Have you had COVID?

[The_Achiever]

Just tested negative today. First time testing per my office's requirements. Can't touch me, 'vid!

[Transmogrified Tiger]

This is no judgment whatsoever to anyone here, but I find it absolutely baffling when I hear people have never once been tested. Really it's just so much....dissonance? Culture shock? I don't even know the right term. I stopped keeping track a while ago, but safe estimate for me is somewhere in the 20s since this all started. Between having it, close family members testing positive, day care regulations, what limited travel we did, etc...

Some of it comes down to circumstances. My wife and I both work from home, don't have kids, and haven't flown since the pandemic started. Living in a red state there hasn't been any testing requirements I've been exposed to. Only one person I'm close to(my dad) has had a positive test and it wasn't in a window where we had been in their company. Throw in not having any symptoms to check on and getting vaxxed and boosted quickly and it's just not been something we've had reason to do, though I imagine we're fairly unique with the WFM/no kids/red state/no social life combo. Any one of those being different would likely have changed things at some point in the last 2 years.

[chopsx9]

This is no judgment whatsoever to anyone here, but I find it absolutely baffling when I hear people have never once been tested. Really it's just so much....dissonance? Culture shock? I don't even know the right term. I stopped keeping track a while ago, but safe estimate for me is somewhere in the 20s since this all started. Between having it, close family members testing positive, day care regulations, what limited travel we did, etc...

I've been tested a bunch but my father is in a home and I now have to be tested every time I see him (about twice a week). No positive tests so far. I'm in Canada so it may be different but you have to have a reason to get tested - direct contact with someone positive or sick, but I know some people who have become ill (with no known direct contact) and had their tests cancelled and been told just to isolate.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

This is no judgment whatsoever to anyone here, but I find it absolutely baffling when I hear people have never once been tested. Really it's just so much....dissonance? Culture shock? I don't even know the right term. I stopped keeping track a while ago, but safe estimate for me is somewhere in the 20s since this all started. Between having it, close family members testing positive, day care regulations, what limited travel we did, etc...

My kids have been tested a bunch, but I seriously don't have any contacts. Hell, I'd be exposing myself to 4X my normal exposure in the process of getting tested. There isn't any point for me.

[WrigleyField 22]

This is no judgment whatsoever to anyone here, but I find it absolutely baffling when I hear people have never once been tested. Really it's just so much....dissonance? Culture shock? I don't even know the right term. I stopped keeping track a while ago, but safe estimate for me is somewhere in the 20s since this all started. Between having it, close family members testing positive, day care regulations, what limited travel we did, etc...

20s sound like a lot unless you've had mandates to.

I think I'm only at 4. Twice self elected to based on symptoms and twice this holiday as a gathering precaution. I think I've tested the most in my family. Certainly being able to work almost exclusively from home helps. But even with two in daycare the need to hasn't really arisen.

[WrigleyField 22]

So let me tell you my COVID story cuz its wild and expensive. Unfortunately its impossible to tell this story and make it reflect well on me. It involves me getting very sick for like 2 months and pretty much working and playing right through it. I even played a 500+ player poker tournament at the height of it. Against a bunch of old people in Florida. Its not a good look. I'm gonna address that criticism now instead of having to respond to the comments that call me out for it. I know. I was stupid. I know.

First thing you should know is that I give tests to students at several schools throughout central/south Florida. Its about a 5-6 hour test during which we are obviously in very close proximity. A lot of these students are from Southeast Asia and a lot of them travel to and from home on occasion.

Its the 2nd week of October, 2019. Approximately 3 weeks ago I have given a test to a student from Wuhan, China. My wife goes on vacation out to California leaving me with the dogs and house to take care of and also a full work schedule. I say this to bring pity to me, not blame to her. This was planned well in advance. I did two tests a day normally at that time, it was a 10-13 hour work day once all was said and done. One of the last words I said to her before she left was "man, I feel something in the back of my throat, I hope I'm not getting sick..."

I got sick. I got really, really sick. While working 12 hour days and taking care of everything at home by myself. When she got home she could tell that I was not in a good place. But I'm pretty tough, and relatively dumb, so I didn't do anything crazy like miss work or rest or anything. I figured I'd be better the next week. And I was, to a degree. But then the week after was even worse than the original week. The best I've ever been able to describe it was "it was like having bronchitis and laryngitis at the same time that you have the flu." And it came in waves. I'd never fully recover, but I'd get super bad and then better, and then bad again. The first week of November, 2019, I called in sick to work for the first time in my life. I ended up missing 3 days in a row, the only reason it wasn't 6 was because I had previously scheduled those 3 days off.

