All of my friends come to see me last night
I was laying in my bed and dying
Annie Beauneu from Saint Angel
Say “the weather down here so fine”
Just then the wind
Came squalling through the door
But who can
The weather command?
Just want to have
A little peace to die
And a friend or two
I love at hand
Fever roll up to a hundred and five
Roll on up
Gonna roll back down
One more day
I find myself alive
Tomorrow
Maybe go
Beneath the ground
See here how everything
Lead up to this day
And it’s just like
Any other day
That’s ever been
Sun goin up
And then the
Sun it goin down
Shine through my window and
My friends they come around
Come around
Come around
The people may know but
People don’t care
That a man could be
As poor as me
Take a look at poor Peter
He’s lying in pain
Now let’s go run
And see
Run and see
Run and see
Run, run, and see
Hey, hey, run and see
J. Garcia / Robert C. Hunter
Jul 4th 2020
I got up at my usual time, but what was unusual was that I was feeling a bit rough around the edges. This I attributed to an excess of ‘partying’ I had done yesterday; something I rarely do. Close friends; a climbing partner we hadn’t seen in a few years were in town. (We social distanced appropriately) But we did have a few, but nothing crazy or outta control.
So instead of any usual training my wife and I went for a nice walk instead, which seemed to help clear the cobwebs. I had been training pretty hard and cycling a lot, so I am thinking that I am just run down a bit.
I was putzing around the yard trying to de-bug a drip irrigation issue, when I get called in the house for another water issue. The dishwasher was leaking… So I spent the next several hours making trips to the hardware store, wrassling the dishwasher and crawling around in cabinits. By this time I knew something was not right. (besides the inlet solenoid valve) I just laid out on the kitchen floor surrounded by tools and wet rags staring at the ceiling for about 20 minutes. I was wiped out.
Finally I cleaned up and made it to bed and started to take an inventory of symptoms. Muscle and joint aches, headache, extreme lethargy, slight tightness of chest, cough, chills, fever of 101. Sure, it could be plenty of things, including the good old fashioned flu, but given the extreme rise in cases here, brought upon by the gross ignorance and utter incompetence by our various local, state and federal governments, it didn’t seem likely it was anything but the novel Coronavirus; Covid 19.
We moved a futon mattress into our en suite bathroom and I mostly quarantined in there. On the odd forays to go outside for fresh air, I thoroughly wash my hands and wear a mask before I walk through the house. My daughter, son-in law and our two grandkids are staying with us so its important that they can be kept as safe as possible
The first two or three nights were the worst, and even loaded up on acetaminophen sleep was next to impossible. There have been times when it’s taken over an hour to summon up the will just to get up and go to the bathroom. Fever hit 104.
We called the doc and he said that we were doing the right things, and if it hasn’t subsided in a day or two to get tested to confirm. Testing isn’t the easiest thing to arrange or contemplate doing when feeling so crappy, but we finally got a slot in a few days time.
We have been very diligent about social distancing, mask usage, hand washing, and not putting ourselves in compromising situations, but who knows. It will remain a mystery as to where I contracted this. I contacted everyone I have had contact with that I could just to give them a heads up. Everyone has been so very supportive.
Testing was simple and straight forward but up to a 4-day wait for the results. Protocol used was the Aptima SARS-CoV-2 assay. Doc said at the end of the day it very well might not be Covid after all… WTF! I shudder to think….
As the days dragged on I was feeling marginally improved although still exhibiting a dry cough, headaches, low-grade fever, and extreme weakness. Another thing were bouts of severe sweating. So much so that I wake up completely drenched and need a complete change of clothes and bedding.
As symptoms began to improve, boredom increased. When were those damn results gonna get back? Sure enough, 4 days on the nose I get an alert to look at my chart.
Negative.
You have got to be mother fucking kidding me!!!! Here I am, living smack dab in the middle one of the hottest Covid 19 outbreak zones currently in the country, and exhibiting virtually all of the classic symptoms; not to mention feeling like chatting with St. Peter on deaths door for several days, and I have a negative result…
The results of course come laden with all kinds of legalese and caveats about the possibilities of ‘false negatives’. You need to be a Philadelphia lawyer to make sense of it all. Some sources say that about 20% of these tests actually do return false negatives, so who really knows.
All I really know is this: I was sicker than the proverbial dog.
I have been symptom free and fever free now for 72hrs. I am going to take my sweet time easing back into training. I am going to limit ‘public appearances’ even more than I had been. I am going to follow strict mask protocols.
Like I said, I had been training pretty hard going into this. I was a fairly lean buck fifty six. This thing whatever it was caused me to drop 11 pounds, which for guys my size is pretty noticeable. I should be able to climb like a mad fool when I get back in the saddle…