Argh!
tl;dr caught covid from the infusion center. Currently fine myself (like a mild cold); hoping I haven't spread it to too many people, feeling extremely stupid and mad about it all.
So last Monday was infusion #2. It went fine, everything as expected, made a little progress on my crochet square, and by Wednesday afternoon I was feeling cruddy but in a very predictable way. Thursday morning my mom arrived for a visit, and shortly after arrival determined that she'd caught a cold. So she started masking up and got a hotel room, and we started opening all the windows when she was in the house, and generally things seemed like the usual amount of slightly-too-much-but-fine,-really. As we spent a couple of days together, she tested negative for covid multiple times, so when I started getting a dry cough Thursday night I thought "too early for it to be Mom's cold, probably the same chemo cough I had a bit on cycle #1." Friday I started being a little sniffly but that could be allergies or I guess general chemo malaise. By Saturday I was definitely coughing and stuffy. The timeline didn't make sense, though. Maybe a cold from the infusion center? Or maybe chemotherapy could somehow shorten a cold incubation period? But surely not to a same-day event.
Somehow throughout all of Friday and Saturday it literally didn't occur to me to take a rapid test.
Folks, throughout the pandemic I have been a covid watchdog. Reading all the articles, diving into long twitter threads by epidemiologists and immunologists about all the shit covid does to the body, following multiple newsletters, watching case counts like a hawk -- I have been the person at my workplace protesting poor communication practices and lax masking standards, the person on the Morris team somehow handed the mantle of "let us know how it is out there" (at times feeling weirdly responsible for delivering exactly correct risk assessments into the void). I have been an advocate for outdoor practice, and recently simply not attending practice out of fear of covid. I'm acutely aware that it's still around and circulating, and how thoroughly it could mess me up especially while my immune system is down.
I genuinely don't know how I could have been so completely stupid on this one. I can't even blame "chemo brain" or anything, I was pretty lucidly talking about -- and googling -- symptoms and timelines even when at the nadir of the cycle. Yet I just literally didn't think to take a test until it was time for us to set out for a family vacation in Tahoe, where all my family members were dutifully testing themselves because I had asked them to. So naturally I should test myself too, because fairness.
....
I have taken a million rapid tests and have never seen a line appear as the liquid was wicking past the T. The line turned a brilliant jet black within 30 seconds. I yelled "Fuck!" and threw open all the windows, broke the news to Luke who was packing the box of chicks into the car*, put on a mask, called the advice nurse, canceled vacation, locked myself in the guest bedroom and cried for a while.
The really unfortunate thing is because I was so thick-headed, there were about two full days when I was coughing a lot around Luke and my mother (at least she was mostly masking), and we also had dinners with two different friends, and basically at least Luke is almost certain to get it and we'll be lucky if he's the only one.
It's extra maddening because this was the first vacation we've had in a long while, and we're both getting pretty stir-crazy around the house. And I could be mad at the infusion center (likely the only place I could have picked it up) but instead I mainly have to be mad at myself for putting other people at risk.
Anyway, no good jokes this time -- just gonna be a potato for the week and hope the recent booster + Paxlovid + WBC shots do their job. Happy 4th.
Yours in Argh,
Rosemary
*We're chick-sitting for my brother's family -- now with us a bit longer than intended. They are super cute peepers. Here, have a picture of something positive (that isn't my covid test): a couple of babies having their first dust bath.
