Category Archives: United States

My Experience with Covid

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A week ago Sunday my wife started to get sick with Covid like symptoms. It was the fourth time she was sick with those symptoms since the pandemic started. The first two times she tested negative, the third time she was not tested because she had been vaccinated by then. I was not affected any of those times but this time I was. Tuesday evening, while I was taking my German class on Zoom, I suddenly had the urge to cough. It was mild but it was enough to concern me.

I should mention here that I never feared Covid. I have been the polar opposite of those people who drive alone in their cars with the windows up and the masks on. I always obeyed the rules but I never wore a mask when I did not have to and I never got vaccinated. My concern with the vacine was that it was a new technology that had never been properly tested and I did not want to be a guinie pig. Most importantly, I was pretty sure that my imune system was strong enough to handle a bout with Covid so I considered the risk of the vacine was greater than the reward.

The concern I mentioned earlier was less about having Covid and more about missing work. When I woke up Wednesday morning slightly worse than when I went to bed the previous night, I knew I couldn’t go to work. I needed to get tested right away so if it did come up negative, I could get back to work as soon as I felt better. That proved far more difficult than I would have imagined.

CVS and Walgreens both offered drive through testing but you had to make a reservation and the earliest I could get was the next Wednesday afternoon, over seven days away. By then I would be compleatly over it. I called a nearby Med Express and they said they were taking a break intil 10:30, and I should come then. When I got there I called them from the parking lot which they require you to do first, but got a message saying their representitives were helping other callers and couldn’t answer my my call. The message said I should try back in a few minutes. I called 24 times in 30 minutes all with the same response. I decided it wasn’t worth it and went home.

When I got home I tried to find an at home test but had no luck. All the local stores were out of them. I tried Amazon, thinking I could get one delivered the next day but they were all seven days or more for delivery.

I talked to my boss after that and he said he might have a test at home but later I found out that he did not. He also encourged me to try again with the testing. I understood his point. He needed to know my status.

The next morning, Thursday, I felt about as bad as I would feel throughout the illness. My scratchy throat had turned sore and my cough was worse, although still not terrible. I added honey to my coffee in hopes of helping my throat. Sure enough, before my cup was half empty, the pain was barely noticable.

I showed up at Med Express Thurday morning, ten minutes before they opened at 8 a.m., and started calling them at 7:59. I realized that their procedure was not first come first serve but survival of the fittest. The trick was to call them at precisly the time they hung up with another caller. This required both luck and skill. I was pretty sure that either a person would answer or a machine. I didn’t think there would be a message first and a real person second so I dispensed with listening to the message. As soon as I heard the message, I hung up and redieled. It took 106 calls but finally at 8:30 someone answered. She took down some basic information and said she would call back. It took a long time but someone finally called back, got more information from me, then said they were waiting for a room to become available. During my wait an ambulance showed up and took someone away.

When I was finally able to go inside someone took my vitals and did the Covid test. About twenty minutes later a doctor came in to tell me my test result was positive for Covid. The test didn’t reveal if it was Alpha, Delta, Omicron or Unicorn. If an animal is attacking you, do you care if it’s a lion or a bear?

The doctor asked me some questions about how I was feeling and I had not even thought about it until then but I was feeling fine. I told him I felt bad that morning but was much better. He seemed to think the worst was over and said I could go back to work on Tuesday if I was symptom free and if it was okay with my boss. Unknown to me at the time, Covid had one more surprise for me.

Friday morning I felt pretty good. I got up and did my usual. I fed the cats and made coffee for my wife and me. While I was making my wife’s coffee, I started feeling slightly nauseous. That feeling seemed to get worse by the minute and before my coffee was finished brewing through the Keurig, I grabbed my wife’s coffee and raced to the bedroom. I gave her the coffee and plopped down in bed while I waited for the nausea to go away. After a few minutes, I got up and retrieved my coffee. I did not realize that nausea was a Covid symptom, but now I know.

For the most part, the nausea wasn’t there but I learned that standing would bring it on, so I just spent much of Friday relaxing in bed while binge-watching the old Lois and Clark series. My cat Frankie seemed more concerned than usual and spent a lot of time keeping me company.

Saturday I was feeling pretty good and was able to do some work around the house. It was nice having an excuse to relax but I couldn’t milk that for more than a day.

Despite being vaccinated, my wife was hit much harder by this illness than I was, but even she got through it pretty well. By Sunday she had been inside our home for over a week and was ready to go outside. Since I, and possibly she too, were still potentially contagious, we just put the top down in her car and went for a drive.

