I cannot take off on my travels until I get my first vaccination. I had Covid December/January and was fortunate to get the antibody infusion on Jan 11. Thus I cannot get my first vaccine until after April 11th. After my first vaccination, I will go to DC for a medical procedure I cannot get done in Nashville and spend a week there visiting friends – with appropriate masking and distance precautions. Nearly everyone I will be visiting will be fully vaccinated ahead of me. From there I will spend a week in the Spartanburg, SC area where I spent last July after I left the DC area. At that time, SC was still figuring out how seriously to take pandemic. After being in the DC Metro area where everyone was taking it very seriously, I was anxious but with appropriate precautions, all worked out well.
Last August, once I arrived in Nashville my son, daughter-in-law and I gradually established a pod where we did not mask with each other. We lived a mile apart and perhaps got together in doors once or twice per week, maintaining distance for the most part. My daughter-in-law was fortunately able to work during Covid with a at least weekly opportunities to be on camera without a mask. While she was a careful as possible in the circumstances, it was a risk that I accepted for am a small sense of normalcy. I suspect that Covid exposure occurred was the day that we were all together photographing my new headshots and we were closer than 6 feet for a short period of time. It was a very fun day in early December. A week later, I dropped by their home while biking. I was stopped before I could enter and received a text indicating they woke up with loss of taste and smell and mild viral symptoms. They tested positive the next day. I noticed loss of taste and smell 36 hours later. I experienced mild fatigue and myalgia but tested negative twice over the next 10 days. I assumed I had a mild case in spite of testing negative. Quarantine ended on Christmas Eve.
I decided to resume working out with my trainer the following week (Tuesday and Friday). As it was nice weather I biked on the other days. It helped to restore a sense of well-being and energy. Unfortunately after 6 days of increasingly feeling better, I got a bit of a cough on day 7 and decided not to bike. The cough remained mild so I worked with my trainer on day 8 per usual. Later that night I got a low grade temperature which kept rising. I tested positive the next day, day 9. Every day of my Covid experience was different as is every individual’s Covid experience. The lungs were never the worst part for me – perhaps because of the antibody infusion. The worst part was waking up every day the first week wondering if this was the day it was going to get REALLY bad. My worst constellation of symptoms occured in the second week – neck spasm, headache and nausea which persisted for days. I could only sleep sitting upright for a week. In all, it was 3 weeks before I felt comfortable that I was on the “other side”. I GRADUALLY returned to my previously level of physical exertion over 2 months this time. I feel fortunate that my only residual is no sense of smell and diminished taste.
This is not an experience I want to repeat and I anxiously await my vaccination. I observe the vaccine hesitancy with confusion and frustration. However, I can understand some of the hesitancy based on the information on various government sources. I will address the concerns that I can understand in my next blog. I think it will take me a very long time to give up my mask in any sort of public venue and hope that it can be a new norm post pandemic to wear masks in public any time we think we are coming down with a cold or flu and to stay home when sick. It is one way we can continue to look out for each other’s health.
I will return to Nashville for my second vaccination in early May and then head out for 6-8 weeks – fully vaccinated. I will visit NC, DE, PA, NJ, NY, VT, OH, IN, IL, IA, WI and MN with possible short stops in MO and KY. One of the perks of moving around so much is having friends everywhere.
Tamara Unleashed 