COVID anybody?

[Grandma_J]

I was just wondering if anybody has COVID or had it and recovered. Or, have any friends or relatives had it?

My husband and I have been pretty careful wearing masks, social distancing, staying at home most of the time…but there are times when we need to get groceries or get together with our kids and grandkids (surely not very often). Whenever someone near me coughs, sneezes or has the sniffles, I do get a little nervous!

Our 38-year old daughter caught COVID about 9 weeks ago. It started out like allergies with a very stuffy nose. About the 3rd day she realized she had lost her taste and smell, so she got tested and it was positive. Her symptoms were a bad headache and ice-pick headaches, low-grade fever, sore throat, body aches, brain fog and terrible fatigue. She said she really had to push herself to keep going and not spend the days in bed. It’s not fun and she wouldn’t wish it on anyone—and this was a “mild” case! She still hasn’t got her taste and smell back to 100% and is thinking will never come back all the way.

3 of my coworkers caught COVID also. Luckily, I’ve been working from home so I wasn’t exposed to them. I’m pretty sure one coworker went to work sick with a bad cough and told everyone it was allergies. When she lost her taste and smell, she tested positive for COVID. All 3 had to be out for two weeks, which put a HUGE strain on me and our supervisor because we had to do all the work. I continued to work extra hours from home.

COVID is no joke. It affects all of us, whether directly or indirectly. I actually feel pretty safe, but I worry for my husband because he’s overweight and has COPD among 100 other things!!! I feel safe because I’m on Enbrel! I also started taking Vitamin D and eating healthier. Once-in-awhile, dark thoughts take over and I feel almost like a panic attack is coming on, but that goes away. I think the depth of the changes in our lives because of COVID and for me the fear of something worse looming is ever present.

How about y’all? How are you doing—how are you coping?

[Poo_therapy]

My nephew and girlfriend caught it (both under 30) in Brooklyn NY at the start. So did the daughter of first cousin in Wales UK again under age 30. Both went through something like your daughter but did regain taste and smell eventually too.

A few younger people I know in my own locality (Kent UK) caught it too, around the same age as your daughter. One remains recovering somewhat slowly really some months on.

Otherwise my actual experience of it is minimal. I too work from home. I haven’t been to a supermarket since 15 March, I rely on the supermarket delivering to me. I still sanitise everything coming into my home. I visit a fresh fish stall in a car park - so outdoors. I visit a local farm shop (huge barn really) which isn’t full of people and requires a 2 metre distance to be kept and masks to be worn. The local post office only allows one person in a time and the post workers have always been behind glass screens anyway, masks required. My local chemist only allows one person in a time too, mask a requirement. Same with the local butchers, although with them I do a telephone order and then merely do a pick up. My milk and bread (and some other amazing produce) is delivered to my door by the old fashioned milkman too.

Other than hospitals and doctors for those ridiculous number of scans I had to have over the summer, given this teeny fracture in my hip I haven’t been anywhere else.All of those was incredible strict as regards masks to be worn (their masks not mine) temperature checks and what not.

I walk my dog daily in a nature reserve which is usually pretty empty but it has gates to go through since it’s grazed by cattle and horses. I open all of those gates with my hiking pole and feet. There’s only one I have to touch with my hands and I sanitise immediately after.

My cleaner returned only about a month ago. She wears a mask and I walk the dog when she’s here, again keeping contact with her to the minimum.

But that’s it. We’ve seen no one else bar two friends in the garden in May. We haven’t been to a pub or restaurant since March 15. We’ve had no take out food either.

For reasons not to do with PsA I consider myself a risk. I should be thinner and I have a crap pair of lungs.

We are going on holiday in a few weeks (although the UK is heading towards another type of lockdown I fear). However even that is planned to the last detail. We know we can drive there without needing a rest stop. We’ve rented a holiday let, a converted windmill in a very remote spot by a river, so remain having our own front door and garden and this place has its own little boat for messing about on the river and nearby lakes. Even there the supermarket will deliver for us and we have no intention of visiting any place to eat out etc sadly. However it may be that we won’t be permitted to go. We’ll see

As the UK figures increase I just increase my concern and become ever more careful really. What other choice do we have? It’s simply a question for me at any rate of waiting it out and if that takes a couple of years so be it. We put off two holidays this year to next year too. One because the drive meant we’d have to have rest stops and the other because it was due to be taken just after we into total lockdown. Our holidays are always in the UK though and usually to less busy places. I’m a country girl not a city girl. Holidays for me mean as far away from the maddening crowd as possible, immersed in nature.

I so hope your daughter continues to get better. And I’m glad too I kind of like my own company and don’t really mind not being sociable. If I was younger though no doubt I would have struggled with such isolation. Social media is great for keeping in touch too and that’s really helped. I have a gaggle of girlfriends on FB and we certainly keep eachother entertained.

[Stoney]

I’m in the suburbs of NYC. We’re living Our Lives to a large extent. We wear masks obviously when we are out and about. But we do our own grocery shopping, my thirteen-year-old will be returning to public school every other day next week. Right now he’s just doing remote schooling. My daughter is away at college and living in a dorm. I am working with students one-on-one. Right now the percent of positive cases in New York state as a whole is below 1% so these are reasonable things. If the numbers picked up again then I would need to go remote with my students.

