Covid is like a box of chocolates....

... You never know what you're going to get. A cautionary tale.

I knew I had Covid at 8:00 pm on Jan 31. My daughter lit the incense burner I'd bought her, and the smell hit me like a punch in the face. I asked her to take it downstairs, and it was still unbearable. With a strong suspicion of what was in store, I went to bed early. Did not sleep well due to headache. In the morning, tested positive for Covid.

The headache lasted for a couple of weeks. The symptom-set was actually identical to a concussion, and acted much the same. Symptoms were aggravated by screens and concentration, but sleep was healing. I slept 12 hours a day. It was literally as if a virus had given me a concussion. How odd.

Work was hard, and I was fatigued, but lost little/no work time. Midday was naptime, 6pm was hot-bathtime, and 7pm was bedtime. I pretended I was functioning, but it was fuelled by pride and obstinance, and I wasn't really. Kids were left to spelunk in the fridge for dinner. For weeks. They didn't starve, and they may have ate candy... but they didn't die.

Daily I reflected upon spoon theory of chronic fatigue: It means that you get a finite number of energy "spoons" to play in the day, and you have to be mindful of how you play them. Even simple things like taking a shower or making lunch cost a "Spoon". My spoons were expended on work, then kids. By nightfall, with no spoons left, I slept.

Within days one daughter also got sick, but the other didn't, despite us living in close proximity. After a week, we test second daughter. She tested positive, but had absolutely no symptoms. We wonder how many other kids are going to school, infected, unknowingly. We kept her home out of social obligation, but the horse was already out of the barn. (I wonder how many other "horses" are unknowingly spreading covid at schools to people who are also becoming unknowingly infected).

About 14 days later, I recovered. Kind of. It didn't quite feel like recovery, but more like a different stage. The fatigue remained, but I felt increasingly lucid for the first half of the day. Otherwise I was having memory issues, and a sort of confusion set in. The headache came and went, but was always accompanied by a sore throat and post-nasal drip. Oddly, the headache and the sore throat come and go in tandem - An odd symptom pairing. Other than a persistent and annoying cough, there were no other respiratory symptoms. It's all cognitive.

The cognitive symptoms, I learned, are known as "Brain fog". I google brain fog, and learn it's an inflammation of the brain. It's like a sore knee, but it's a sore brain. My mind... and my forehead are aching constantly. It's a brain struggling to do what used to be simple. And doing what is complex draws hard upon decreased energy reserves.

And then there's the necessary overhead of coping strategies. Sleep is essential, and my mandatory 7-hours that I've adhered to for decades is now a mandatory 9 hours. Ambitions and life activities need to be curtailed, and there's a Kanban board in my office to organize my life affairs and todos. I ask my daughters to watch for any cognitive glitches... behavioral, verbal, or memory-related. They say they don't see any, but the oversight is appreciated.

And curiously, Covid has left me allergic to Alcohol. It's a known long-term effect of covid known as Alcohol Intolerance. There's no longer room for an after-work beer or a cognac before bedtime. A single drink will result in an immediate-hangover-like feeling as if I had 10. I've found one other in my friend-circle experiencing the same.

There's an additional, unpredictable element here. On a few occasions I struggled to recall programming commands I've ran for years. I think of friends, but can't remember their names. Yet names from decades ago keep popping into my head. Not memories... just names. I don't even know who these names are, and google them. One turned out to be a grade 4 schoolteacher, 40 years ago. Another turned out to be a woman who answered my online ad for free mason jars 15 years ago. The name of a girl I worked with for a single shift at Mcdonalds at age 15. A guy I chatted with at a bus stop, 10 years ago. These are the spasms of a baking brain.

Medical literature suggests that corticosteroids can calm the heat of a baking brain, and I approach my doctor, studies on my tongue, cap in hand.

He dutifully informs (Lectures?) me about the tradeoffs of corticosteroids. But I already understand. I'm clear to him: I'm f*cked, and eager to make a devil's deal. At least a short term one. SIGN ME UP.

