Monday Missive – Rising from My Sick Bed

My trip to Florida was wonderful but did take a less than desirable turn midway through the trip. My granddaughter became ill. She was swabbed for Covid and the flu, both of which were negative, but she was very sick the last three days of my trip. My daughter and I both started to feel a little under the weather with a scratchy throat but Covid tests were all negative. I flew home and that night I started to feel really ill.

My granddaughter has compromised lungs, so she was being given nebulizer treatments and was given a steroid inhaler to help clear her lungs. She had run a low-grade fever, but nothing alarming. My daughter never ran a fever, but by Thursday night I had a fever and a very nasty cough. I did a Covid antigen test – negative. I tried to call my doctor on Friday but his office was closed. Saturday I retested myself for Covid (again negative) and ended up going to Urgent Care Saturday morning as I was experiencing some wheezing.

Again another Covid swab and swabs for both flu strains – all negative. I was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection (aka cold) and given a plethora of medicines to help the symptoms. I am slightly improved, but the medicines are wreaking havoc on my digestive system.

On my trip down, there was one other person on the plane other than myself who was masked. On the trip back I was the only one masked. Our flight back was delayed an hour while they worked on a computer glitch which means we sat on the tarmac an extra hour with poor ventilation. I will never understand the resistance to masking, especially in such crowded places.

I was glad I made the trip. Seeing my family is important to me. But it does serve as a good reminder that while we are all hyper-aware of Covid, there are still a lot of other bugs out there just waiting for an unwitting host.

Today is my first day with no fever. My cough is better and this really feels like a cold now. These last few days, however, were not fun.

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