It’s Corona Time Again!

It’s been a helluva week, and I don’t quite know where to begin. As I told you in last Sunday’s blog, I went to a party on Saturday and it was a late evening, so I wasn’t too surprised when I didn’t feel so great the next day. Self-inflicted, I told myself, as a headache nagged in the middle of my forehead, I had an upset stomach and felt a bit chesty and wheezy.

By the evening, it seemed a full-blown chest infection was settling in, which I could have done without. Never mind, I thought, I’m not back to work until Wednesday so hopefully, that will give me time to shake it off, at least enough so I can go back to work. Yes, I know going into work with a chest infection isn’t fair, but sadly with the UK sick pay being the joke it is, you are not exactly encouraged to do the right thing. If you call in sick, then unless you work for the government, the council, or kind employers, you will receive no pay at all for the first four days! After that, you will receive a paltry £3.50 per hour which is certainly not enough to pay the mortgage or any bills so you can see why I was keen not to have to take time off work.

I tried to take it easy Monday, although the bathroom and kitchen needed a thorough scouring and the floors washing. I didn’t realise how ill it would make me feel. Collapsing onto the sofa when I was done, apart from cooking dinner, I didn’t move for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, I woke up in a world of pain. The cough simply wouldn’t stop. Brutally hacking, it felt like my heart was trying to punch its way through my ribcage – like that scene in Alien – and my joints were all throbbing with pain. Sitting at my laptop that afternoon trying to write, I was disturbed by my lodger tapping on the door with something in his hand.

I’m so sorry, he said. I’ve just taken a test and it’s positive. I’ve got Covid.

Shit!

I took a test. It was an instant positive. Bugger. I waited thirty minutes to be sure, but the second line didn’t go away and besides, it explained how I was feeling. I phoned my boss to report the situation. Right, he said, you’re off self-isolating for ten days, go on the NHS website and order a PCR test just to make sure and keep me apprised of what’s going on. I ordered a PCR test. Then I sent Miss F a message. An hour later she hadn’t responded, so I phoned her.

ME:  I’ve got Covid, take a test.

HER: Shit!

ME:  I know, sorry, but take the test.

She took the test. It was positive. She phoned student support and within ten minutes had been frog-marched from her accommodation to an isolation pod on the other side of the campus. Given barely five minutes to get together enough belongings to see her through ten days in isolation, she was not very happy at all.

Everyone she had come into contact with since returning to university Friday evening had to take tests – they all came back negative so at least she hadn’t infected anyone there. I telephoned the hostess of Saturday’s party and told her what had happened. I phoned my parents, told them to take tests, tried to contact anyone else we’d been in contact with the week Miss F was home. But the weird thing is they have all come back negative, so we didn’t catch it from any of them, but, more importantly, we haven’t infected any of them which is a relief.

I have no idea where we got it from or who infected who. I know the lodger is blaming us. And I know that he thinks the cough Miss F came back from university with was Covid, even though I have assured him it wasn’t. It couldn’t have been. She’s had that cough since mid-September and the Covid cough does not last continuously for six weeks. Also, at university, they are tested three times a week before they are allowed to attend lectures or social events. Her tests are always negative. Finally, she took a test on the 21^st before coming home on the 22^nd so she didn’t bring it with her.

It’s possible she picked it up on the train coming home, but if that’s the case then somehow she managed to only infect me and the lodger and not a single other person she came into contact with. We could have picked it up the day we went to the beach – after all, it was crowded with idiots not wearing masks. It could have been when we went charity shopping on Thursday. Again, the shops were rammed with people not wearing masks. If we did get infected Thursday, then it’s a miracle we didn’t infect my parents because we went out to dinner with them that evening and got pretty close to them, but they are negative. None of my work colleagues has tested positive so I don’t think I picked it up at work.

It is entirely possible that the lodger picked it up and gave it to us. After all, he has been travelling on public transport to Cambridge for work. He works in a supermarket that is always full of people. He is busy blaming us – oh, not in an outright nasty way, but there have been insinuations plus it’s not my fault he has a really loud voice when he’s on the phone to his friends telling them what has happened – but there is a very real chance that he brought the infection home from work Thursday evening and Miss F and I picked it up Friday morning. It would explain why nobody else we saw that week has been infected.

