It’s not exactly a faint test line, more like, ‘I’m pregnant with quadruplets, six weeks in.’
I’ve spent the last two years cross referencing every twinge in my body with COVID-19 symptoms. Each sore muscle, tension headache, and tickle in my throat met with the fear that the scary spikey ball had come for me at last.
To a certain extent, I’ve had to engage in the practice of “conscious ignoring.” (You can do literally anything if you put the word “conscious” in front of it—thanks Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin!)
My best tool for functioning in spite of my #LoudInHere brain, is to frequently respond to said brain with the well-worn phrase, “Thanks for sharing, moving on.” I work at not listening to myself.
Which is what I was doing Tuesday, January 11th when my throat hurt and my head pounded its familiar drum beat. I went to work, made dinner for a friend whose home burned in the Marshall fire, served up dinner to my own family, and right before carting my son to a church youth activity I’d also be participating in, I paused to take my temperature. Literally, not metaphorically.
It was 99.5, not technically a fever by school standards, I know school standards because I have two kids under the age of twelve. I was ready to push through and keep going—because that is who I am and that is what I do—when my husband reminded me “no one wants another adult with a fever around their kids right now.”
I’d wondered throughout the day if the common cold was “still a thing” or if we were supposed to assume omicron in relation to all coughing-aching-stuffy head-fever so you can NOT have a good day issues.
I took a test, and there it was: proof positive that I didn’t feel well, and I was instructed by the CDC to quarantine for five days and another five fully masked. Me: the business manager for our company, and the CEO of our household which breaks down into chauffeur, chef, housekeeper, grocery shopper, laundry service provider, dog walker, and individual daily emotional support giver x3.
This thing we’d been so afraid of—twice vaccinated and once boosted for—had landed in our home at last. And yet, “it’s just like a cold,” people had said, “no worse than the flu,” others echoed.
I thought I should take over a guest room, but my husband insisted I stay in the primary room, (We don’t say “master” anymore. #IAmWoke) which I appreciated. He told the kids they couldn’t go in the room without masks. I slithered under the sheets—on my side, with the heating pad on my pelvis (a nightly ritual akin to brushing my teeth), the dog curled into my side, and maybe the corners of mouth lifted ever so slightly.