone, and I don't feel like I'm going to fall asleep between breaths. The kids and I were laughing and joking, which did inspire some coughs, but that didn't last long and it didn't hurt my head. Food tastes almost normal. Water no longer tastes like licking stainless steel. 

I still feel a little of that disconnectedness I've described before and my ears ring like I'm center section, aisle one of a summer cicada concert. (Seriously...that is not an overstatement. That's the sound.)

I called my doctor this morning. The nurse said the short fever relapse and bit of a backside isn't uncommon and as long as it doesn't continue (it hasn't since the other night) I'm clear to return to work later this week. The other symptoms should continue to dissipate and fade day by day. 

Laura's doc called in a script for her. She'll start that tonight. She actually feels better at this point than I did, I think. She's doing some school work as I type and functioning pretty well. She's cute...I think that's why she's doing better than me. 

Thank you all for your kind words and prayers. God is good and He is being gracious to us, sparing us from the worst parts of this illness.

Inconvenience is a drag, but it beats incapacitation and intubation. 

I have spent plenty of time trying to contact trace this. I simply have no idea. Having tested positive in the 6th, with consensus being that one contacts it 2-5 days prior, that puts potential contact from July 31 - Aug 4. I simply cannot say "this was probably it." The biggest relief is that * to my knowledge * no one from church or people whom I know got sick from me. I was terrified I had introduced an outbreak in Mission Valley. I thank God for sparing others from my ignorance of being contagious. 

Takeaways: 
*Wash your hands.
*Be alert about touching your face.
*I fully attribute my use of a mask, and parishioner's use of masks, to people not getting sick who worshipped on August 2 and 5, even with me standing 2 feet away from them. 
*You have no idea who else is contagious just by looking at them. 
*You have no idea you're actually contagious until -WHAM- you most definitely are sick. I felt fine at 1200 on Aug 5 but by 2200 I was running a fever. Trust me...it sucks having to call people you love and say, "I have accidentally exposed you Covid19..." and then check in every other day to see if you made them sick. 
*Anyone who thinks this virus is just a political scam, come see me & hold my beer. It's been politicized, yes, but it's no joke. 

So, this will probably be the last chapter of the CovidChrinicles, the Tales According to Covid, and the Land of the Covideers. I pray you health, peace, and patience...and that you don't have the privilege of joining this non-select club.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Hero's Welcome for DDG-109

Image
Today, we welcomed home the USS Jason Dunham, DDG-109, and her crew of 300, give or take, after 9 months deployed. It was a scene rich in emotion as other ships blew their horns, tug boats sprayed water arcing into the air, and family members lined the pier cheering, waving, and calling sailors by name.  My wife and I were there among the throng. Dressed in everything from dress whites to cut-offs and Tshirts, the crowd waited to welcome our loved ones back to terra firma .  For a few moments, as the sailors came by, I was surrounded by heroes. I suspect if you asked them, they would not want that label. "Just doing our job," or some equally nebulous answer was probably repeated more than once. But the Combat Action Ribbons and the black-painted outlines of the enemy weapons - drones and missiles - the ship and her helos shot down all tell a different story. You don't get a CAR for getting a paper cut. You don't paint those outlines on the side of a ship f...
Read more

Moving on...literally

Image
Last evening, with the "thunk" of the deadbolt, we left the house that we called home for the last eight years.  On June 7, 2017, we arrived, fresh from the Houston metro area. I spent the night in the house with our three cats, sleeping on an air mattress and sitting in a folding camp chair. Laura and the kids spent the night in a hotel in Cuero. That night, I wrote one of my first blog posts saying that we were in a new house which had not yet become a home.  It did, very quickly, become that very thing: a home. Not just a parsonage - an old term for the church-provided dwelling for the pastor and family - but a home. It was comfortable, quiet, and country. We loved, laughed, cried, cussed. We yelled in anger and whooped with joy. Since we have been married, every home we lived in - apartment or house - we added to the family. It happened there, too: Reese, the Wonder Dog, the Goofball, Super Puppers, she became part of our family. Slightly less significant than a new baby ...
Read more

The Place I Like Least

Image
There are places that I love. My mom's kitchen, my back porch, my shop, sitting next to my wife, and the church sanctuary are easily in my top ten. Those places fill me with joy, peace, happiness and a sense of, well, being . Maybe a better word is abiding . Abiding comes out of Old English and means waiting, remaining, resting. When I am in those places and with those people, I am content to abide and simply be there.  There are also places I don't like. I don't like banks. I don't like chicken coops. I despise with all my being serpentariums - snake houses. I don't much care for oncology units; multiply that times 10 to the 23rd for children's hospitals. Dentist's chairs? No thanks. Oddly enough I don't mind funeral homes or emergency rooms: I have enough pastoral experience that those don't instill the same level of personal dislike they used to. I dislike those for different reasons - they are places where the brokenness of God's creation is ...
Read more