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Sickbed Notes from a (Formerly) Super-Immune Person

created: 2022.11.19. 05:22 · modified: 2022.11.20. 03:54 ·  · license

This post was automatically translated and has not yet been reviewed by me. Please read with discretion.

Actually, I’ve been sick for a while. Two or three days before I came home, near the end of my trip—about two weeks ago now—I came down with such a bad fever and body aches that I thought I was going to die. I’d walked more than 20,000 steps a day for three weeks, so it would have been stranger if my body hadn’t given out. A high fever and a throat that felt like it had been stabbed: this had to be COVID. I was paying for all that carefree wandering around without a mask.

Huh? But my PCR test at Incheon Airport came back negative, and so did a rapid antigen test at my local ENT clinic. Had I dodged it again?

About ten days went by. I finished the three days’ worth of medicine the clinic had prescribed, and another week later I felt more or less back to normal. So what did I do? Went climbing hard, of course. I cleared 14 blue routes and 25 green ones at The Climb (I’d expected to lose muscle from being sick, so I was pleased to do better than I thought). But I guess I overdid it. Yesterday, the next day, I took a sharp turn for the worse and my fever came back. Today my throat started hurting again, but the symptoms were still milder than they’d been around the time I came home, so I was going to wait a few more days. To be honest, I was also reluctant to return to the ENT clinic. Last time, telling the doctor I’d tested negative at Incheon Airport seemed to motivate them to push the swab much too far up my nose, and it had left me a little traumatized. But my mother, who knows full well that I have a rather high pain tolerance, insisted I go today since the clinics would all be closed tomorrow. So I ended up visiting a different place from the one I went to last week.

When the person at reception asked if I wanted an antigen test, I said no, partly because of the trauma and partly because I mistakenly believed I was super-immune. But once they took my temperature, that plan was promptly rejected. And then, well, I got swabbed again and tested positive.

What puzzles me is this: my symptoms two weeks ago were almost identical, and if anything they were worse then, so why did I test negative? It’s hard to believe that was just a bad cold and I came into contact with someone infected afterward. I hadn’t been feeling well, and the only proper outing I’d had was to go climbing. The line on today’s test was so dark that it looked as though I was teeming with the virus. Can it really multiply that much in just a day or two?

Maybe I’d become desensitized because the pandemic has gone on so long, but my attitude had been, “If I catch it, I catch it.” Now that I have, I think the best thing is to avoid it if you can until it’s over. The muscle aches and swollen throat are painful, but those I can handle. I’m sure they’ll get better soon, and like I said, I have a pretty high pain tolerance.

The problem is the decline in my cognitive function. This symptom, which seems to have appeared a little later than the others, after I got home, is something I’ve never experienced before. I can’t concentrate properly on work, and my mind feels cloudy or as though it’s floating. Even when I speak or write, it feels as though my sentences are taking some kind of detour (?) instead of passing through my usual thought process. I’d been determined from the start of this trip to write a splendid travelogue, and I dutifully noted down every impression that came to me. But I’ve barely touched the actual piece because I’m afraid that if I write it now, I’ll just produce garbage. It’s a shame, since the longer I wait, the less immediate it’ll feel. To be honest, earlier I wasn’t even sure I could write this post properly, though I seem a little better now.

From what I’ve read, this is called brain fog_{brain fog}, and it seems to be a common symptom of COVID. What’s a little scary is that it’s considered a long-term symptom. In my case, the feeling persisted even earlier this week, when I had almost no physical pain. So it’s hard to guess when my head will feel clear again. If any of you have had similar symptoms, please tell me how things went for you.

I’ve been taking an entrepreneurship course at school lately, and I feel lousy because my condition has kept me from engaging with it properly. It’s a bit chilling to think what would have happened if this had been a regular semester when I was taking classes for credit. Maybe I should count myself lucky instead.

As it happens, the entrepreneurship course is on break next week, so I’ll stay put, isolate, and get plenty of rest. Recommendations for all-time favorite books, films, and TV shows welcome.