On Joining the COVID Club

M.G. Siegler, on (finally) getting Covid:

And so I started to buy into the notion that perhaps I simply wasn’t going to get it. Friends joked that I was clearly naturally immune. Sure, I was cautious — more than most, though less than many — but it was just everywhere. And then, just when it stopped seeming like it was both everywhere and inevitable, it found me.

This was me, too. I recall (daftly) thinking, while enjoying a swim on vacation in a pool while boardwalkers strolled by, that maybe I was going to get out of this waning epidemic without catching it. But that was not to be.

On Sunday, August 28th, I woke up feeling like I had the flu. A surreptitiously self-administered rapid test, delivered previously by Uncle Sam, denied my suspicion. That feeling went away and I felt mostly normal all day. But during dinner, I felt cold and didn’t want to eat. Within an hour or so I took another rapid test and learned that I was no longer one of the people who was gonna get it… I got it.

I spent the rest of the week experiencing, serially, each of the symptoms of your standard viral infection: fever, sore throat, congestion, cough, and fatigue. It was a viral Advent calendar. I tasked licorice in my tangerine-flavored rehydration drink. I worked from home and stared at my computer screen, agape, wondering what, moments ago, I had planned to troubleshoot.

Now? I have a lingering cough and I get tired. I hope they both go away soon.

Nineteen. COVID finally found me… | by M.G. Siegler | Sep, 2022 | 500ish