A Covid Christmas
It makes sense that the closing of this disastrous year of 2020, even after a year of busting our butts, would be spent apart in quarantine. Christmas day, Colin got his first positive Covid-19 test. We were fortunate to be together, since much of our time is spent apart these days while he finishes up his last ER travel contract in Gilroy. Pretty much all of our contact with the corona virus has been through the patients we’ve taken care of all year. If you stop to think about it, it’s really quite brilliant that we’ve even made it this far into the year without getting it, given our daily known exposures in the ER with poor PPE on most days since March. I’m actually impressed with our immune systems for fighting it off this long.
So what went wrong? Colin has been traveling back and forth to Gilroy, CA (working a block schedule: 6 evenings on followed by 8 days off), but because of his late shift and traveling home, he’s been missing a full day of sleep each week since he started this crazy arrangement back in October. I blame it on the lack of sleep and maybe it was just time for the luck to run out. Colin is one of the strongest people I know. He literally never gets sick. But when he does, it’s always epic. Obviously this was no exception.
Symptoms and Treatment
His experience with Covid has been very much flu-like, which is what we have been seeing all year long, except for the individuals in poor health. The first day he was feverish with full body aches, but no other “classic symptoms”, not even a cough or sore throat. He was really hoping it was just the flu because I mean, where did the ordinary flu go this season anyway? The second day, he was hyped up on Theraflu, ibuprofen, and all the vitamins I was forcing him to take, and he actually felt better already. But by day three, we relaxed on the over-the-counter medications and he was back to feeling down again. Sadly we had to go back to the Theraflu, Ibuprofen/Tylenol, Nyquil, Zinc, vitamin C, vitamin D, and N-Acetyl Cysteine regimen again— for the rest of the week. Since I was in charge of bringing him all his food, I made sure he got lots of water, fresh fruit, nuts, salad, and healthful meals to help his system fight off the virus.
He was obviously bored to death in the bedroom in the basement he locked himself away in to quarantine, but he was able to keep his spirits up and power through. He made sure to call into work not far into his quarantine to ensure he met the requirements before returning to his normal life and work. As of late December, and according to CDC protocol, the first day of symptoms is supposed to be considered Day 0 of quarantine, so it ends up being at least 11 days! We anxiously counted each day from Day Zero, through Christmas Eve, Christmas day, New Years Eve and New Years day. What a lonely but fitting way to end 2020.
Quarantine
It’s the strangest thing to be legit quarantined from someone you’re so close to for 10 days! I mean, he was right there in the house with me, but I only saw him for a second when I dropped off meals to his room or coaxed him outside for fresh air to go for a walk down the driveway, keeping our distance of course. This is such a lonely disease. And if I wasn’t pregnant, I would have said screw it, let’s get it together so at least we can be done with it.
It was a full week and plus some for Colin with very low energy, off and on low grade fevers, full body aches, and headaches. Then he started to make the turn and felt more like himself, right in time for his 10-day quarantine to end. We were able to easily manage his symptoms with Ibuprofen, Tylenol, Theraflu and supplements for healing—zinc and vitamins. We were lucky enough to have the space that Colin used his own bathroom and separate exit to the outdoors. We minimized all contact through the 10-days, and wiped down any door handles or surfaces Colin touched, and washed our hands constantly. So far, so good! No one else in the house came down with any symptoms and the rest of the family is being diligent to take vitamins and drink lots of water.
Thankfully he’s mostly recovered at this point and aside from not having all his strength back and feeling tremendously out of shape, he’s doing much better now and is on his way back to being the active man I married.
I’m so thankful, and can I say excited that we got through it with no need to panic? I feel for all the people that have had so much anxiety for the last 9 months. There is no doubt it is scary and can be dangerous , but from our personal experience taking care of Covid positive patients most of this year, and finally Colin getting it himself—the majority of people don’t need to be scared, especially if you take care of yourself and are healthy. Obvious health issues like obesity, diabetes, the immunocompromised, elderly, and those with poor diet/lifestyles are another story. Maybe we should all be a little more focused on what we can be doing to build up our natural immunity instead of worrying about the worst.
All that to stay, I hope your Christmas and New Year was a lot better than ours. And we can’t wait for whatever 2021 has to bring. Cheers to something new!