Coronavirus

I have been wanting to run an rpg campaign for a while now, but have been holding back due to the pandemic. No, I'm not interested in running an online game, because I tried that format (as a player) shortly before the pandemic and disliked it. I started talking to prospective players recently, and they are interested. And a couple of other friends are already involved with face-to-face tabletop rpg campaigns. But then I found out today that one of my local gamer friends caught COVID a few days ago and got the official diagnosis today. That makes four consecutive months that a local gamer friend of mine has caught COVID, and it was the second time around for one of them. In theory, COVID should drop during the summer months here in the Twin Cities because people spend a lot more time outside in the summer. But it isn't quite summer yet and we already have a high of 99F, which is sending most people back indoors. So I think that I will delay a while longer.

So, I just got over COVID…again.

I had it back during the first wave thanks to a bunch of Chinese foreign exchange students that go to my daughter’s school. Got confirmed for antibodies when they developed the test, so I was among the first Americans.

My experience was high fever, shakes and shivers, and general snottiness and chest congestion for 2-3 days of shit, and then MONTHS of recovery with fatigue and shit lung function.

My 11 year old at the time had super high fever for a day and was over it completely in 3.

My ex-wife was laid out for 30 days total. Completely bedridden, downing meds like she was born to do it. She had not great lungs to begin with and “felt like an elephant was on her chest”.

The daughter, 18 at the time, refused to stop working and refused to stop going out because nobody had even heard of COVID. She was blue-lipped and exhausted for a month until I finally told her she would have to either take a week off vacation or pay 350$ a month rent starting immediately. At 18, the only power a father has is the power to make their kid homeless, so they say.

Got double jabbed. So did the whole family.

I am part of a CUNY study (Chasing COVID Cohort) that I got into way early in 2020 because I was hit so early with it. I get antibody tests regularly and do these exhaustive surveys monthly, so I know my antibody status. My ex wife has strong immune response as did I.

Fast forward 2 years at this point. Daughter (now 20) goes to Forecastle Festival and “was being safe” (read: hell no you weren’t, you lying MF, because Insta). Came home raspy “from screaming”. I quarantined her ass under pain of death, and It was 2 days later she was in bed with high fever. It fell upon me to care for her as my ex-wife had left at this point. She spent ONE HOUR in the car with my other daughter and that was enough. Youngest (now 14) got it and had sore throat, nasal congestion, and chest yuck for 8 days before she was mostly normal. Tested positive 7 of the 8 days. The 21 year old was sick (actually sick) for 3 days, after 5 tested negative. Both have lingering chest congestion, like if you smoked too many cigs the night before.

I got it and again was miserable for 2 solid days, didn’t take Tylenol as we found out the first time the quickest way to kill it is to cook it out. Was back to kind of normal after 6 days but I took care of the kids the whole time except when it hit which was like a lightning strike. I tested negative after 6 days of positives.

Tylenol, mucinex, Sudafed, Vitamin D and Zinc for treatment. Lots and lots of water.

I now have a lingering cough which is annoying. My lungs feel like they endured inhaling smoke from a campfire too long. Tingly and burny, and a deep inhale will make me cough virulently and painfully. Cough drops work REALLY well to suppress the cough response,

The upshot is that it’s not that much worse than bronchitis. It’s almost exactly the same, symptomatically. Almost everyone I know personally has had it and this mirrors their experiences. I’ve had 2 people I know OF die of it, relatives of friends.

My takeaway is that antibodies don’t protect you from the illness very well, and also don’t seem to do much to reduce the duration. My experience as a 47 year old dad bod guy was the same at 45. My 18-20 year old had a MUCH easier time but this time she rested and medicated. The 11-14 year old had a much worse time but her diet is shit (goldfish and one meal a day, almost no meat and not many veggies, and almost no water). Now she knows better.

Glad you're on the mend, my man. I will say this current iteration and/or the vax made this much less awful than the first time. Not enjoyable, but also not devastating. If this is what we have to live with now, this is at least manageable.

Cases are on the rise here in Kenya. It looks like we were exposed last week, so we're isolating for a while. No one is sick right now, or at least no one is exhibiting symptoms.

I still have not actually had covid, so this might be my Waterloo. We'll see what happens.

Reporting of new cases has become unreliable due to changes in testing and more general irresponsibility, so wastewater analysis has become the go-to measurement for Covid. Current wastewater analysis indicates that there are five times as many new Covid cases as a year ago, though hospitalizations and deaths are down. Hopefully this is our transition from pandemic to endemic in progress.

Last night, I went to the grocery store. 90% of the people in the store were wearing masks. Tonight, I went to the gym, where I was the only one wearing a mask, out of maybe 60 people present. At this point in the pandemic, everybody seems to have an idiosyncratic understanding of the pandemic, completely disconnected from any facts or data. I have one friend who still wears a mask when she is driving alone with her windows up, even though I explained to her that driving alone with her windows up offers much more protection than a mask. I have other friends who are becoming impatient that I am not ready for gaming in groups yet.

So what. There are still only four lights, and I haven't caught Covid yet. Given the number of people struggling with long Covid and my own semi-advanced age, I am not in a rush to get back to a fake normality.

After being one of the few people I know to avoid covid I think I got overconfident about my ability to waltz through the pandemic untouched and was lazy and stopped wearing a mask and went to a lot of public gatherings, and so on, but finally succumbed to covid a week ago.

Triple vaxxed, relatively healthy in my late 40s and in the end it was slightly worse than a cold, not as bad as the flu, but god it lingers. No idea where I caught it, somewhere on a holiday interstate, but the rest of the family caught it from me which was unfortunate. I regularly get bad sinus headaches, so mistook it for that when my only symptom for the first 2 days was a bad headache, but once I got chills we tested, found out the worst but the damage had been done with me wandering around the house unmasked for 2 days.

I don't know where to go from here. I feel like I should be more realistic and protect myself more like I used to, but also am aware of the damaging effects that being locked up and hiding in the house for years has done to me and my family, and now we will have to constantly think about every situation and determine what the risk is and am I prepared to undergo that.

I guess that will be the longest lasting aspect of the pandemic for most people, the constant stress for needing to assess every situation for risks and determining what risks are acceptable to you.

Glad you're doing okay. I'm not sure what the answer is anymore. This new variant is much more infectious and can reinfect after just 4 weeks. Luckily the severity has gone down in general, at least for the vaccinated.

Sunday I turn....50. Ever a glutton for punishment, for the next day I have scheduled a second Covid booster, AND the dreaded Shingles vaccine.

We will see if I pray for death.

Covid/ 2 boosters just made me sleepy.

Shingles vax hit me like a freight train. YMMV.

Well Shingles is an absolute fucking chronic nightmare from everything I've heard, so maybe not surprising its vaccine also sucks horribly.

I took my manly manliness to the next level a few months ago and got my covid booster and my shingles booster simultaneously. Covid was as bad as expected, but expected. Shingles shot #2 just made my arm hurt for about a month.

My brother and father-in-law both had shingles. They used phrases like, "Felt like I was being burnt with a lit cigarette."

Have heard very similar from older friends.

My father had it; I was not around when it happened but my mother, a former nurse, said it was really miserable while he had it. So I'll endure a day or two of the effects from a vaccine.

Having got the booster and shingles shot #1 Monday, I had a bit of a fever yesterday and generally felt rundown. Today I am back to normal, while still having a sore shoulder but that is no big deal.