Ive literally never in my life been to a doctor for anything other than "hey I might be dying, man." That's not a brag, that's me being dumb again. This is no longer true. I have learned my lesson on this issue. So, Second week of November, 2019, a full month into this, I break down and go to urgent care. The lymph nodes in my neck feel like they are golf ball size. They protrude from the skin. They aren't comfortable. Also that's a super bad sign and I think I might be dying. The nurse walked into the room, turned around to look at me and literally said, "....whoa." I also take this as a bad sign. They tested me for influenza and for strep and that came back negative. My wife falls ill around this time too with what looks like the same illness and she also tests negative for both and she says they did a test for laryngitis too which came back negative, but i'm not 100% on if there was a laryngitis test given or if that's even a thing. She didn't get as sick as I did and recovered much quicker. The urgent care doctor gives me....some medicine and a steroid...and says I should probably get an appointment at my normal doctor.

3rd-4th week of November and I finally feel human again. My doctor can finally squeeze me in. I almost canceled the appointment. To be honest I wish I had, because what happens next is where it gets expensive. My lymph nodes in my neck, armpit and groin are still quite enlarged and that concerns her. She sends me for an MRI (I think). MRI shows some concerning results, which leads to a PET scan (that's a cancer scan) which shows concerning results. I'm pretty much flat out told that I have lymphoma. Well, that sucks. All of that leads to a Christmas Eve 2019 biopsy which shows....absolutely nothing. A followup PET scan maybe 5-6 weeks later shows absolutely nothing. No strep, no influenza, no laryngitis, no cancer.

By this point we're in probably April of 2020, I'm about $10,000 out of pocket deep into finding out that I don't have cancer. My cancer doc, now communicating mostly through the phone, throws up his arms and says 'we'll do one more PET scan in early 2021 to make sure but other than that we have no idea.' Then I tell him about my profession and that I work directly with people who live and travel to and from southeast asia. I ask if there is any way that I was essentially ground zero for COVID in the state of Florida. I'm fully expecting him to shoot this idea down with "no, its more likely that your body successfully fought off this blah blah" or something. But instead he goes back over my symptoms and asks if he can call me back a bit later. When he calls me back he all but diagnosed it as COVID. "I can't tell you that it was COVID because...you know...but yeah that makes a whole lot of sense." Something like that.

We can never prove it. None of the blood that was drawn around the time was kept. I suppose the lymph node from the biopsy was probably in a freezer somewhere but that's not able to be tested I guess. But my cancer doc was so convinced of it that he told me not to bother with the follow up PET scan.

So my official answer is that I haven't had COVID. But I did have COVID-like symptoms for months just prior to it officially existing.

Well that definitely wasn't as bad as the disclaimer made me think it was about to be. I'm sure many of us didn't take illnesses as seriously pre covid as we hopefully will going forward. Glad you don't have cancer.

[Bote McBoteface]

Well that definitely wasn't as bad as the disclaimer made me think it was about to be. I'm sure many of us didn't take illnesses as seriously pre covid as we hopefully will going forward. Glad you don't have cancer.

I don't wanna hear any of sammy sofa's comments, man. haha.

Work is work and I don't know how I would have kept my job if I had just taken 8 weeks off. I feel bad about the poker tournament. If I had been scheduled to work that day, I would have taken off. I can't imagine a better way to spread disease than a poker tournament. Every chip and card in that room passed through my hands. I was texting my friend, in a text that aged REALLY poorly. Almost exactly quoting myself:

"I have 80,000 chips. Man, I feel like trash."
"I have 150,000 chips. I feel like dog horsefeathers tho and I'm actively spreading a disease"
"I have 250,000 chips. Done for the day. Day 2 is Sunday. I'm so glad I get to go home"

Its rough to read through. I hope nobody there got sick because of me but I know that they did.

Since I've revealed that much I entered day 2 in 4th place overall with 23K going to 1st place. About 2 hours into day 2 I lost 2 big hands in a row and did not win any money.

[Bote McBoteface]

*disappointed sigh*

Spoiler: show

[Sammy Sofa]

This is no judgment whatsoever to anyone here, but I find it absolutely baffling when I hear people have never once been tested. Really it's just so much....dissonance? Culture shock? I don't even know the right term. I stopped keeping track a while ago, but safe estimate for me is somewhere in the 20s since this all started. Between having it, close family members testing positive, day care regulations, what limited travel we did, etc...

If I had felt sick with the common symptoms I would have, but I never did, and my girlfriend and I really separated ourselves from everyone else at the various worst times outside of running errands.

