My COVID
I was diagnosed with COVID on Friday, January 13th and isolated at home until Friday, January 20th. I first felt feverish on Thursday night, January 12th, and by the next morning I was in full fever. But I went to work anyway. If I was sick, I wanted them to see with their own eyes that I was sick rather than simply take my word for it over the phone. When I left the office that morning I went straight to the ear-nose-throat guy in our neighborhood, Dr. Funadou. The clinic wasn’t busy or crowded, but because I had a fever, his staff made me sit outside in the cold air. They were ready for me in about 10-minutes. I went inside and Dr. Funadou gave me a 10-minute, rapid PCR test (nasal swab), and had me wait outside again for the results. I was hoping it was just a bad cold, but he came out to show me the results - sort of like a pregnancy urine test - positive for the coronavirus. He gave me a prescription for medicines from the pharmacy around the corner and phoned them to let them know I was coming. The pharmacy made me sit outside in the cold air, too. The assortment of pills I got were free, just as the COVID vaccination shots are free. Dr. Funadou also took my contact information - address and phone number - and alerted the Nakano Public Health Office that I was a coronavirus patient isolating at home. At that moment I became a statistic.
At home a couple hours later a public health nurse called to check up on me. She continued to call every day. Even though the Public Health Office is closed on the weekend, the nurses there keep calling sick people at home. I had a high fever until Monday afternoon, January 16th. When my fever came down, the nurse reverted to calling only once a day, in the morning, until Thursday, January 19th. My temperature peaked at 39.2 degrees Celsius, and my blood oxygen saturation bottomed out at 92%. I picked up an oximeter at the pharmacy. From previous hospitalizations, I knew what an oximeter was and what it did. But I didn’t know you could buy those things. Apparently, you can. The nurse said that if my blood oxygen level went below 90%, or my temperature reached 40 degrees, then either one of those would be time to go to the hospital. But what hospital? She didn’t say. Not all hospitals accept COVID patients. Going to the hospital with COVID is not a simple thing. It’s a matter of finding a hospital that treats COVID and at the same time has available beds. Such a place might be far from home. Happily, it didn’t come to that.
Walking around on Friday 13th, I felt like I was building to a heart attack. My left chest was tight and painful and I couldn’t catch my breath, like arterial stenosis. When I got home, I crawled into bed and fell asleep. I pretty much stayed like that for the next four days. I lost about 7kg during the days when I had high fever, because I wasn’t eating anything, and hardly drinking anything. My weight plunged. But when my fever came down, I was able to scurry out for food (and come back ASAP).
I’m thankful that the masks and the vaccines worked.
Some people - anti-vax and vaccine deniers, might say that my (5) COVID vaccination shots, and my habitual mask wearing failed. But I say otherwise. I’m thankful that the masks and the vaccines worked. “How did they work? You still got COVID?” those idiots say - they don’t ask me, they say it. Asking me implies that they are open to a discussion of the matter, which they aren’t. They assert it, because they want to hear their own voices making the assertion, not because they want to risk having a proper conversation.
I say that masks, hand-washing, social-distancing and vaccination shots work because their function is not to “stop” the disease, the way they expect. Those medical measures lower risk by retarding infection. That’s what they’re supposed to do, and their success is measurable. I don’t think anything can “stop” to spread of the coronavirus. Those idiots are just so drunk on their own ideas that they never listen to what medical and government health officials say. I say that the vaccines I received worked because they prevented me from having worse symptoms. They prevented me from requiring hospitalization, and they saved me from dying.
Following my recovery from the coronavirus, I had long-COVID symptoms, featuring thigh muscle pain, knee joint pain, lingering chest pain, and most of all, lower back or lumbar pain. The lumbar pain lasted for a month. It was so strong that it affected my mobility. Getting out of bed and getting dressed was - well, it was a real pain. Some days I resumed walking with the cane I used when I was recovering from my broken knee and knee surgery two years ago. I got pain relief drugs from another doctor - a two-week prescription. And, he said that if the pain persisted until the end of the prescription, then I should see an orthopedist. After the two weeks it still persisted. I returned to the same doctor and got him to renew the prescription for two more weeks anyway. But he repeated his advice about seeing an orthopedist if the pain outlasted the prescription.