Had the pounding headache, nausia and the runs, but lasted a total of 9 hours. Was a little tender and had muscle aches for a couple days after, but no fever, no cough. Didn't bother to get tested because no way that was covid. Didn't even bother taking horse paste.

The last 30 months or so have been pretty good. I'd been socializing indoors at the speak-easies that popped up, board games with friends, hiking, swimming, kayak, BBQ's, sport-ball parties, and all with minimal crowds and traffic.

The good days of the pandemic are behind me : (

I work in healthcare, so I never stopped indoor masking. Not even during hot vax summer last year. I just wanted to wait a bit to be sure and then delta came along and proved me right. Anyway, was traveling for work in May and caught it while outside the US. Was traveling in countries that still have mask mandates and nobody else I was traveling got it, but somehow it picked me. All I can think is that I got lax on one of my many plane rides during the trip and wore a surgical mask instead of the KN95 I usually wear in planes (I've been wearing only surgical masks since the beginning). Somebody behind me was coughing throughout the 3 hour plane ride, so I guess omicron is just that much more infectious and I got just enough swirling around to get me sick.

It really was like a mild cold for me, though. Started as diarrhea and low-grade fevers for 24 hours (I was hoping it was just food poisoning) but as soon as the fevers stopped, I got stuffed up and the cough started. Both were pretty mild and gone within another two days or so. I'm lucky I didn't get the sore throat or body aches most of the other people I know got.

Worst part is that the US policy at the time was you couldn't enter the country without a negative test. Though I felt totally fine, I tested positive for 11 days straight. Eventually had to get a doctor's note at day 10 just to be able to get home.

Anyway, happy birthday, Binro. And this pandemic still sucks.

Down with COVID right now myself. Had managed to stay bug free since the start of the pandemic, but I finally caught it. Main symptom was a sore throat.

POETV Represent. Woop Woop!

In 2020 someone getting covid might be an opportunity to be delighted, but in 2022, it's not even very interesting.

Please don't die.

Having worked several years in medical publishing, by force of habit I still keep track of medical news.

Late 2019 / Early 2020, Seattle was projected to be a vector city for COVID-19, with reasons ranging from the Chinese New Year holiday traffic and our frankly massive homeless population turning into a petri dish.

Full disclosure: I’m a healthy, athletic (pre-preemptive “shut up” to any bouncer comments) male in his mid 30s.

Seattle had already caught the first novel COVID infection in the January. I was still riding buses, but taking proper precautions. Then in February I got massively ill.

This was before there was testing, much less a vaccine. This was before the first hard spike and we had armed police managing the queues into the grocery store. So I have no way of knowing if I had COVID, but I have never been so sick in my life.

It started with the headaches, nausea, diarrhea, falling asleep while working at my desk. I’d take my dog for early walks, and I couldn’t finish them because I’d feel like I was suffocating before we even rounded the block.

I coughed so much that I tore my esophagus, so now when I was puking, I was puking blood. A morning ritual was learning how to push the part of my throat that wasn’t supposed to be in my mouth down back where it belonged. I could only get water down if I tilted my head up and opened my throat. Couldn’t have any solid foods, and after puking up half of the soups I ate, I lost about 30lbs. So picture 6’1”, now 125lb and you get how ghoulish I looked.

I fucking hate hiccups. I had hiccups, awake or sleeping, for every SINGLE FUCKING breath I took for a month. It can’t be stressed enough - I fucking hate hiccups. I probably should have been on a respirator. I had quarantined myself to a couch in our office. My partner would look in on me, said I was bouncing in my sleep. Later we find out that persistent hiccups is a rare but reported symptom in COVID patients.

I live a couple minutes walk from the 2nd most popular suicide bridge in the US. I half-made the walk several times.

Sorry, rambling. Just saying that it’s no joke, fuck every anti-vax moron in existence, and I wouldn’t wish a hint of what I experienced on anybody.

Get well soon Binny.

Oh and same wishes to Adham.

@Adham Nu'man Sorry I missed it earlier, but I hope you feel better, too.

That sucks, I'm sorry. We've had our disagreements here but I wouldn't wish what I went through on my worst enemy.

I was one of the first 50 people to get sick in my state, and I was extremely ill for ten weeks. I didn't end up in the hospital, but was literally as close that as possible. My docs told me to take my asthma inhaler 2x every four hours, and if I exceeded that I was to go straight to the ER. I will never forget the feeling of staring at that inhaler and thinking "I really want to take this, my breathing is bad, but if I do, I have to go the ER and may never emerge from it."

I'm religious about masking, and avoid any event that doesn't require vaccination (which pretty much means no social activity, but so be it). COVID almost killed me once, I won't give it a second chance.

This is all old news, being the OG variant (not even alpha, no loss of taste or smell here bitchezzzzz), but my symptoms were:

Dry cough, fever, headaches, brain fog, and utterly overwhelming fatigue. Like I couldn't even take the trash out without stopping to take a break.

Ten fucking weeks.

Glad you made it glassy. Did you have any lingering effects?

Yes. It made my asthma noticeably worse, and I have bad brain fog days 1-2 days a week. It sucks.

Ugh, sorry to hear. I wake up on my desk while working once or twice a week. I get this sensation that I know I'm going to fall asleep and I can't do anything about it. So that's a new thing for me.

Sorry about the asthma. I borrowed my gf's inhaler when I was having episodes. I can pop a torn esophagus back down my throat, no problem. Using an inhaler? That shit makes my skin crawl. It makes no sense at all.

It's not fun.

I hope you dodge the bullet.

There's probably a few people still here from the PoE News days that still wish me ill for having shitty opinions back then.

Also, it is kind of funny in a cosmic horror sort of way.

When I was a kid, I never got sick during the week. I'd always get sick Friday afternoon and be fine to return to school Monday. The only time I got a lengthy illness was over long holiday breaks and I'd recover just in time for school to start back up.

The only times I got sick during the week were on the day of the field trip to the candy factory and stuff like that.

The trend has continued into adulthood. I get sick on the weekends and am fine by Monday. I rarely call in sick to work.

And something always seems to happen whenever I take my vacation. Two years ago, I fell and broke my ribs on the first day and spent the entire week in bed. I did take a couple of extra days off, though.

It's okay, I made it to the toilet in time.

The CRIPPLING ABDOMINAL PAIN was enough to wake me before it was too late.

Well, I'm glad you made it, but I'm suffering some diarrhea myself today.

Urgh, hope you get relief soon.

I fucking clicked "Reply."

I don't know why that wasn't a reply to JHM.

Get well soon

COVID brain.. It was COVID brain