[TomtheBombadil]

“Finally” tested positive….Fever is down (reached as high as 101.6 yesterday AM) but still have body aches, a new little dry cough, and last night felt maybe a little more internal inflammation (lungs? I assume). I work with pretty garbage conditions for pretty gross people, one of the perks of being the first of a first generation who didn’t walk the tightest and/or most expensive line possible I assume, so that isn’t happening the rest of the week. I’m the third in my family to test positive this week and easily experiencing the most symptoms (likely partially due to the garbage work conditions but who’s asking)

I’m mostly so horsefeathering frustrated

[rawaction]

I dodged that horsefeathers for 21 months, then got it a month ago around Christmas. I didn't actually test, my wife was positive on an at home test. But we (wife, kids, their boyfriends) had the same symptoms. We're vaxxed, but my 12 year old is not. He was scheduled to get his 1st and us boosters the Monday after New Years Day.

[squally1313]

Wife tested positive last month right before Christmas, somehow we avoided it...for a few weeks. Got an email last year from kids daycare that there was a symptomatic kid who ended up testing positive. Kid woke up sick on Monday, tested positive, I woke up sick on Tuesday, also positive. Both mostly out of it, just sore throats...wife is due tomorrow, so we'll have another kid to deal with in the next week or so. Looks like we missed the worst possible timing, but still pretty awful (and praying no impact to kid #2).

[javy knows my name]

I dodged that horsefeathers for 21 months, then got it a month ago around Christmas. I didn't actually test, my wife was positive on an at home test. But we (wife, kids, their boyfriends) had the same symptoms. We're vaxxed, but my 12 year old is not. He was scheduled to get his 1st and us boosters the Monday after New Years Day.

Does your 12 year old son have a boyfriend? Because that makes me happy

[Rob]

I dodged that horsefeathers for 21 months, then got it a month ago around Christmas. I didn't actually test, my wife was positive on an at home test. But we (wife, kids, their boyfriends) had the same symptoms. We're vaxxed, but my 12 year old is not. He was scheduled to get his 1st and us boosters the Monday after New Years Day.

Does your 12 year old son have a boyfriend? Because that makes me happy

[rawaction]

I dodged that horsefeathers for 21 months, then got it a month ago around Christmas. I didn't actually test, my wife was positive on an at home test. But we (wife, kids, their boyfriends) had the same symptoms. We're vaxxed, but my 12 year old is not. He was scheduled to get his 1st and us boosters the Monday after New Years Day.

Does your 12 year old son have a boyfriend? Because that makes me happy

No. My wife has 2 from a previous marriage (23 and 20). So those 2 are my stepkids. One is a girl, one a boy. Both have boyfriends. My 12 year old son is a chauvinistic horsefeathers, who we have had to yell at constantly for a while to stop calling things and people "gay" when my stepson came out 15 months ago. He has no issue with it, but he's at that age where everything is "gay" or a dick joke.

[Outshined_One]

My wife and I caught it about two weeks ago. We're both vaccinated and boosted.

Shortly after the mask mandate was dropped, her shop became mask-optional and the higher ups encouraged everyone to go maskless. Naturally, this resulted in her supervisor coming into work sick, working a full shift with my wife, and then her supervisor testing positive for COVID the next day.

My wife started showing symptoms a few days later and they tracked with prior allergy/sinus infections she's had (congestion, no fever, grogginess). She took an at home test and tested positive. I started showing symptoms a few days later and we both had positive tests. The weirdest part about all of it was, as our symptoms started abating about a week ago, one day we woke up with no sense of smell and limited sense of taste (just things like salt, sour, bitter, etc.; no nuance). I had an illness about 15 years ago that caused that same loss, but it had never happened to my wife before and she had massive anxiety over it. Happily, our senses have gotten better since, but they're still not 100%.

From my experience, this was a lot like a moderate upper respiratory infection, with a sore throat, lost voice, extensive coughing, and general lack of energy. My wife had similar symptoms. It was rough, and it took about a week for the worst symptoms to abate. We both are supremely grateful that we were vaccinated and boosted considering it could have been much worse, especially since my wife is in the at-risk group.

Additionally, having the at-home tests on hand we got through USPS were invaluable. The only frustration was, the test kit didn't include any information on how to report the tests, and we tried calling the Illinois Department of Public Health, but were put on hold for 30 minutes before the system hung up on us. I've been wondering whether part of the reason for the decline in reported cases is because people have been testing at home and there hasn't been an effective way of reporting the at home results.

[Irrelevant Dude]

I've been wondering whether part of the reason for the decline in reported cases is because people have been testing at home and there hasn't been an effective way of reporting the at home results.

I suspect that is part of it. What is the motivation for someone to formally report their test results?

[Sammy Sofa]

GF tested positive Saturday and got pretty sick; still getting over what felt like a sinus infection with a bad cough.

I'm still testing negative, but feel blah: sinus pressure, scratchy throat, fatigued. Was told to stay home anyway.

[Derwood]

I'm hyper-paranoid right now about catching it because I have two trips coming up that would really get farked by a positive test.

[NOLA]

GF tested positive Saturday and got pretty sick; still getting over what felt like a sinus infection with a bad cough.

I'm still testing negative, but feel blah: sinus pressure, scratchy throat, fatigued. Was told to stay home anyway.

That is similar to us. I had the same symptoms and severity as your gf, my wife had similar symptoms as you and tested negative all week. It took me maybe two weeks to shake all the symptoms.

[d_money]

I tested positive yesterday - legs ache, headache, runny nose. On a level of 1-10, it’s not that bad, say a 5.

My wife feels like she got hit by a truck, coughing, etc…. Negative test both yesterday and today. Weird.

[Outshined_One]

A bit more than two months after the fact, I finally feel physically close to 100% again.

The thing I did not completely comprehend with COVID until I had it was how much it saps stamina and strength. My wife and I were down for about ten days in terms of exhibiting symptoms, although we never needed to see a doctor, much less go to the hospital. We missed ten days of workouts (and we usually do 20-30 minute YouTube videos), so it kind of felt natural that it would take a bit of time to get back to where we were pre-infection. However, the physical recovery took me two months. I ended up having to keep to simple yoga videos because my balance sucked and I had serious issues with anything requiring upper body strength. Any time I'd try something involving cardio or strength, I'd usually have to stop halfway through because I either was out of energy or because I was risking injury doing things I used to do two to three times a week with relative ease. It was like I was getting back into exercise after a multi-year layoff. It's only been the last few days when I feel like I'm close to where I was pre-infection.

So, the advice I've been giving people recovering from COVID is to ease back into physical activity once you've recovered. I've known people who recovered from COVID, and then had tweaks/sprains when they went back to exercise/sports because they didn't realize how much COVID set them back. It'd suck to get over COVID and then go down with a major knee/shoulder injury.

[Sammy Sofa]

I'm going to try heading back to work tomorrow; I'm mainly dealing with sinus congestion and fatigue at this point. Only had a fever for about a day and a half, thankfully.

Weirdly both my GF and I completely lost our senses of taste and smell, even though that only happens in about 16% of people catching one of the Omicron variants. Her senses are returning already, thankfully, and I'm about 4-5 days behind her with everything else, so fingers crossed there because right now I can't taste or smell a damn thing. I feel really bad for the folks still dealing with that long term.

I'm probably going to be on a similar path as you, Outshined; I had just started getting back to something resembling my normal levels of exercise in the weeks leading up to this, but I'm going to have to take my time coming back. Besides getting tired so easily, I'm also definitely noticing my heart rate is much higher than it usually is (sitting in the 80's instead of the 50's), so I'm not messing around there without following up with my cardiologist first.

In short: this sucks. I'm tired, weak, can't enjoy anything I eat or drink, and have no idea how bad I smell (probably terrible).

Oh yeah: still have the damn cough, too.

[soccer10k]

2 1/2 years avoiding it and my wife and I finally got it.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Figure I'll document this here for posterity, like Soccer10k I got it for what I think is the first time this past week. Last Friday I had a tickle in my throat, and since I was supposed to visit my grandpa in assisted living decided to test Saturday AM and it was positive. Over the next 24-36 hours I had a cough, achiness, and chills that had me under the weather but not miserable. After that point the chills/achiness subsided, and it's been a slowly improving(emphasis on slow) occasional cough since. Honestly the worst part was my wife was supposed to take her mom to Hawaii on Wednesday(which was pushed to Thursday b/c of plane trouble), so 5 days of doing everything possible to keep her testing negative(which we miraculously pulled off) was more stressful than the illness itself. I haven't tried to work out yet and today is the first day I'm free to break quarantine per the CDC guidelines, so maybe now that I'm more active than being locked in a room I'll see more symptoms/annoyances. But it seems I got fairly lucky.

I am a little curious about the timing, it does seem a little coincidental that I ran out of luck very shortly after I hit the 6 month mark since my booster. But I do know where I got it(at least 4 guys on my soccer team were positive on Memorial Day) and I doubt we all had the same vaccine/booster patterns, so who knows.