So… some things have changed for me over the last couple of days.

Friday was a good day for me. I felt almost normal, as I did yesterday morning. I put my VR headset on yesterday afternoon and did a really low-key workout, much like Friday’s. I cranked it up a notch because I was mad! Mad because the old normal is gone and because I am not entirely embracing the new one, so I played Beat Saber for the last 15 or so minutes and hacked and slashed a bunch of colored cubes with my trusty light sabers as hard as I could. Heart rate and calorie burn up, immediately. Temperature and shortness of breath up within a couple hours after I’d finished.

Since being tested on Thursday, I’ve been monitoring my symptoms regularly, and UNC sends me an email every morning asking about symptoms via an automated chat.

All the answers I’d given until today had been a solid no.

Not today, though. Shortness of breath? Yes. (Hoping that is a residual of lying in the hammock outdoors for the past few days and a reaction to the pollen everywhere.) Cough? Sadly, it has gone from productive to dry, also something I’m hoping is pollen related.

I hopped into Virtual Reality to meet up with my sister, who lives about an hour from me to play Sport Scramble tennis this afternoon. It was low key, a lot of fun, but winded me nonetheless after a few rounds. That wasn’t cool.

The thing, I think, that knocks me for the biggest loop, psychologically, is how I felt getting that test on Thursday. Yes, I was able to see it from both sides. As a healthcare professional, I want to put as much PPE between a potentially infected person and myself as I can. From the potentially infected’s point of view? I honestly felt like Typhoid Mary. This did not compliment my already high anxiety rate.

I’m not old, but I’m not young, either. I hold an AARP card, but am still a few month’s away from getting my senior citizen discount. I’m in that grey area, so I may or may not be feeling a little underlying fear. (i.e. is this thing going to kill me, or am I going to come out on the other side fine and/or negative, and if I am negative? I’m still susceptible to this crap.)

I’ll be honest; the timing on this thing REALLY sucks! It’s high-allergy season in my twenty-fourth year in what seems to be the pollen/allergy capital of the world, and what I am experiencing now, I might have experienced in springs-past, but didn’t scrutinize every symptom the way we have to, now. Is it real, or is it Memorex. Is it COVID-19 or is it seasonal allergies?

On the bright side? The weather has been amazing, I’m getting used to dozing while reading in my hammock, and I’m plowing through books at a record pace. I’ve been a habitual reader since childhood, so I’m okay with this.

Until next time…