Sick

I was looking forward to the upcoming week as completing my return to the world. I had three speaking events the past month and it felt good being among other people again. Public speaking tends to energize me and I felt all three presentations went well and felt a little of my old mojo returning.  The upcoming week had an Easter dinner with some of my family, and three days away from home at a resort for a conference.  

I was a little worried about leaving Theo alone for three days. Since 2020 his eating routine has become a day long event. He basically only eats when I go downstairs, put out his dish again, and he’ll take a few nibbles. I feared he’d eat very little if I was gone. I hired someone from Rover.com to come over to feed Theo, Alias, and Norma twice a day for the three days. She came over last week to meet them and get all the routine. When she arrived I realized this was the first human other than myself that Alias and Norma had ever seen in our house. They ran away and hid. 

I began to feel sick Friday morning. It started with a sore throat, congestion and body aches. By mid-morning I couldn’t get warm so I crawled underneath my covers and turned on the space heater as I shivered away. I took a COVID test that turned out negative. Saturday morning I woke up and my sheets were soaked with sweat. I was feeling even worse so I took another test. This one was positive.  I can tell you the last time I felt this bad.  It was March 2020. I had the same symptoms. I was going into work because I was scheduled to testify in a few legislative hearings. I thought I was being heroic but in retrospect... Eventually I was told to go home. And then everything shutdown. I’ve always wondered if I had COVID back then and am happy I didn’t get any of my co-workers sick. 

So my full return to the world, significant to me on many levels,  has been derailed by of all things... COVID.