I’m not sure how it happened. Was I getting cocky, arrogant enough to think I could escape forever? Maybe I let my guard down a bit or maybe it was just my turn but regardless of why I recently found myself looking down at that little pink line in disbelief. Positive for Covid.
It was weird. I really didn’t feel all that sick and almost didn’t bother testing but there was still a quick flash of fear when that line appeared. I’ve been working at a hospital X-Raying Covid positive patients since this shit show first started. I’ve seen what it can do to a person’s lungs and the long term damage that it can do. I got the shot and the booster but not the latest one. I stay pretty active but I’m also overweight and smoked cigarettes for thirty years.
Then the guilt kicked in. My short staffed co-workers were going to be even more short staffed. My daughter’s sleepover was cancelled at the last minute. I thought about all the people that I had been around over the previous few days, about what I had potentially exposed them to. I thought about how radically I had just changed the Christmas plans for my entire family.
I can see how it would be easy to jump to a bunch of dumb conclusions. To decide that all the precautions that I’ve been taking for the past several years were obviously useless and that it really isn’t all that much different from a bad head cold. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t find the whole thing a bit anticlimactic. I used my time off to go on several hikes further away that I usually have time to drive, caught up on a bunch of movies and put a good dent in the pile of comic books that have been waiting to be read. My house is slightly less dirty than it was three weeks ago.
I got lucky is what happened. According to the scientists the shots I received helped to minimize my symptoms and I’m inclined to believe that. I’m not a scientist myself and can’t think of any other time that I’ve been mislead by them. I certainly don’t think that it’s my healthy living and supercharged immune system that contributed to my mild case. I’ve known people that had no symptoms at all, others that got their asses kicked. At work I’ve seen X Rays that gave me the chills to look at and talked to people that are still dealing with complications over a year after contracting the virus. These are the contradictions that make dealing with it as scary as it is and also that make it so easy to dismiss.
I’ve been lucky for almost three years and I’m lucky again now. My parents and my child are still successfully dodging, I’m not dealing with anything more serious than a slight cough I can’t quite shake, and I live in a country where vaccines and medical treatment are available and effective.
Have a safe and healthy 2023, guys. If the Rona catches up to you I hope you end up lucky as well. It’s scary stuff.
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Previously Published on thirstydaddy.com and is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock