Yeap, I caught it. Right through the Christmas holiday, New Year’s, and all the way up to my birthday, and I can honestly say, I’ve never felt so sick in my entire life. I’m a very healthy male who may catch a cold once every ten years. I had chickenpox as a kid. Never had the flu. I did pass a kidney stone once about four years ago (it wasn’t that bad, if I’m being completely honest – although I did go to the outpatients as I didn’t know why my pee was tinged with blood accompanied by an ache in my side. The MRI showed the kidney stone making its way down). But getting Covid-19? Man, that knocked me sideways, backward, forward, and upside down.
I started having symptoms on December 22nd with a headache and feeling run down. I checked my temperature daily which hovered around the 98.6 mark (normal and nothing to worry about at the time). At this stage, things weren’t too bad but could feel I may have caught a cold or chill. By December 25th Covid-19 hit me like a truck. My temperature shot up to its highest as 102.6 (and the weird thing was not once did I break a sweat during my high temp). I checked my blood pressure and it was 180 over 101 (now that scared the crap out of me!). Constant headaches, body aches, and chills devoured me whole. But the thing that knocked me down hard was being completely wiped out and feeling so physically weak. Just taking a shower and I was reduced to gasping for air and having to rest for twenty minutes before I could do anything else. I didn’t have any cough, sore throat, or shortness of breath (only when I did anything ‘strenuous’ like taking a shower or washing dishes, would I be winded and totally wiped out). I was so defeated. I got tested on December 28th and it came back as Covid-19 positive. I lost my appetite, and even when I could snack on things, I really couldn’t taste or smell them. Both senses were there, but very much diluted. I was bedridden for five days. I had weird dreams. The aches and chills kept me up to the wee hours. I just wanted to sleep and have all this sickness go away. I prayed to get better.
It was around January 6th that I started to feel better. My temperature returned to normal, the headaches, aches, and chills had eased, and my appetite was coming back. But then a weird side effect of Covid-19 happened. I woke up on January 7th at 3 am completely drenched in sweat (as noted earlier when I had my fever/temperature of 102.6, not once did I break a sweat). Now my t-shirt, pillows, and sheets were soaked, and this nasty smell suddenly presented itself. The best way to describe it is a mix of rotting fish guts and artificial sweeteners. It was absolutely disgusting. Every time I breathed in through my nose, I could smell this pungent grossness. Later that morning I checked online, and found some people would have this ‘phantom nasal smell’ associated with Covid-19 that some described as burnt toast, or burnt coffee, or gasoline, or…rotten fish guts. So it wasn’t me smelling this way, it was part of Covid-19’s arsenal of symptoms. This gross smell went on for about four days (along with the nightly sweats), and then it all just went away. Strangely, I developed a cough shortly afterward (even though I was now feeling 100% better), so not sure what that was about.
But man, I never want to go through Covid-19 again. Just the worst illness I have ever been through.