I live in a coronavirus hotspot on the West Coast of the US, and have had a dry cough for over three weeks now. Initially, I also had a sore throat and a burning sensation in my upper chest. I've also been shorter of breath than usual after exertion, but haven't had difficulty breathing.
I dismissed it as allergies until I woke up with a crushing headache and fever on the morning of the 6th and realized I hadn't had the itchy eyes or sinus congestion that are always part of allergy season, that none of the plants that give me trouble were even in bloom yet, and that days on end of popping allergy meds hadn't done anything at all for the cough.
Getting tested? Haha, yeah, fucking right. I don't meet any of the criteria for getting tested, so I haven't been. But this crap definitely isn't a cold, isn't influenza, and isn't allergies.
The headache that accompanied the fever's first appearance went away by the end of that day, and hasn't returned. I've had the cough for at least three weeks now, but as of the last three or four days I no longer have the burning/prickly sensation in my chest. The fever seems to finally be on the wane, too; I still wake up with it every morning, but I'm not so warm as I was last week or the week before that, and it doesn't spike again in the afternoon any more. The sore throat was gone after the first (and only) time my fever went above 102F/38.8C.
What didn't kick in until almost a week after the fever hit was fatigue that comes from out of nowhere and knocks me flat. It doesn't happen every day, but yesterday it hit me like a truck and I had to go lie down for about three hours. Sometimes, the waves of fatigue are accompanied by slight chills and body aches, but not always, and they are not accompanied by fever.
I'm sick of the fucking cough, and of waking up feverish every morning, and wish this shit would hurry up and be done with. Other than the bouts of fatigue, I've never felt all that sick, and have continued with work and hobbies as normal.
I've been home, self-quarantining, since March 6, and haven't spoken to another human face-to-face since then, but I'm such an introvert the isolation doesn't bother me. I was fucking made for this moment.
I've talked to my 80-year-old mom on the phone and we've exchanged emails, but goddamn it, she won't stay the fuck home, and keeps running out to the store every day to make small purchases because she's bored. I've tried to warn her since late January, but she has just kept on as usual. She's still rolling her eyes at all the panic buyers, and thinks everyone is overreacting. So I've had to just let the whole matter go, and accept that I've done my part and tried to warn her. I have siblings living near her, and none of them are all that concerned either (though one did at least admit to following my advice and buying some extra food, once the panic buyers started stripping the supermarkets).
Christ. And we're just getting started with this shit? April's going to be one hell of a long month; good thing I'm prepared not to leave the damned house until June.
