Jan Leow's Blog Page

I got Covid-19, oh, no!

I guess it is a matter of time before we all get infected. Despite all the precautions of sanitizing the stuff we bring outside and wearing face masks when going out. The government has a fine balance between keeping the infection rate low while keeping the businesses open to keep the economy going.

This time round, my entire household was infected, starting with my wife, then spread to me and her mom. Eventually her sister caught it too. I suspected we got it while making a trip to Kuantan during the Chinese New Year. Thus the year of the rabbit made the Covid-19 jump fast and hard!

All of us had the vaccination, plus the current raging variant didn’t have such severe symptoms. Still we never know if any one of us would end in the 0.5%-1% of the serious cases. We quarantined ourselves at home and waited it out. With the first few days feeling very much under the weather.

My wife had a fever and a runny nose. For me, it started with a sore throat and some runny nose before culminating into a very bad dry cough. Didn’t feel any fever, but I was quite tired. My mom-in-law started coughing, and tiredness. She didn’t want to admit that she caught Covid-19 and still wanted to run around. It took some convincing from my wife before she stayed put in her room.

Covid test kit, positive with 2 lines.

Covid-19 being a virus meant that there was no effective medicine against it. All we could do was control the symptoms. The basic remedy was the usual paracetamol for the fever and body aches. Anti-histamine for the runny nose, and cough suppression to reduce the cough. And lozenges for the sore throat. And of course drink plenty of water.

It seems each of us manifested differing symptoms. And the recovery was different too. My wife overcame it in just 5 short days, while mine took about 7 days. Her mom, on the other hand, took about 14 days before the test kit showed clear of the virus! She was complaining about why it was taking so long!

A quick check online explained about virus shedding. That means the Covid-19 virus was still multiplying inside the body. Although the symptoms were subsiding.

However the worst thing about this experience was the post long Covid. It has already been two weeks since my test kit showed that I was clear of the virus, but I am still coughing badly. In addition I lost my voice! I just couldn’t speak at all!

Sitting around at home was surely boring. Fortunately, I helped my company set up many online systems to work from home. And we were still practicing alternate days working from home and working from the office. During the first three days my wife and I couldn’t work much because of tiredness. So basically just a quick check on some emails and resting. When the worst was over, we worked a bit more from our home office.

For me, with my bad cough and without a voice, I just worked from home throughout this long Covid period. I couldn’t pick up any phone calls as I didn’t have any voice to speak! Relying totally with whatsapp messaging and email correspondence!

I think I would need several more days before I can speak properly. I could make some raspy sound, but talking a bit would lead to coughing. So it would be best to remain silent for now. Just have to hang on just for a bit more.

No comments: