In spring of 2021 it seemed that the pandemic was finally coming to an end, concerts were coming back, stores were opening back up, and the vaccine was available for people over 16. No-one expected a new COVID variant that would bring back precautions and revive a fear of getting sick. Unfortunately, I got COVID right when case counts were low and it hit me like a freight train. I was surprised how horrible COVID was for me. I’m 22 years old and pretty much completely healthy. I was expecting that if I got it I would have some sniffles or even be asymptotic. Instead it was two weeks of an intense fever, severe exhaustion (although I did enjoy sleeping 18 hours a day), and the worst body aches I’ve ever experienced in my life. The aches were so bad that I thought my hips were coming apart and getting bigger. I ended up measuring my hips everyday to see if it was in my head or if I was in fact falling apart. Luckily, I never went to the hospital but it was always in the back of my mind.
Fortunately, I had no serious long term effects, the worst side effect I have is that my smell and taste are affected but that pales in comparison to my two weeks of COVID hell. I completely lost my sense of smell and taste a week after I tested positive for COVID, the only thing that I could taste was MSG and artificial sweeteners. I couldn’t really taste them either, it was more that I could tell it was in my food because MSG and aspartame have a way of completely coating your mouth. After about a week I could finally taste and smell again but it was nowhere near my pre-rona senses. One of the most annoying things is how my taste has changed, I used to love eggs but they now taste like straight up sulfur, poultry and my favorite rotisserie chicken from Costco now taste like chlorine , and worst of all most everything has a slight old-spice deodorant taste- and not a new stick of old spice, a 30-year-old deodorant that was lost behind the bathroom sink taste. Sprite has to be the worst and most prominent taste that’s been affected; I remember sprite being a light and citrusy soda but now it completely overwhelms my senses with this back of the cupboard old-spice taste, what a bummer. I am happy to be almost completely back to normal and really only have my change in taste and smell to be my biggest complaint, but I really do miss my favorite foods tasting good.