Keeping My Head…

…instead of cutting it off

I started getting Covid on Wednesday July 3, while on our way home from Portland at the end of our Snake/Colombia River cruise. Diane had it too, which we confirmed on Thursday with our handy home test kits.

I was really sick for 4 days, but started to feel better on Monday and by Thursday I was almost recovered. All that remained were my draining sinuses and a nagging cough, particularly at night. And my voice remained weak, something some of my cycling friends might not consider a bad thing given my proclivity to break into song, off key but fortissimo, when in an especially good mood.

I started testing again on Monday, hoping for the negative result that would indicate that I was most likely no longer contagious and could return to public interactions without guilt or any significant danger to other people. Alas, Monday’s test was still positive. Ditto Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, although I continued to feel better. I was starting to despair and thinking I would have to look into getting groceries delivered, when I got a nice surprise: Thursday is on the left and Friday (today) on the right.

Hooray! I can go to Costco!

Finally a negative result! Out out damned antigen, will this mucus ‘nere be clean? Lady Macbeth is still washing, but I’m virus free.

Covid reached the U.S. and Brumby Road in March 2020. I remember the shock when the WAC cancelled their annual fund raising raffle dinner on a week’s notice. For the next several years the virus affected Diane and me (and everyone else) in a multitude of ways: Cancelled travel plans, foggy spectacles from wearing masks, no club bike rides for almost a year, social distancing and not shaking hands to name a few. But we never got sick. Every time we sneezed we dutifully tested and always got one line. Until last week.

We picked Covid up on the cruise. We had dinner with the same 3 couples each night. There was open seating but we enjoyed each other’s company. Check this out; the couples had been married 49,50 and 52 years! Stoker and I were newlyweds (40 years) in this group. When I got home I sent one of the couples an e mail warning them, and learned that they came home with Covid too. It couldn’t have helped that Janice was an ebullient hugger and she ended each dinner with a ‘see you tomorrow night’ embrace. And her husband Dr. Andy, a real southern gentleman, and I shook hands every night.

So I’m not contagious and can get back to riding with my cycling friends. I haven’t touched a bike for 20 days, which is bad enough, plus I know I’m still a little (or maybe more than a little) weak from my ordeal. And it is hot hot hot. So I’ll go slow and short for a while. But if any SBC rider acquires Covid in the next several weeks it won’t be from me, if you can believe the one line result.