It feels like I have just come out of a 2 year long suspenseful wait on the question – “Will I escape covid or not?“. Anyways, I can’t be more excited to be recovering pretty fine from the covid infection. While the people and the governments across the world are accepting that covid is here to stay, I thought I should write down my experience of suffering with covid for my future self and any of you out there who are yet to be infected.

How did I get Covid?

I have been living my life pretty fine for the last 2 years in the pandemic without any health issues. I also somehow got lucky in many instances and managed to travel solo across three different countries last year without any infection. This may have made me feel a bit invincible but my gut has been recently telling me to be bit more cautious. Yes, I was still wearing masks whenever I was going but I may have been a little more lenient and less precautious in the last couple of weeks.

My last haircut was in Porto, Portugal and over 3 months had passed since then. My hair was a big mess and I had to take a passport photo in the next few days and couldn’t risk a bad haircut by trying to cut it myself. Hence, in my great wisdom, I decided to get a proper haircut from one of the local barbershop.

On January 31st evening, despite all the lazy excuses my mind was coming up with at the time, I forced myself to go to a local barbershop. I blindly believed that covid was never going to get me and took off the mask for the barber to cut my hair. I was not worried at all in the beginning. Boy, I wish I was a bit more cautious! As the time went on, I noticed that the barber had a case of cold and it concerned me a little bit. But I didn’t think much of it. I went back home to have a good shower and kept my fingers crossed.

By midnight – roughly 6 hrs since exposure, my body and throat was feeling a bit weird. I also started feeling this extreme fatigue on knee joints. Something was also happening on my throat.

Detection

Next day when I woke up, I felt extreme fatigue not just on my knee joints, but all over my body. Though I was yet to see the typical symptoms of covid infection, my body was sending signals about an intruder. I had to take day off from work to get some rest.

By the noon of February 1st – roughly 22 hrs since exposure, I started feeling feverish. I drove to a medical pharmacy and got myself some Dolo 650 tablets and self-test rapid antigen test kits.

The self-testing kit showed a very light purple line indicating the presence of covid infection.

Suffering

Next task was the prepare myself for the suffering. I drove to the hospital and went into the casualty area to report about my covid infection. Apparently, you no longer even need to see the doctor to get covid medicine. I was directed to the pharmacy area to buy the prepackaged covid medicines for the next 5 days. It cost me Rs 235 ( ~ USD 3.15 ).

I also bought myself a bunch of apples and oranges to power my body through the incoming suffering.

I also checked my SpO2 levels using pulse oximeter. It showed 98 – 100, which is a good sign. The digital thermometers showed increasing body temperature. By evening, it was reading 102.4 degree celsius.

The night of February 1st – roughly 36 hrs after exposure to covid, was horrible. Extreme fever and weakness along with horrible fractal dreams accompanied me that night.

I could not sleep at all. The last time when I had such high fever with horrible dreams was probably over a decade ago.

Somehow, I managed to pull through and woke up next day with ongoing fever and fatigue. I took a Dolo 650 tablet which was prescribed to me and it gave some sudden relief and caused heavy sweating as the body temperature reduced.

By the noon of February 2nd, the throat started taking turn for the worse and fever rose again. My family and relatives many of whom who have already suffered and recovered from covid advised me to do steam inhalation and drink hot water for easier recovery.

The night of February 2nd – roughly 60 hrs since exposure, was also horrible. Though the fever had reduced a little, extreme weakness and worsening throat was the highlight of this night. I barely slept that night since whenever I closed the eyes, irritating fractal dreams clouded my mind.

The day of February 3rd – roughly 72 hrs since exposure, fever reduced a bit more. My body was still weak, but it was slightly better the last few days. The irritation inside throat started increasing more.

Sleeping had become scary at this point because of bad dreams. I turned to funny shows for some comic relief and take my mind off the horrible feeling.

Recovery

The recovery slowly started on the evening of February 3rd – roughly 80 hrs since the initial exposure. The body temperature started dropping slowly and there was occasional bursts of heavy sweating as the temperature receeded.

What did I eat for my meals?

I was told that I might feel extra hungry because of covid. But that was not the case for me. I definitely didn’t feel the need to eat more than I would eat on a normal day.

I mostly just ate porridge rice for all my meals apart from apples and oranges. I drank a lot of hot water as well.

How did I spent the time?

I had turned to funny shows for some comic relief and help take my mind off of the delayed plans. The two shows that really helped me are the Mr. Bean series and LOL ComediHa!

Apart from that, I spent some time decluttering my life and got rid of couple of unwanted things that I collected over the years ( mostly broken electronics and airline amenity kits ).

Did I lose sense of smell or taste?

No, I can still smell and taste fine. So far, I have not noticed any side effects from my covid infection.

Final Thoughts

I am not sure which variant of covid I was infected with, but based on current statistics, I think it could be the Omicron variant. I am very glad that I didn’t require hospitalisation and that I was able to take care of myself as my body fought covid. It sure would have been nicer to have someone cook for you, but I managed it.

I would still highly recommend you to stay cautious and avoid risking covid infection.

I am still recovering – my throat is finally healing and I am getting back to my normal self. I now hope that I will test negative on my RT PCR in a few days so that I can continue on with my travel plans.