I know quite a few people at this point you have been sick with it. A family right across the street from me has a parent who is a police officer and they had it early on. Some people at the grocery store that my daughter works at had it. A paramedic friend of mine had it. Actually the grocery store employee has had the roughest time with it. She was initially sick back in early April I believe and is still in and out of the hospital. She has quickly become a long-hauler and is just having a really rough time still.

So while I do see what can happen with some people and the woman that I know who’s having such a rough time is in her early thirties oh, I also know that the risks are significantly lower now. So we practice good mask-wearing, we avoid crowds, and we practice good hand hygiene. We either eat outside or we do take out still.

[amielynn38]

I’m in Texas about 45 mins outside of Houston. We live in the suburbs/slightly rural area. My husband is a pharmacist and hasn’t stopped working since this all started. We have been very lucky that he hasn’t caught COVID though some of his co workers have. I homeschool my son and we JUST started back to park activities, open air, lots of space. We only wear masks in buildings or business that require it. We do our own shopping. I was using the curbside pick up at first but now I feel safer. Our counties numbers are pretty low. Houston on the other hand is a less safe place in my books. We don’t go there right now. We have visited Galveston, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, several times. Just find a quiet out of the way place to have a beach day.

We had to cancel all our vacations and trips this year. Very sad. BUT we are leaving next month to take a road trip to my in laws house in TN. We usually fly but I dont think so!

[Grandma_J]

No flying for us anymore, either. IF we go to our favorite place next spring we’ll drive. I love road trips, anyway, and always preferred driving to flying. I’ve seen 27 states and I’d really like to visit all 50. Unfortunately, trying to get my husband to go anywhere is like pulling teeth.

COVID is still rampant here and now that we have over 200,000 deaths in America it’s looking pretty grim. Everyone I know knows people who’ve had it—some mild cases and some pretty extreme. A 54-year old friend of our daughter’s had it so bad he was on a vent for 29 days. It’s been 3 months since he’s out of the hospital and he still doesn’t have his voice back and he feels his strength is at about 75%. Oh, and he had no pre-existing conditions.

[Jon_sparky]

Been self quarantined all these months, San Diego has not been hit that hard, but everyone is still careful. Our Governor has the State locked down still, I don’t know how anyone who has a business will survive this, for sale signs on all the buildings.
I wear a N95 mask when I shop, used to have the N99 masks but they had the breather hole, so the hospitals did not like that. It is required here fir everyone to have a mask when they are out, except if you are out. Kind of hilarious to see people driving in the car alone with a mask on, or walking down the street by themselves with a mask. I don’t know anyone that got this, my brother thought he did, but tested negative, so did my 93 year old mother, I think she was just bored… who knows what will happen when the flu season hits! I bought 20 more masks, so I am all set…

[Amos]

I wonder why there doesn’t appear to be a standard requirement for the type of mask used. While some, like @ Jon_sparky uses a mask with a N95 rating, everything from homemade to dust masks are all ok in public. I’ve seen many masks that gape and hang loose. What we exhale will take the path of least resistance and just blow by. Tip: if your glasses fog up while wearing a mask, just make a bigger gap elsewhere! (I hope you get the point). A family member is an ER Dr and they have masks that are precisely fitted. So, are all masks effective at containment? Which is safer, coughing into a leaking mask or into an elbow/sleeve?

[Rachael]

Know that in my neck of the woods and N95 would have been amazing if available with the incredible smoke from wildfires. Had to spend multiple days working in it but because of covid-19 and inability to have access to them was not an option.

[Bern]

My sister in law and brother in law plus their son had it early on. They lived in Manhattan and th 24 y.o. Son didn’t follow any precautions, caught it and gave it to his parents. Everyone mostly ok. Sis lost her sense of smell and taste, bro still weak.they are 77 and mid eighties. No one hospitalized.

[Jon_sparky]

The latest class 3 splatter resistant N95 Masks I ordered from Graingers are pretty nice, they are medical grade, and have a smooth coating on them that keeps them cleaner.

There is a lot of confusion about masks, and it is mostly the fault of WHO and the CDC, first of all, all the Global establishments flat out lied, which soad the seeds for confusion later on, also the definition of what a mask was, versus a face covering versus a old pair of BVD underwear…
When it started they did not have the masks, instead of being truthful, they lied and said we did not need masks, if they had said we did need masks, but there were not enough masks, for us and front line health workers, okay. But the little desk jockeys decided to deceive the population, that is what they do… So later it came back to bite them in the butt. When they said, “oh we need masks now”. But then they did not define what a mask was, i.e. Respirator, N95 mask, surgical mask, or bandana, or my personal fav the panties. This was a problem with the public, not for us seasoned veterans who fight germs every day, we would dree in Hazmat if we could!
Then we had the freedom fighters, it is our right not to wear a mask! Huh? And the “Karens” “I can not wear a mask, but you better!” And so on so forth…
what a SNAFU!!
Also the idea that you are wearing the mask to protect the other person, sorry I am wearing the mask to protect myself, thank you very much…