My wife B started feeling bad a week ago on Wednesday. She decided that it would be better to get tested for Covid. And sure enough, she was positive.
The next day I felt a tickle in my throat and some colds. I thought it would be better to try too. Also positive.
B is the healthiest thing anyone can get. Her mother lived to be 103, and B hopes to do the same. She has the luxury of not believing in doctors, rarely darkening the door of a doctor’s office. She gets checked up half as often as she should, and when her blood work comes back, she clearly qualifies for the honor roll.
But this illness soon had her lying in bed, sleeping most of the time.
I am more fragile. So I immediately called my doctor’s office. They arranged a personal examination by Facetime.
I was amused when the doctor appeared on the screen with a mask on. Was I so contagious, so contagious that I could catch it on radio waves? No, I guess he just wears a mask all day, he doesn’t bother to take it off.
Anyway, given my age and gender, he prescribed me an antiviral, “to be safe.” I was picked up curbside at CVS and took my first dose: four capsules of a drug called Milnupiravir. Otherwise, the doctor told me to take it easy, not to go out in public, and to call him if it got worse.
In the meantime, I persuaded B to call his doctor, which he eventually did. She is younger and much more feminine than me, so her risk profile is lower. The doctor told her to just take some extra vitamins, especially vitamin D and C. So that’s what she’s been doing.
B spent two days in bed, sleeping most of the time. I didn’t feel too bad (maybe from the antiviral?). She had a stuffy nose, a dry cough, and I felt a little tired. I didn’t stay in bed all day, but she was taking an afternoon nap, something I don’t normally do. So for the last ten days I’ve spent most of my time lying on the couch, sometimes reading a book, sometimes watching the US Open.
Now my course of antivirals is over. We both feel better; but also, we both still have lingering symptoms. A cough, colds. And as hard as we try, we can’t go all day without taking a nap.
Yesterday a friend of ours brought us dinner. He left it at the door. I came out when he was back in the driveway and said thank you. We talked for a minute and he mentioned that his daughter got Covid last spring. She had more or less the same cold symptoms that we have. And yes, she had felt the lingering fatigue. “It went on for about a month,” she said. “She kept feeling tired. But then one morning she woke up and it was gone. Just like that.”
We were feeling pretty good today, so we tested again to see if we could be clear. No. We still tested positive.
I trust that one morning we will wake up and it will be gone. I hope it won’t take a month.