Tuesday was a bad day. I can’t remember the last time I felt so ill. So much for the vaccine reducing your symptoms because if these were reduced, I dread to think how I would have been with full-blown Covid.

Supply wise I was okay-ish for food, but it was fresh stuff I was going to have an issue with. I went onto the Tesco website and to my relief was able to book a home delivery slot for between 4-5pm on Thursday. Worried about the lodger – I knew he didn’t have much in the way of food in the house – I told him I’d managed to book a delivery slot and would be doing my shopping list Wednesday afternoon. If there’s anything you need, I told him, you’re welcome to put it in my basket so it will be delivered and then pay whatever your shopping comes to into my bank.

Wednesday morning and my PCR test arrived. Read all instructions first, it told me. Well, I’m normally an “instructions are for wimps” kinda girl, but on this occasion, I thought I’d better do it by the book, so I read all the instructions and was pleased I had because talk about a complicated, pain in the arse, procedure. It didn’t help that I don’t have a smartphone so had to manually type in all the ID numbers, barcodes, and unique reference numbers that could otherwise have been scanned in. Although when the lodger did his later he told me that the scanning process hadn’t worked on his phone, so he’d ended up having to do it all manually as well.

Once it was all done, I was instructed to post it off in the nearest priority post box as shown on the map. There was one just around the corner and this is the conundrum – being in quarantine I’m not allowed to leave the house, but this had to be posted back to them ASAP! There was nothing else for it. I put on my mask, kept my head down, walked as quickly as I could to the post box avoiding the few people who were out, posted it off, and scuttled quickly home.

Mentally, I feel fine so at least I’ve been able to make the most of this enforced time at home and work on my book. It’s physically that I haven’t been faring so well. No temperature, or at least not that I’ve been aware of, and I haven’t lost my sense of smell or taste, thank heavens. No, my biggest woes were the brutal cough, the joint pains, and the fact I’ve coughed so violently and for such prolonged lengths of time I’ve bruised or wrenched my rib cage and spine. I’ve been informed it is possible to fracture a rib coughing, but I don’t think I managed to quite do that, although it bloody hurts like I did.

Poor Miss F isn’t faring any better. Although her symptoms aren’t quite so bad she is stuck in a tiny room all by herself with no fresh air, barely room to swing a cat, and no food. The university is supposed to bring her food, but they keep forgetting, and even when they remember it’s not very good food. One pot of cold chips for a whole 24-hour period is not exactly enough to keep body and soul together. And of course, I can’t get out to do anything to help her!

Thursday I telephoned my Mum, she was out and about in her village so popped into her local shop and bought a few snacks for Miss F and hastily posted them off guaranteed next day delivery so at least she would have something!

As the time of my Tesco delivery approached I made my plans. I would have my shopping bags and a laundry crate standing by the front door ready to decant my groceries from the delivery boxes into. I would wear my mask and gloves. I’d already put in the delivery instructions that I was self-isolating with Covid and please could the driver ring the bell then stand well clear. Surely, that should all be safe enough. I had a horror of spreading it any further than I already had.

Just gone three-thirty, I heard a van outside. Surely that wasn’t him? He was early. Frantically, I scuttled about the house gathering up what I needed. He got out of the van and wandered up and down the round, before heading over to the flats and peering up at them. Confused, I opened the door and called over to him.

ME:  Are you looking for me?

HIM: Are you number____?

ME:  Yes.

HIM: Oh, I wasn’t sure, I couldn’t see your number.

Oka-a-ay. Now my number features a lot on my house. It’s carved into pieces of slate twice on the gatepost. It’s on the bin. It’s on the door. It’s on a decorative plaque on the wall. And it’s on foot high numbers set into the glass above the door. But whatever …

I prepared my bags as he went back to the van and dragged out the first boxes. He came up the steps and tried to carry them into the house.

ME:  What are you doing?

HIM: Carrying the boxes in for you.

ME:  Didn’t you see the note that we have Covid in the house?

HIM: Well, yeah, but…

ME:  So, that means you shouldn’t come in.