It was expected he'd prescribe prednisone, but instead he prescribes dexamethasone. 10 days worth. The google tell's me it's slower acting, stronger and has a softer comedown.

The next 5 days are miserable. I get worse. Cannot count to potato. Day 5, the fog starts to lift. My window of lucidity extends from 5 hours to a solid 8. I am starting to feel functional again! By day 10, I return to the doctor, asking for more pills, citing fear of a comedown. He glares at me and again lectures me about the tradeoffs of corticosteroids, and gives me a few more days, saying that's it.

By day 12 of the treatment I'm sicker than I've ever been, and realize I've been eating constantly. I've been eating 7 meals a day ... and didn't notice. It's a side effect of the drugs. But now I can notice. If I can notice, my brain is returning. The cure is now worse than the disease, so I quit the drugs.

My mind is at 90% now, and improving. Hopefully I'll get to 95%, but probably not much more. My dream of defeating Magnus Carlsen is no longer possible. I also experience sudden and unexpected energy crashes. This is life post-covid, and probably life for many.

I can deal, and will be fine, but none of this was expected in 1000 years. By any metric, I should have been impervious to Covid. As a superhealthy pentagenarian, without any comorbidities, this should have been asymptomatic at worst. I had to obligatory two vaccinations. All of my my cardio metrics are well above average. I'd taken all the preventative nutrients. Additionally, studies have shown that beekeepers have better outcomes than non beekeepers.

But it happened, and I got F*CKED by covid. And now I understand, why.

Because Covid is random. It's not a cardiovascular disease, it's not a clotting disease, and it's not an autoimmune disease. It's all of them. It doesn't care what you've googled, or if you think it's "Like the flu". It doesn't care that you've decided that you fall on the right side of statistics. It lives completely outside of medical experience, and our own personal expectations. This is a new thing. It will attack your bodily systems with the randomness of a D+D Dice roll.

Oh, 4d6=12? That's a dead lung for you! Chronic diarrhea? Maybe you lose 20 IQ points. How about short breath and cough that won't go away? Snake-eyes means you need a machine to breathe... forever. Maybe even erectile dysfunction - yes, that's a thing too. Maybe you can't walk anymore, like my friend's teenage daughter, an athlete who had had just enrolled in veterinary school. It shouldn't have happened to her, either.

It's easy to dismiss Covid when the centenarian coal miner with cancer and diabetes dies from it. But Covid doesn't care about your dismissal. It doesn't hear it.

There is a tremendous randomness to Covid, and whatever we think it is... .Whatever known thing we try to compare it to, is false. It will defy expectations, and will not be confined by the tidy statistics we can google up.

Eventually, we will all get Covid. Covid will rise and fall, and with each iteration will be easier, until we attain the inevitable détente of host-parasite-equilibrium. Such a future is certain, as is the rocky road it will take to get there.

But for now, dear friend, please do whatever you can to avoid, because you do not want to roll those dice.

Update: Thank you for everyone's well wishes. I'm mostly-ok now. Those around me know I tend to do lots and move fast.... and it's frustrating to have to reallocate some of that energy to self care. But it's a not a big deal, and there are many this has left with heavier burdens.

Update 2: It is confirmed: covid has left me with "Alcohol Intolerance". Even a small amount of Alcohol results in an immediate migraine. Yea, this is a thing. Was identified about a year ago, and was. https://abc3340.com/news/local/how-a-sip-of-booze-could-help-diagnose-a-covid-long-hauler-syndrome. https://www.kevinmd.com/2021/03/could-a-glass-of-wine-diagnose-long-covid.html.

Update 3: It's interesting to see how eager some folks are to view this through the lens of vaccination status: Some suggest this was caused by the vaccines. Some suggest this was caused by lack of a booster. Some suggest it would have been much worse if I *hadn't* been vaccinated. Some suggest I should have gotten my vaccines sooner. In most cases, the folks did not know my vaccination status before venturing their opinion. My opinion: There are many factors at play, and I think we need to be cautious of viewing outcomes through the lens of our own expectations. In any case, there are enough cases out there, that I'm hopeful any statistically significant outcomes will reveal themselves soon enough.