I’ve been hesitant to post about it, I don’t even really understand why - fear I guess. But I have had pain in my upper respiratory tract when breathing for about 48 hours now, and I’m getting concerned.
First, last Wednesday and Thursday, I was extremely tired. My legs felt weak, it was hard to move around too much, and I was just completely fatigued. Friday that improved, and I was just ta little tired, but I had a mild fever.
Saturday I was mostly fine, I had a loose stool, but nothing else and it wasn’t too bad. Sunday was fine.
Then overnight Monday into Tuesday, getting ready for bed I noticed some chest pain when breathing. It doesn’t really feel like my lungs, but I guess it could be right at the top of them. Tuesday I felt it throughout the day, and noticed it was worse when I bent over. Tuesday night I noticed laying on the couch with my head elevated a bit also put me in a position where it hurt more. I started to have a mild cough - not totally dry, but not particularly productive… But sporadic, nothing too severe. The best way to describe the pain when breathing is almost like it gets when I have some asthma after exercising or doing strenuous activity in the cold - but in that case it subsides pretty quickly. No difficulty breathing, just discomfort.
I used the heated humidifier with my CPAP Tuesday night, and when I woke up it was significantly better - I’d say about 90% gone. But, it started coming back tonight. I’d say its a little less severe than last night, but it’s hard to say.
I’ve been using some zinc lozenges (2-3 a day probably), just in case it does help with slowing down any virus in the back of the throat. Tonight my package arrived with generic pepcid, so I took that, and I’ll take it twice a day - same thing, can’t hurt, could help. I’ll use the heated humidifier again. I guess if there’s still pain tomorrow I need to call a doctor, but ultimately I know there’s nothing they’ll do. There’s no point in getting a test, given that my symptoms aren’t severe enough for treatment even if I’m positive. I guess a negative result would put my mind at ease, though, if I could somehow get a test. A positive result would mean I could skip the testing process and get straight to a hospital if it got bad, so there’s that.
You all may be wondering how I got exposed to other humans, given how strict my lockdown has been. Fun story. I’m on a late night sleep schedule lately, playing online poker into the wee hours somewhat often. So on Tuesday the 21st, the girl I’m dating wakes me up at like 12:30 with an ominous, “We have a problem.”
I ask what, and she tells me the toilet overflowed. I’m thinking, ok, that sucks but no big deal. As I shake out the cobwebs, she adds, “And water is leaking through the light downstairs.” I go running into the bathroom, half asleep, and there’s about 1/2 inch to an inch of water pooled on the entire bathroom floor, and a couple of towels thrown down. I double check that the valve is turned off and it is. I go downstairs and there’s water dripping out of the recessed light onto the kitchen table, where a bowl is catching some of it.
So I put a proper bowl on the table, clean up the pooled water, and fix the toilet. I then pry the light cover off and let it all leak out (absolutely disgusting, of course, cause it’s impossible to avoid getting hit by it). Given that water was pooled in the ceiling around a bunch of wires, and the area around the light is damaged, I have to call maintenance in which leads to two visits - one to confirm that nothing is dangerously damaged, one to fix the ceiling (basically just touch up paint).
Thus, two occasions of strangers in the apartment. We vacated the first floor, waited three hours to go back down, and sanitized the whole first floor… But obviously you can’t totally mitigate the risk.
Apparently, she clogged the toilet and it overflowed. She turned off the valve, plunged it, flushed it and it wasn’t unclogged and overflowed again. She did this one more time, same result, and this time she unknowingly got the flush button stuck, thus emptying the entire tank into the bowl (briefly) an then onto the floor since it was still overflowing. At this point she realized she was in over her head, and that she needed my help - but she didn’t want to wake me. So she threw down two towels, closed the door, and went downstairs to read. 10 minutes later, it started leaking through the light.
Brilliant.
So, that was about a week before my fatigue started… Thus the whole timeline is pretty concerning in terms of the onset of symptoms. Exposure → ~one week delayed onset → extreme fatigue → fever (but very mild) → all better for a day → respiratory symptoms.
Bright side is everything in each step has been mild compared to what you hear about severe cases. If it’s COVID-19, hopefully being 33 and just over 2 months mostly vegetarian is way more important than being very overweight and asthmatic.
