Reached Another Milestone...Not the good kind.

Jul 3, 2022

Perhaps it was inevitable, unavoidable, even bound to happen. But I wasn’t going to let it happen to me!

When the news broke we were in the midst of a global viral pandemic, like most of us in 2020 I have spent the year barricaded in my house. Closed myself to the outside except for the information I sent and received thru the internet on my laptop sitting on my couch. Stayed in touch with the family through the electronics of the keyboard.

I still needed to get groceries and those trips were sudden and deliberate. In my mask-covered face, there was no dilly-dallying about looking for fresh bargains, reading labels for carbohydrate content, or deciding on burgers or chicken for tonight’s dinner. With my grocery list in hand, it was getting in, getting out, getting home. Slather my hands with antiviral liquid, stuff the groceries that needed to be refrigerated, and left the rest in the box on the kitchen floor for a few days before putting them in the cupboard. Watched every YouTube video on how to sanitize your groceries from the ravages of a deadly viral attack that has been filling up our hospital ERs and ICUs and sickening the very people whose job it was to make us well.

Factories, restaurants, and businesses shut down. Employers and employees worked desperately to find ways to work from home. The roads and highways were abandoned except for the siren sounds of ambulances taking another poor soul to the ER. We remember. We were there, and we were all living through this nightmare.

We saw firsthand how the nurses and doctors were begging, pleading with people to stay home. Don’t go out, Save yourselves, save your loved ones. The hospitals on the east coast were overflowing with Covid19 patients. The horror was palpable. The body bags multiplied. This tragedy was real and hitting home for many of us as the pandemic was sweeping across the country.

A year later relief came in the form of an mRNA vaccine. A technological marvel of our time. The first time it was developed it was against the Ebola virus. But the outbreaks were small and in Africa, there was no commercial development in the US. It wasn’t fiscally viable.

With the outbreak of Covid-19 researchers around the world dropped projects they were on and focused on Sars-Cov-2 to unlock its working mechanism and find its vulnerability, its weaknesses.

I watched in awe as major pharmaceutical companies struggled against time to get their vaccines approved and out to the market. I had a personal interest in following the lead. It wasn’t that long ago I received my certification as a Certified Clinical Research Professional. I spent long grueling hours studying the make-up of our regulatory processes that were required to get any drug, vaccine, or medical device approved for market distribution. It is not an easy process and takes years to develop from concept to reality. But these were extraordinary times and the push to have a safe and effective drug required extraordinary efforts.

By late summer 2020 clinical trials were set up to test this new mRNA vaccine for Covid-19. Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson were among the first pharmaceutic companies in the US to start. Every epidemiologist was glued to the company news outlets for word on the efficacy of these vaccines. The world was watching and waiting. The results were agonizingly slow to show up. Multiple Phase 1 clinical trials were finishing up and the safety of these mRNA vaccines was encouraging. Were they effective? More trials needed to be done. More nail-biting and sitting on the edge of our collective seats. Did the vaccines produce antibodies to fight the virus? Yes, they did! Were the antibodies long-acting? Not quite. A second dose was required to boost our immune system. Eventually, we got the overall results. It looks very promising. Major production was now underway. Billions of doses were needed for us in the US and for those around the world. Still, these vaccines needed FDA approval, and a mechanism called Emergency Use Authorization was put into play. By mid-December, Pfizer got the go-ahead with Moderna and J&J soon to follow.

In February of 2021 communities were mobilized to innoculate hundreds of thousands of people with the new vaccines. At the end of February, I stood in line with my sleeves rolled up to get my first shot, and a month later returned for the second injection.

But now different viral variants were making the news. SARS-Cov-2 was mutating. New strains quickly took over from their predecessor's progress. Starting overseas they quickly traveled stateside and like a snowball down a snowy mountain gained speed and spread out across the countryside. Researchers anticipated their arrival and booster shots were quickly formulated, tested and batches manufactured. In mid-November, I received my first booster shot.

In early spring 2022, I saw an increase in Covid Cases in Ohio as I kept a close eye on the county-to-county counts. By June the cases were falling. I felt safe to proceed to do an organized bike ride I had my heart set on and had been canceled for the past 2 years. The rides are outside and I'll be staying alone in my tent. Keeping a sociable distance is no problem for me. The ride ended last Saturday and I planned on visiting friends at the dedication of a Buckeye Trail Trail Town on my way home. I arrived home happy but exhausted,

Sunday afternoon I had a strange feeling come over me. My chest, upper arms, shoulders, and neck muscles felt sore all at once. Like that of a blunt force trauma getting hit face-on with a speeding truck. Joints in my neck and shoulders became painful on movement. It stayed with me all evening and into the night. By morning I felt a slight fever building up and by afternoon sweating with chills overtook my body. Tuesday felt worse and I increased my fluid intake. Wednesday, my daughter Jennifer suggested I take the test. Earlier in the year, I ordered the home Covid19 Test Kit online from a government source. I opened a home Test Kit I had in the closet and the results shocked me, I was positive for Covid19.

I have been indoors since I arrived home Saturday. Now all my plans were on hold until things got better, or worse. I let my family know and they were supportive. I sent my primary caregiver a message and was waiting for a reply. All I could do was take inventory of how I felt, watched for symptoms as they developed, and drink, drink, drink fluid. I texted all the people I had been with at Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure and no one said they had any symptoms. In fact, no one is reporting any symptoms that I had. Contact Tracing is no longer being done so this outbreak will continue throughout the community and no one knows who is infected or not.

Friday my Nurse Practitioner messages me. “Thanks, Take Care, and Stay Hydrated.”

It already has been 5 days since my first symptoms showed up. Why didn’t I test myself sooner? I still had my sense of taste and smell and isn’t that the first thing to go with Covid19?

Thoughts ran thru my head; were there people who looked ill, coughing, sneezing? No, no, and no. Every county I would ride in was at low risk according to the online Gov sites. Nobody wore masks. No one was seen using hand sanitizers though they were available everywhere. I still kept my 6-foot distance. And yet I was testing positive for Covid19.

Sunday morning. I got through the past 2 nights reasonably well. I didn’t have any nasal congestion, no need for nasal spray, and no feelings of fever or of being flushed. No sweating. No achy muscles. I did it, I turned the corner to wellness. So I wanted to believe.

Seven days since the symptoms started I couldn’t wait to test myself again. I opened another sealed packet holding the indicator. Got the tube of reagent on its little plastic stand ready to accept the swab from my nose. The sterile nasal swab went way back and I swabbed 5 times around and to the other nostril 5 times again. Stuck the swab in the tube with reagent and swirled it more than 10 times. Squeezed the tube with my fingers as I retracted the swab and placed the cap on the tube. 4 drops are required in the small opening on the right and wait. The paper slowly starts to filter the liquid over to the left and the faint line gets a darker red as it appears under the T on the plastic indictor. A faint red line shows under the C for control. That must be present also for the test to be viable. The test requires 20 minutes to read but the red line comes up in seconds. It’s positive again.

As the morning wore on I could feel myself sweating again. My face is getting flushed and I am feeling warm.

I need to talk to somebody and I need to talk now!

I go to my hospital website to access MyChart, a patient, doctor, and hospital online portal. My primary caregiver is not going to read any messages I send until after the holiday. There has to be more information. And there is. A 24/7 phone number. I call it. A short phone tree comes up and I get to talk to a real triage nurse. Someone I can relate to and converse with. Someone who speaks and understands my medical language background.

After I give her my particulars to verify myself, I explain the events of the week and with a sympathetic ear, she voices her concern. She records all I said and said since I was having a return of the fever she would have a doctor call me within the hour to discuss further action. I said I agreed.

I get the return call. A female doctor whose name I didn’t get verifies it is me and asks me the same questions I answered to the triage nurse. This doctor sounds very confident that what I had was common and nothing to be alarmed about. This particular strain of Covid is not hitting the general public as hard as the earlier variants have in terms of respiratory distress. I did mention my breathing was unhampered and my pulse ox was a solid 96%, a normal range for me. She went on to say not to worry about the positive home test and that in 10 days after the first onset of the symptom I will no longer be a source of infection to others. All this was according to the latest CDC recommendations. I should continue to wear a mask for the next 2 days and then I don’t have to if I choose. I felt reassured.

I asked about the covid medication approved for use, and she remarked at 5 days it was too late for me as it is most effective at the earliest onset of symptoms. She went on to say it may even be harmful at this point in time. I certainly don’t need that.

There was another hour before the local grocery store closed and I was out of everything. But most of all I craved a big iceberg lettuce salad with spinach, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and pepperoni slices. And they had one. All I need was to put on my raspberry vinegarette dressing I would be in heaven with the angels.

Well, heaven can’t wait…

This is where we are at right now.