The threat of Covid has been there for so long that it now seems truly weird that I have finally contracted it. I think I secretly believed that those silly lateral flow tests were doing precisely nothing and that the negative results were meaningless, even if they did give me a passport to the outside world as it opened up.
I had an inkling as I took myself to bed for an afternoon last week that something was not right. Even during my recent de-tox days of fighting headaches without strong medication I have been loath to give in and spend daytime-time in bed, so it was unusual that I was so certain I needed to rest. I watched two afternoon TV programmes on the bounce – that honestly is unheard of – and after supper I scuttled immediately back under the covers. But as usual, my Covid test showed negative and once again I decided that this was my well-exercised hypochondriac tendencies. Despite that, I still felt bad enough to be in bed. I should have greater self-belief I suppose.
I’ve already mentioned in my previous blog-post that my plan of attack the next day was to push through the awfulness and do a couple of hours of concentrated housework, and even edit my blog. Somehow I still had a nagging thought that this might be a Covid episode, despite the negative test, but I couldn’t contemplate feeling below par with any sort of illness all weekend whilst knowing that I still had the cleaning to do.
This turned out to be a good strategy, especially when the weather on Saturday turned out so warm and sunny. I was able to sit in the garden and read a book, indeed sprawl on the lawn, with less guilt (I won’t say ‘without any guilt’ because I just don’t seem to be wired like that) because the house was less of a tip than it could have been.
As I didn’t need to go anywhere over the weekend, I didn’t bother taking another lateral flow test. Why waste one just out of curiosity? By Sunday I was feeling almost back to normal, but needed to determine whether I would be able to go to my Monday morning singing, and to give myself and others some advance notice I thought I’d conduct my ritual lateral flow test a little early.
By this stage I was reconciled to being yet another ‘time-waster’ with my brief flu-like symptoms, and was therefore completely astonished to see the ‘wrong’ line appear immediately on my test. I hadn’t expected that at all! Perhaps it would be void? But no, the evidence was completely clear. Covid Positive! It had got me after all.
Of course, by that stage I wasn’t properly ill any more. So I simply felt a fraud. And annoyed at myself to have succumbed after all this time.
In fact, I have veered from perfectly fine, to weary, to normal, to headachey and stuffed up in the nose – right through to blissfully happy when sitting on the lawn, before the guilt crept in again.
That little angry line next to the boring old control line on the lateral flow test has given me official permission to be ill. I checked to see if I needed to report this official illness to the government, but apparently no-one really cares any more, apart from those nice people at the Zoe App to whom I have been reporting my non-illness for two years now.
I’m having to miss a few things this week due to my positive result, but have decided that a ‘positive’ spin is what is needed. I am therefore positively glad that
- I hadn’t got round to booking my proposed May trip to Cornwall (because it would have been this week and I would no doubt have had to cancel it), and
- it will now be easier to make future bookings in the knowledge that I’m unlikely to catch Covid again for a few months (hmm, funny how we don’t worry about being ill with anything else).
Sadly, the officious little T-line on my tests doesn’t cook meals or clean the house and I don’t have the brass neck to sign myself off games for any longer. But in deference to the need for self-care in this period of recovery, and as urged by friends in supportive WhatsApp messages, I have omitted a whole floor from my housewifery attentions today – admittedly whilst ramping up the disinfection of the ground floor following several unfortunate feline episodes this week, but that’s another (smellier*) story.
*Actually, if I may be permitted to take a more down-beat view just for a moment, I am somewhat disappointed that I have not lost my sense of smell as part of this Omicron malarkey. Anosmia might have come in handy for some of the emergency cleaning we have had to undertake this week. Can’t have everything, I suppose.