Covid Recovered

My husband, Matt, tested positive for Covid-19 in mid-July. We’ve now been out of quarantine for more than a week, and as I’ve mulled over documenting this experience, this is pretty much all I’ve got: it’s a weird virus.

For example, Matt still has symptoms, now 25 days later, but can no longer transmit Covid to others. He will wear a heart monitor when he returns to work to ensure the virus didn’t cause life-long issues. 

My kids and I had a few days of very mild symptoms, including headaches and fatigue, and my lymph nodes hurt. It wouldn’t have been enough for us to stay home from work or school if we hadn’t already been in quarantine. We waited about a week after we first experienced symptoms and all four of us tested negative, although we were told it sounded like we had mild cases and recovered quickly. 

But Matt, who was eventually upgraded to a moderate case, started out with extreme exhaustion. At first, he thought he became overheated at work. The next day, he felt worse, and he ended up spending three or four days in bed, barely waking. When he was awake, he realized he had lost his sense of taste and smell and couldn’t detect a cut clove of garlic or a bag of coffee directly under his nose. His headaches were intense. While each of these three symptoms have improved, he still has them today. 

A strong metal taste also lingers in his mouth, which is thankfully no longer filled with painful sores. 

He never had any upper respiratory issues, although his oxygen was often low and still is sometimes and he would feel out of breath navigating stairs. For a guy who runs several miles per week and lifts weights almost every day, this isn’t normal. (I’m out of breath navigating the stairs because I like pasta and fresh mozzarella). 

Matt’s Covid contraction was also noteworthy. He was never around anyone visibly ill. He went nowhere except from work to home and back each day. He wore a mask and took temperatures of every person coming in the door each day, and no one ever had a fever. He never had a fever, either, except for the day we were all dangerously feverish until we found a thermometer that worked. 

We were very lucky that our household could miss nearly three full weeks of work and only because of the timing; this would not be the case for many people and would have been more detrimental financially for our family if this had happened in the fall. 

We were grateful we hadn’t seen any family during this time frame and knew we had contained the illness to only our household. Since March, we’ve taken every possible measure to be sure we protected our families and we have no regrets there.

Also, the “if you’re sick, stay home” narrative wouldn’t have applied in his case; he wasn’t around anyone visibly ill, but contracted Covid from an unmasked, asymptomatic carrier. The value of “your mask protects me, my mask protects you” is more evident, especially since those around him didn’t have to quarantine because he wore a mask and thus protected them from exposure.

We plan to send our kids, at least the older two, to seated school in the fall now that they should have antibodies for at least a month or two, and they will happily go with masks. Also, Matt has to go to work either way, so it seems like the thing to do.

We took the kids to a local theme park yesterday, partially for fun, partially to see how they would do with masks all day, and partially to see if Matt would be ready to return to work. Fun was had, the theme park was almost empty, and no one seemed harmed from the day’s events. Also, we finally left the house for something other than work or food, and it was a glorious thing.

In short, if you can take simple measures to prevent contracting or passing on Covid-19, take them. Be well!