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covid again
Tuesday, November 28 2023
This morning after I peeled myself off the laboratory bean bag, I took the house's one Covid-19 test. It had been so long since I'd taken one that I had to watch a YouTube video to make sure I took it correctly. (Side note: Why does everything have to be a video? Can anyone just write down the steps to things in English for me to find with a Google Search and then read at my own preferred rate? Oh right, Google really only works to find spam these days.) Anyway, the test was supposed to give its answer in about ten minutes, but I was apparently so obviously infected by covid that it gave me the two bars of doom within a few seconds. Wow, somehow I'd gotten covid again. There had been people with covid on the Andorinha, of course, and for a couple days in the middle of the cruise I sensed something uncomfortable deep inside my neck that felt like swollen glands. But I couldn't rule out infectious people on the long upwind flight from Portugal as well. (The coughers on the bullet train from Lisbon to Porto are likely too far in the past to blame.)
Now that my misery had an explanation, I could fully commit to being an invalid. Gretchen was, of course, horrified that I had covid, but my sleeping in the laboratory for the last two nights was looking like a good decision. Now, of course, we had to commit even further to staying away from each other in hopes that, if she hadn't already been infected by covid, she wouldn't get it from me.
I waited until after Gretchen headed off to her prison creative writing class (she'd be teaching through a mask today) before attempting to take a bath. But when I was in the tub, no matter how hot I ran the water, I just couldn't get it hot enough. Mind you, the water was plenty hot; there was a problem with my perception of the experience. So I climbed out of the tub, dried myself as best as I could, and then put on several layers, ate a gram of acetaminophen, turned up the heat to 72 degrees Fahrenheit on the laboratory split, got under the covers, and conked out. The acetaminophen was probably what saved the day, dulling the pain from a now-raging sore throat and bringing down my temperature (though the highest it ever got was 100.4 degrees). I was able to sleep for several hours and awoke feeling rested if not all that healthy.
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