I should mention that fever was never a factor for either of us. I think my wife’s temperature reached 100 degrees at one point and mine reached a high of 99.3. It actually was lower than normal one of the times I checked it.

Today, Monday, I am nearly 100 percent. My lack of fear proved to be justified in my case but I would not avoid getting vaccinated based on my experience. One of my passions these last 14 years or so has been learning about natural health. While I still succumb to outside influences and eat poorly sometimes, for the most part, I think my habits are much healthier than the average American. I was actually disappointed in myself, though. I imagined my immune system would take care of this virus in half the time. I guess there is always room for improvement.

A House Divided . . .

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“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” is an important line from Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech on Jun 16, 1858. The line was borrowed from the Bible and Lincoln used it to talk about the growing division between people who supported slavery and people who did not.

Essentially, the country was divided between Democrats and Republicans. A little over two years later, Lincoln would be elected president and the division would become so great that the country would be split in two and the Civil War would begin.

I really did not expect I would be writing about politics on this blog, but something happened recently that made me feel like I should say something. It is something I have seen developing for some time but recently has become a real problem.

First, I should say that I am a registered independent, so I have no horse in the race. I have never been interested in politics. In fact, I do not like politics, and I like politicians even less. It is my belief that a person can not be elected to a high office, or even be in the running for that office, without being in the pocket of rich and powerful people that have an agenda that does not include helping the average American.

I have not voted for any person for any office in probably a decade or more. I have voted for issues, such as state amendments, but not people. I do not vote for local candidates because I never have the motivation to learn about them and feel it would be irresponsible to vote for someone whom I know nothing about. I also do not vote for senators, representatives, or for presidential candidates for the reason mentioned earlier.

After the Civil War the United States became a single country again and we lived in peace with ourselves for a long time afterwards. We got along with our neighbors and coworkers and did not much care who they voted for in the last election. I think that started to change about twenty years ago.

In 2000, George W. Bush narrowly defeated Al Gore for president after a very strange recount in Florida. Because of the recount and because Al Gore won the popular vote, many Democrats felt cheated out of the presidency. I felt like campaigns are based on getting electoral college votes and not the popular vote so, in my opinion, George Bush out-campaigned Al gore. Many people did not feel that way so there arose an “us versus them” mentality. Bush became a lightning rod for political discontentment. I remember one of my in-laws blaming George Bush for the shoddy condition of one of the streets near her home.

I thought maybe the two sides would start getting along when Obama was elected but the divide became even worse. Then Trump was elected, again without the popular vote, and now it seems like it must have seemed to Lincoln back in 1858. There is such a pervasive attitude now that anyone who does not share your “correct” political views is the enemy. It is hard to believe now that this is America. It seems we are no longer all Americans. Instead, we are Republicans or Democrats.

What got me thinking about all this was a Facebook post by a “friend” who said that if anyone supported the president then she no longer wanted to be friends with them. I thought that was taking politics too far and it is scary to think she is not alone in this attitude. If this attitude spreads like it seems to be doing, we could be looking at a second civil war. Anyone who’s political beliefs do not align with our own is now the enemy. That is scary for me because I do not fit nicely with anybody’s political beliefs.

When Donald Trump was elected, I wrote my cat’s name as a write in candidate because I felt that my cat would make a better president than Trump or Clinton. That angered a coworker of mine who said, “not voting is a vote for Trump (which made no mathematical sense) and that I “was what is wrong with America.” I never really thought I was what is wrong with America but now I see that she was what is wrong with America, and probably still is, for her intolerance to other people’s opinions.

When I posted on Facebook that I voted for my cat because I thought that he “cared about people more then those two,” my best friend called me a liar, twice, and went on a rant about how I was dragging Hillary’s good name through the mud. Really? I was attacked by my best friend for that? The truth is my cat cares about people quite a lot.

I have for a long time thought it was best to have the House of Representatives and the Senate controlled by opposite parties. This way one party cannot easily ram through legislation that might be bad for the country but good for those rich individuals that have politicians in their pockets. Plus, it is always good to have opposing viewpoints because both sides are usually at least partially right. So even if the intentions of the legislation is good, it is still good to look at it from all sides because there are often unintended consequences in the noblest of causes, and it would be good to have someone point them out.

Try to imagine an America where everyone is a Democrat, or everyone is a Republican. Both scenarios would scare the hell out of me because nobody would be there to question whether what they were doing is right. All you would need then is a tyrannical leader and you would have another Nazi Germany.

So, thank your lucky stars that we are a country that is free, for now, to have people with opposing viewpoints. Go out and make friends with people from the other side, because you and I and this country are better off with them here.