I don’t know if you know this, but, we’re in a pandemic. Crazy, right? In the 686 days since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, I was swell. Sure, I was mentally dealing with this life-changing event that affected everything in my life from my senior year of high school to my second year of university, but at least I was never sick.
I started getting cocky. I flexed to my friends that I had never had the coronavirus and accredited it simply to “survival of the fittest”- it was great. I laughed at COVID memes, or I sighed sadly when I heard someone had gotten infected but was unable to relate. Being double vaccinated gave me the reassurance that I would be fine, but as we know, the omicron variant doesn’t seem to care about vaccination status when it comes to spreading through the population like wildfire.
Omicron cases were so high that my university made the first two weeks of classes after our winter break online. I was miserably stuck in my room and was so desperate to get back to in-person classes. Finally, Monday, January 24th came and I felt so good seeing all my classmates again and being back on campus- But then Tuesday the 25th came.
I woke up extra tired, which generally isn’t an alarming sign. It’s no exaggeration that I am always tired- like, always. I never have an easy time getting out of bed in the morning due to the good ol’ mental illness and hyperthyroidism. My throat hurt as well, but I checked that off as being dehydrated and mentally kicked myself for not turning my humidifier on the night before. The current British Columbia health regulations state that if you have new symptoms and have not been in contact with anyone who has tested positive, you are fine to go about your daily activities, so, I hauled myself out of bed and started the day. I felt better by the afternoon and felt silly for previously being worried that I might have caught COVID. No one I was in contact with had COVID so there was nothing to worry about. Unexpectedly, I noticed that one of my classmates who I had given a hug to a couple days previously was joining the class via Zoom, and the girl sitting next to me informed me that she had COVID. Now, this is when I started to worry. I had only been in contact with her for less than a minute, but could that be enough? I felt okay, so I didn’t want to stress myself out.
I went home after class and that’s when things started intensifying. I developed an aching headache and felt even more tired than I had in the morning. I felt cold, really cold. I put on multiple sweaters and paced around my place. Thoughts raced through my mind, “could I have actually gotten COVID?” I thought I was being my usual paranoid self, but then the body aches started coming in and everything hurt. My back felt like it was being weighed down by heavy weights and combined with my painful headache, I thought I had the answer to my looming question. I looked up the phone number to call concerning testing, but the call centre closed at 4pm, and as my luck would have it, it was 4:10pm. Shivering and groaning, I made my way to my room and let my roommate know that I might have COVID so I would be staying away from her.
The next hours were awful, I can’t explain how much my body hurt, or how cold I was. I didn’t have a thermometer at my place, but I can imagine I was running a high fever. I had taken some acetaminophen and ibuprofen to ease my pain, but it wasn’t working as well as I’d hoped it would. I weakly stumbled to the kitchen around dinnertime to make my daily ramen and could barely stand up straight. A few hours later, it was worse. Wayyyy worse. My symptoms had multiplied, and I can’t believe I felt good for even a moment earlier that day. By 9pm I was getting hit with every symptom under the sun. One minute I would be so cold that I blasted two space heaters, and then I was so hot I was hyperventilating and stripping off all my sweaters. My tiredness was extreme too, and by 10pm I had had enough. I was so exhausted I just flopped into my bed and tried to sleep, but as a usual 2am-er, my brain wasn’t having it. I fell in and out of consciousness for about an hour until I knew sleep wasn’t happening. I stayed awake for a couple more hours, sad and in pain, continuing to rotate between putting a heat pack on my stomach, or a cold cloth on my head. Doing this simultaneously was the winner; I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to fall asleep (thank you, melatonin).
Mind you, this was all BEFORE I tested positive.
I woke myself up at 8am the next day and by 9am I was taking an at-home rapid test. I generally felt better the next morning. My fever felt less severe and my major night symptoms had all decreased. So I had some hope.
Shouldn’t have had hope because I tested positive for COVID-19.
I felt terrible. I felt bad for my roommate that I had potentially exposed her, and I hated that I had finally gotten COVID after all this time. I think I am the least likely person to ever get it. Everyone I told had the same reaction of “what?! how? you?”. 2020 and 2021 were spent staying inside and not socializing, but honestly, I probably would’ve been doing that pandemic or not. I had finally started going to some parties and hanging out with friends, but I didn’t get COVID from those occasions, just giving a classmate a hug goodbye did the trick.
I began self-isolating in my very tiny room which kind of sucked, especially since the positive test seemed to give permission for my symptoms to come back. I told my professors, and all but one were sympathetic (there’s always that one, y’know?). I was honestly bored, I didn’t feel well enough to sit upright, and I couldn’t even muster the energy of binging my shows. The physical aspect of COVID is understandably bad, but the mental aspect hit me hard too. I was lonely. My roommate stayed away from me, of course, but during my five days of isolation, we barely talked. Because I wasn’t attending my Zoom classes, I didn’t have much interaction at all to make me feel better. Luckily, my parents and a friend were checking up on me, which made all the difference.
I was switching up between taking ibuprofen or acetaminophen, but I had a pesky headache that just wouldn’t quit. I lost some weight, probably because I was feeling depressed and that I didn’t want to spend more time than necessary in the kitchen to avoid contaminating the space. I went on a walk. I ate lots of rice, I drank a copious amount of tea, I laid in my bed 90% of the day- It was rough. However, honestly, I got to skip school, and any reason to skip school I relish. I had gone grocery shopping a couple of days before falling ill, so thankfully I was stocked up- I did get my roommate to get me some Mr. Noodles though. I wasn’t expecting to feel guilty about getting COVID, but after checking the new cases, I couldn’t help but feel bad I was one of them. Being locked away in a small bedroom for five days hit me hard, and I felt jealous of all the rich celebrities who got to spend COVID in their mansions with huge yards and pools. I know it could have been much worse of a situation though, so I am thankful.
Five days after my positive test I was more energetic than ever. After the deep lethargy I had been feeling along with my symptoms, being back to normal felt like I was on Cloud nine. I had hope in the world, and felt like I could see colours again. I knew that the self-isolation and rest had done my body good. Miraculously, my roommate had tested negative throughout the week! I know this was in part to both of us wearing masks in common areas and consistently wiping surfaces with bacterial wipes. Now, I’m a theatre major, so I would be lying if I said I fell drastically behind on my schoolwork. My major relies a lot on teamwork and performance, so most faculty members were just glad I could be in the building again.
To summarize, getting COVID sucks. No matter how immune you think you are, even if you get your vaccinations, it may still suck. I’m grateful I got vaccinated against the virus because honestly if having COVID was worse than that I don’t think I could have handled it. If you do get COVID, please, rest up, take time off from regular life, stay hydrated, take your vitamins, get a friend/roommate/relative to help out with food, and talk to someone about how you are feeling, both physically and mentally. Get vaccinated, ya sillies. I’m planning on getting my booster dose soon, and I’m just a little salty because on day three of having COVID I got an alert saying I was eligible for the booster. Funny timing, world.