The COVID Days

Last month it was my turn to get hit with COVID. While it was a relatively mild case, it did affect me substantially for about 3 weeks. Since I’ve been asked a lot about my symptoms and experience, I thought I’d share them here. The effects of this disease on the body seem to vary widely. Most of my discomfort actually came from one odd symptom that I haven’t heard many people talk about. More on that in a bit.

At just under a month after getting my second booster shot of the Moderna vaccine, I started feeling some sinus congestion and a sore throat. That wasn’t enough to worry me. In addition to being the Live Music Capital of the World, Austin is also the allergy capital of the world in my book. I live with chronic respiratory issues due to the plethora of allergens in the air here. Sinus infections are not uncommon for me and my initial thought was that I was coming down with one.

What I was experiencing wasn’t what a sinus infection typically does to me. Not to gross you out, but when I have a sinus infection there’s a lot of interestingly colored mucous involved. I typically get a sore throat from sinus drainage. This time there was no drainage and I wasn’t spewing nasty snot from my nose. I just had sinus congestion with increasing pain in my sinuses and throat. On the second day of this, I decided to test for COVID at home. Bingo.

My wife was standing next to me as we read the result. We immediately separated off into different rooms in the house and donned N95 masks. She tested as well — negative. I was pretty sure I picked it up at work since I hadn’t been anywhere else in the past week without a mask. I didn’t have any cough, so I was hoping she would be OK.

I called my doctor’s office to report my positive result and see if I should get the anti-viral treatment. The nurse didn’t think I needed it since it had been about 2 days with symptoms and they seemed mild. I was told to get rest, drink lots of fluids, isolate for at least 5 days, then wear a mask around others for at least 5 more days after that.

Throughout the day after testing positive, I started feeling worse. It felt like a flu with a bad headache and body aches setting in. I didn’t have a fever or cough. Lots of sinus congestion, but no trouble breathing and my oxygen levels were normal. I tried to take the nurse’s advice and get some rest.

The next day I felt a little better. The body aches dissipated and the sinus congestion with headache persisted. I was very fatigued and started getting a bit of a cough. It was basically impossible to breath through my nose so I was a mouth breather for a few days. This made it difficult to sleep since I use a CPAP machine with a nasal pillow mask. If I slept propped up, I could get just enough air through my nasal passages to use my CPAP.

The next couple of days I had to take naps here and there due to the fatigue. I was trying to do some work from home and it wasn’t easy to concentrate. I had occasional coughing fits. I started taking Tylenol for the headaches, which helped.

At about a week in now, I was starting to feel better in the morning upon waking. However, by late afternoon I developed painful headaches. This is the weird symptom I alluded to — even my teeth hurt! Top and bottom, terrible pain surged across my cheek bones and into my jaw and teeth. Tylenol helped, but didn’t completely knock out the pain. This went on for several days. The pain came and went in waves — starting off OK in the morning and I was battling the worst headaches of my life each afternoon.

Finally, after about 2 weeks since my symptoms began, I woke up feeling pretty good and went for a walk. I still had some sinus congestion and a bit of a cough that was very minimal compared with the previous days. For the next week or so, I could still feel the effects of COVID with a lingering cough and a bit of brain fog. After 3 weeks, I felt like it finally cleared my system.

I was glad I’d gotten my booster shot before I caught COVID. A number of people commented that the vaccine must not have worked. Maybe the original vaccines aren’t as effective on the latest variants, but I have to wonder how much sicker I could have gotten without it. My wife never got it because, umm, masks and distancing work!

Having gone through this experience, I’m now convinced that this is actually the second time I’ve had COVID. Back in late 2020, I had a mysterious illness that I thought might have been a sinus infection. I went to see my doctor. He treated it as a sinus infection due to my history and since I didn’t have a fever or cough, he didn’t ask me to go get a test. The symptoms were similar to what I just went through. The worst of it was a crippling headache that I felt even in my teeth and I couldn’t do much besides lay around for a few days.

COVID is burning through the Austin area right now. A lot of people are gathering or going into work, writing off mild symptoms as allergies or a cold — and so the disease spreads. Maybe it’s just the Austin allergy sniffles. Maybe it’s something more. Get yourself some tests and check yourself if you don’t feel good. No, you’re not going to stab your brain. It’s quick, easy, and painless. Stop the spread — you might even save a life.

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