HIM: Oh, well the other four Covid sufferers I’ve been to today made me carry their shopping in.

Whattttt?!

No wonder infection rates are spreading! Surely, common sense should have said to this guy no matter how kind and helpful he wanted to be – going into the homes of people who are self-isolating with Covid is not a smart idea! Presumably, he is then rocking up at some vulnerable old granny’s house and carrying her shopping in – what a kind young man you are – with her blissfully unaware that he’s been into four plague pits beforehand!

I looked at him over the top of my mask. He looked at me – his mask was across his chin. Slowly, he put his mask on, put the crates down on the step and went to get the rest from the van. I started loading my bags, emptying the crates by the time he returned and stepping back so he could swap the empties for the full ones.

HIM: Anyway, thank you for wearing your mask and gloves. None of the others did.

And that right there is precisely why we’re in the state we’re in. The other Covid victims he’d been to presumably think that as they already had the virus and couldn’t catch it again, well, not right away, there was no need for them to wear a mask, or gloves, or keep their distance because THEY couldn’t catch it. Never mind they might infect the driver who will then take it back and potentially infect all the other drivers, his family, his friends, and presumably any other poor sod who had a home delivery after those selfish articles.

He left and the lodger appeared to help me take all the shopping – mine and his – into the kitchen to be sorted. He had taken me up on my offer to tack his shopping list onto mine because it made sense.

Thursday evening, Miss F messaged that my parents care parcel had arrived so she had some sustenance in her prison cell. At least prisoners get three square meals a day plus exercise. I wished I could do more for her, but without being able to leave the house, wasn’t sure what I could do.

Friday morning, I awoke with a brainwave in my head. They sell food on Amazon, I have a Prime account so if I went on and ordered some snacks and treats for her, they would deliver them on Saturday direct to the university for free. Brilliant! As soon as I got up I went onto Amazon and ordered some cereal bars, crisps, and lactose-free chocolate to be sent to her. I know Miss F’s friends have been leaving food, drink, and other essentials on the doorstep of her pod, so between us, we would keep her from starving.

At lunchtime, I received an email with my PCR test results – positive. Not that it was a shock. I forwarded it to my boss as per instructions so it could be sent to head office and put on my file. Then Friday afternoon I had my normal zoom meet up with my local authors’ group. It was wonderful to speak to them. I’ve spoken to quite a few people this week – the lodger, my parents, Miss F, the Tesco delivery guy – but it was so nice to sit for a couple of hours, coffee in hand, and just shoot the breeze with them all. Afterwards, I made a healthy spicy beef and veggie chilli from scratch feeling it would do me the world of good.

And now it’s Saturday. So far today I have written a few more words of my book, messaged Miss F, and even spent ten minutes in the garden bagging up the enormous pile of leaves that the lodger swept up yesterday. He has had fewer symptoms than me, plus I don’t think has the inner resources I have, so was bored, and wanted to get out of the house. He asked if there was anything he could do in the garden, I said he could sweep up all the leaves if he wanted, so that’s what he did. He left them in a big heap at the bottom of the garden, so I figured I better bag them up before a strong gust of wind threw them all over the place again.

I have chicken in red wine for dinner tonight, which I’ll do with plenty of veg and roast potatoes as a treat. Luckily my appetite hasn’t been affected and I haven’t lost my sense of taste. I’m not sure about my smell. I’ll have to wait until my nose isn’t so blocked up to see if that’s been affected. I’m in quarantine until next Thursday and then must present a negative test before I’m allowed out. I’m not sure if that means a lateral flow or another PCR though. Hope it’s only a lateral flow test I have to do; I have those in the house and they’re relatively easy to do – not like the complicated PCR ones.

I can’t believe I’ve been infected again, after all, I am double jabbed, but that made no difference. I think many believe if they’re jabbed that they’re immune to being infected, well let me tell you, you’re not. You can catch it, you can pass it on, you can be extremely ill from it, and you can even still die from it. So be sensible. Wear the mask. Sanitise your hands. Keep your distance. As we go into the winter it’s only going to get worse, so be careful because I wouldn’t wish what I’ve been through on anyone.

Take care everyone, and I’ll see you all next week.

Julia Blake