Most Painful COVID Yet

I've already mentioned in a few blog entries that I picked up COVID while at the hospital for my partially amputated thumb (table saw accident) but I'll quickly explain again in this next paragraph.  

While we were in the waiting room of the emergency department, an elderly woman sat down behind us and she was clearly having trouble breathing and was constantly coughing up a lung.  We instantly suspected she had COVID so we were looking forward to one of us being pulled out of the waiting room as soon as possible.  Within about five minutes, we were called into Trauma.  I thanked the nurse for calling us in so quickly and explained that I'd like to avoid exposure to COVID and mentioned the elderly woman coughing up a lung in the waiting room.  Within about five or seven days, both Sheila and I were sick with typical COVID symptoms.  We had been nowhere else so we knew this was the exposure that sickened us.

I had the very unique "razor blade" sore throat along with fever and some typical cold symptoms including fatigue.  We knew too many days had passed by the time my first symptom appeared so we didn't seek Paxlovid.  You know, you have a couple of mild symptoms for a couple of days and don't think anything of it then the weekend arrives and by the time Monday arrives, too many days have passed for Paxlovid to be effective.  Fortunately (at the time), this seemed to resolve itself, mostly, within about a week and I felt "okay" for a week.  Then I felt miserable again for a week.  

This second wave of COVID symptoms resembled an ear infection plus the razor blade sore throat worsened again.  I had pain radiating from my left ear that was extremely painful on the whole left side of my head.  It was unbearable pain!  

I had low grade fevers late in the day again which has been typical for COVID infections in my experiences.  Incidentally, the left side of my head was the same side as the razor blade sore throat.  The doctor noticed some fluid in that ear so he put me on an antibiotic for a possible ear infection.  

So, for about two weeks, I was on an antibiotic and the ear pain very slowly subsided a bit.  It never fully resolved but was tolerable after the antibiotic.  

Another week passes with me staying indoors and trying to recover.  Unfortunately, the headaches worsened and the late day fevers returned.  At some point a few days ago, I realized that perhaps I should research "COVID and headaches".  It turns out that this is the exact pain I had been experiencing...  "one side of the head", or "across the forehead"...  "extremely painful".  That was exactly what I was experiencing so perhaps I did not have an ear infection.  It looks like the unbearable pain I had on the left side of my head radiating from my ear may have been "new" COVID headache.  

So we're now at about two months of COVID in waves.  Over time, this virus is debilitating and demoralizing.  Every time I've had COVID (seven or eight times now?) it has been the same with the waves of symptoms.  I can have a few good days, then I worsen and feel miserable for a week or two.  Later, the waves are in shorter duration.  I can feel good when I get out of bed in the morning but, by dinnertime (even after napping for hours), I'm in excruciating pain again (headache, joint pain and sore throat).  I awake in the morning feeling pretty good again but deteriorate quickly throughout the day.  By nighttime I'm feeling miserable again and have a fever again. 

On and off, through these two months of COVID, I've also had some breathing issues.  So far, I've been able to resolve these breathing problems with PT and medication though.   Hopefully that will continue.

A few nights ago, I spent the entire night in the bathroom sick as a dog.  I spent about nine hours in the bathroom.  This was more related to my Systemic Mastocytosis but it could have been worsened by the virus.  What I do know is that I don't ever want to experience that again!

Even though we had a good early summer...  the first two weeks were great as we traveled across the country by train with two grandchildren in tow...  I still feel as though I completely missed the summer.  I've been quite sick for about two months now and, as I type this, I see leaves constantly falling in the yard so summer is definitely over.  

Hopefully I'll be rid of this insidious, painful and debilitating virus very soon.