Tag: sickness

Day 484 – No surprise

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First off, thanks for all your lovely, supportive comments on various platforms. They’re all appreciated.

I have Covid-19.

Yep. No surprise that my PCR test came back positive. I think I’d decided what it was fairly early on in the course of things and my senses of smell and taste disappearing 36 hours ago really meant that we were just crossing the Is and dotting the Ts.

So this is Day 4, because now everything has to be given a title and an order so that we can work out what comes next. Day 4 hasn’t been too bad: my headache has gone for the moment, which is a huge relief, but my respiratory symptoms are a bit worse. Swings and roundabouts, then.

Apparently, according to my doc, days 6 and 7 are a complete bastard, which is good to know, because its always nice to have something to look forward to.

Last Friday, I was looking forward to a sunny weekend and a braai. This Friday, I was sitting, shivering, listening to my GP tell me under what conditions I should be admitted to hospital.

I’m making the best of the better moments: fresh air and sunshine, a blog post, sorting out my will etc etc. And then I sleep when I feel rubbish again.

I’m obviously concerned about the next few days, but I’m also really irritated that I’m having to go through this at all. Because a better – even vaguely competent – vaccine rollout would have meant that this never happened. And, given that I almost certainly picked this up at the supermarket last week, if people could just learn to put a fucking mask over both their face holes, I probably wouldn’t be here either.

I’ve been so careful for the last 18 months and it’s finally paid off in one way. So much so that I only needed to inform 1 person of my result, and that because he came here to drop something off on Sunday (masks on, social distanced, one Pfizer shot a few weeks ago – he should be fine).

I really, really wanted to go out and do a thing this weekend (if you know, you know), but I didn’t. The FOMO was real, but wow, with hindsight the implications would have been huge. So, I don’t know: if you’re thinking about doing something… don’t.

And sure, it’s less than great that I went for my jab on Monday and I was likely infectious, but sadly, I had no idea. On that note, looking back, feeling just a little off colour that morning was actually hugely important, otherwise I’d be wondering if this was just a vaccine reaction (well, until I got the test results, anyway).

What more to add? I dunno. My logical brain is telling me not to worry about things getting worse. I don’t have any comorbidities or risk factors, so I should be fine. Of course, ideally, you’d choose not to have Covid-19 as well for complete peace of mind, but it appears that that ship has sailed.

And thanks to my wife and kids, who are all likely infected as well (but maybe not to this extent), and are still doing amazing things in looking after me and the household. I chose well. Them… maybe less so. Lol.

Right. Let me try and go and sit in the sun with the beagle. Because when it comes to being lazy, I really couldn’t learn from anyone better.

See you tomorrow.

Relax. The water is fine.

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Hypochondriacs and Munchausen’s Syndrome sufferers across Cape Town were yesterday distressed to learn that the drinking water in the city remains of excellent quality and was therefore not to blame for their imaginary symptoms.

“It’s going to be so difficult to find something else to whine about. The tie in between the water running out and that mild tummy ache I had for about 20 minutes last Wednesday was just so obvious,” said occasional mild tummy ache sufferer Genevieve Snowflake of Constantia.

Her views were echoed by other local overly-dramatic attention seekers:
“I did two poos yesterday, whereas I usually only do one poo each day. The second one was pretty small, but still, it’s out of character for me and I was convinced that it was all down to the Ebola in the tap water,” delicate gastrofairy Abraham Muller of Sea Point told us.
“Now I find that it was probably nothing, and I’ll probably have to go back to work again tomorrow.”

City Spokesperson Priya Unready stated: “Rightfully, much has been made of the Cape Town water crisis, but just because we only have 3½ months of water left, doesn’t mean that we’re suddenly going to stop treating the stuff coming through your taps. Aside from our legal responsibility to makes sure that the drinking water in the city is safe, why would we want to make everyone sick? That doesn’t come close to making any sense, and frankly, you’d have to be extremely stupid to believe it.”

But extremely stupid people remained unconvinced:

“It’s a plot by the Zionist leaders to kill us all via imaginary enteritis!” said weak-coloned Parklands resident Alarmed Dyomfana.
“Tony Ehrenreich told me that they all have shares in the bottled water companies and that’s how they’re going to take over the world.”

The City released this media statement:

With declining dam levels, water quality enquiries from members of the public are naturally increasing. We would like to assure residents that the water remains safe to drink. Water quality is closely monitored via a large number of water samples analysed according to the stringent South African National Standards (SANS 241:2015) requirements.

which also contained the subtext:

Oh. My. Actual. God.
I really cannot believe we have to write this down for you. Honestly, how absolutely, utterly f****** brainless do you have to be to think that we’d just randomly switch off all the water treatment works and leave you drinking what would be essentially muddy rainwater and baboon piss which had been stored for a few weeks in a big sandpit near Grabouw?
Jesus. I’ve got a Diploma in Public Relations from CPUT. I deserve so much better than having to write this crap. Morons.

Ian Ailing, the chairman of the Western Cape Hypochondriac Association was too unwell to meet with us in person, but briefly spoke to us from his sickbed:
“The City should have told us this before. We’re always on the lookout for things to blame our make-believe maladies on. Now they’ve made us all look even more silly. But look, if it wasn’t the water, then it must have been the vol-au-vents at Cynthia’s garden party on Saturday. I’m sorry. I have to go now. Literally.”

A problem shared

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In great news for the shareholders of Grundheimer Schnauzerbeagle (Pty) Ltd and all the other pharmaceutical companies out there, I have infected my wife with my lurgy.

As the first signs of my recovery shone brightly like a light at the end of a two day long tunnel this afternoon, Mrs 6000 came home from a tough day at the office (and beyond) with a look that suggested germs, disease and – almost certainly – infection, had taken hold.

My insistence that I was merely testing the theories of Lister, Pasteur, Koch et al. (and al‘s theory was particularly good) don’t seem to have impressed her much. I may be in trouble here.

Still, it was just yesterday that she was telling me how good it was that I was ill this week, “getting it out of the way” before we head off on holiday next week.

Maybe if I tell her how fortunate she is to be feeling so rough right now, it’ll make her feel better.

Yeah. I think I’ll go do that now.