I finally caught Covid ( Cross post from "General Chat" )

[Devjon]

I finally caught Covid

I'd started to believe that I must have a natural immunity to Covid, having taken all the recommended precautions since the virus became prevalent and having received a total of five doses of vaccine. When we were visiting our daughter in Edinburgh in March of this year my wife became unwell with what turned out to be Covid, we'd been sharing a bed and even when our daughters partner succumbed, I still remained uninfected.

On Thursday a couple of weeks ago we attended the funeral of a very dear friend, the venue was quite crowded as he was a very popular character, and we were reunited with people that we'd not seen for many years. The following day saw us attending Weymouth Beer Festival, always a popular event with some exceptional beers. On Saturday morning Ros started to feel unwell so we both took tests which came back negative. We suspected that it might be the after effects of the beer festival where my wife had taken a liking to a Coconut chocolate Porter, this smelt like a bounty bar tastes and was truly delicious, it was also 6.5% ! ( my favourite beer of the Festival was called " One for Zelensky " with profits from sales going to the people of Ukraine. That weighed in at 9.5% )

My wife was feeling progressively worse throughout the Saturday, we both took tests again on Sunday morning, both were negative. On Sunday evening I started to feel a bit below par, it had been a long and busy week so I turned in early. I awoke on Monday still feeling under the weather so I took a test which came back positive, my wife also took a test which this time was positive.
I reported my positive result using the NHS web portal, I'd set up a shortcut on my web browser which logs me in automatically and many of the check boxes remember my previous selections Once I'd submitted my report our wonderful NHS swung into action. I received a message asking me to confirm that I had indeed tested positive which I confirmed. At lunchtime a Doctor at Poole Hospital phoned me for a chat about my symptoms and any allergies before recommending that I take a course of the new anti-viral drug Paxlovid. Later in the afternoon I received another phone call, this one was from the Hospital Pharmacist who talked about dosage and possible side effects. He then said he would sent the drugs by Taxi which arrived within 30 minutes, and I was able to take my first dose that evening.

As the day had progressed I'd been feeling more unwell, headache, a cough and sore throat. That night saw me shivering in bed wearing pyjamas, thick woollen hiking socks, my dressing gown and with my feet on a hot water bottle.I was sipping water to ease my throat. Through trial and error I discovered that with a combination of having a pillow under my neck with my head tilted back to open the airway, and breathing exercises I could prevent the coughing and I finally drifted off to sleep. In order to reduce the variables while taking the course of Paxlovid I'd decided not to take any other medications including Paracetamol, nor any of my routine supplemnts.

I'd drawn up a chart divided into five days to cover the course of medication. I listed when and what I was eating as well as the exact time I took the medication and any side effects that I experienced. After the course of treatment ended I filled in the " Yellow Card " reporting pages online to give feedback about my experiences with Paxlovid.
By day three I felt as though I was on the mend, by day four I decided I felt well enough to venture out for a walk, and then fell fast asleep on the sofa as I was putting on my walking shoes! My wife and I are both early risers but since having Covid I am sleeping longer into the day, often sleeping through the 7:00 am alarm.

A week after the first onset of symptoms my wife and I felt well enough to walk the long way over the heathlands and along the river Stour into Wimborne to do some shopping. I'm being sensible for once and decided to stick to walking for a further week before starting running again.

We are indeed fortunate to have such a wonderful NHS, as well as a course of five doses of vaccine, they swung into action to ensure I got the latest medication and delivered it taxi to my door.

[RUSE7]

Hey Kevin,
Thank heavens you're feeling better so quickly, I have to agree that the NHS can be amazing! That response sounds unbelievably fast. Well done Poole NHS. I wonder how much of your speedy recovery is down to the anti-virals and how much down to to the variant and your (obviously amazing) natural immunity. Remind me again, do you have issues with your WBC and Neutrophils?

I still haven't had covid, but like you, lived through my husband's bout of it earlier in the year without any precautions. I reckon it's just a matter of time before I succumb and am resigned to it happening at some stage, but secretly keeping my fingers crossed that I don't.

Hoping you get back to running soon, start small and don't go too hard too fast.

Ronnie

[Devjon]

Hey Kevin,
Thank heavens you're feeling better so quickly, I have to agree that the NHS can be amazing! That response sounds unbelievably fast. Well done Poole NHS. I wonder how much of your speedy recovery is down to the anti-virals and how much down to to the variant and your (obviously amazing) natural immunity. Remind me again, do you have issues with your WBC and Neutrophils?

I still haven't had covid, but like you, lived through my husband's bout of it earlier in the year without any precautions. I reckon it's just a matter of time before I succumb and am resigned to it happening at some stage, but secretly keeping my fingers crossed that I don't.

Hoping you get back to running soon, start small and don't go too hard too fast.

Ronnie

Hi Ronnie,
Thank you for your lovely response. I have MDS MLD but i think my neutrophils and WBC are in the "OK" range. Both my wife Ros and I are well on the road to recovery, we have noticed that we need to sleep longer and feel more tired post activity but hopefully that will slowly start to resolve itself. I'd been gradually building up the distance and just before catching Covid I'd managed a 20K run as mentioned previously. I've resumed my Vitamin C and Turmeric regime, I'd paused while on the anti-viral medication, I'm cautiously optimistic. Our daughter sent us a link to a run that she and her partner are planning on running in July next year, it's a lovely 20K meander over the South Downs, Ros and I are planning on entering too. If that goes ok then we have our eye on the " John Muir " Ultra in Scotland later in that year, the race itself is 50K and our daughters partner will be running that. There's the option to enter as a team of two so that is what Ros and I hope to do. It would be quite fun to enter as a team of two with a combined age of 144
Anyway, onwards and upwards, we have our Bournemouth area Zoom meeting on Wednesday which I'm very much looking forward to.

Kind regards,

Kevin

[RUSE7]

Keeping my fingers crossed that you're back to rights soon. A little bit of extra sleep is a bonus in my books though . July next year sounds achievable for the 20k if you were already at the distance pre-covid. Might take a while to get back there, but you've got 8 months, so build it back up slowly. Good luck to both of you and let us know if you enrol in the ultra in Scotland. (Just thinking about it makes me uncomfortable )
Cheers
Ronnie

[Devjon]

Keeping my fingers crossed that you're back to rights soon. A little bit of extra sleep is a bonus in my books though . July next year sounds achievable for the 20k if you were already at the distance pre-covid. Might take a while to get back there, but you've got 8 months, so build it back up slowly. Good luck to both of you and let us know if you enrol in the ultra in Scotland. (Just thinking about it makes me uncomfortable )
Cheers
Ronnie

Thank's Ronnie!
Just as a side note, I read the various boards here and there have been several occasions where I'd like to show my support but don't want to "butt in" to the conversation. I've looked but there's no "Like" button that I can see. I thought it would be a good thing to let people know that others are reading their posts and empathising.

Kevin

[chris]

Hi Kevin

Guess it’s because the Chat Forum was set up pre the Facebook “like”?! I guess you could always do a little reply expressing sympathy or whatever. Or maybe a suitable emoji?
Wonder if we can add a thumbs up or applause to the ones on offer?
I’ve just added those from my phone?

Best wishes

Chris

[Devjon]

Aha! I'd forgotten that there's a dedicated " Emoji " key on my MacBook. It sorts them by most used, hence the beer icon

[Devjon]

Aha! I'd forgotten that there's a dedicated " Emoji " key on my MacBook. It sorts them by most used, hence the beer icon

And there I was thinking I was being smart by stripping the text between the " Quote Message " only to mess the formatting up, must try harder.