by Martin Bril
We’ve all been dealing with the consequences of this virus one way or another.
It has now been a year since the first case was reported and our lives haven’t been the same since.
Here in Alaska, we are fairly isolated, which means that the chances of contracting Covid are quite small compared to crowded cities.
Nonetheless, on the first week of December, a friend of ours got sick and tested positive.
We had been in close contact in the previous days and sure enough, by Sunday night my wife and I started experiencing some mild symptoms.
At first I thought I was just being paranoid. After all, we had been bombarded with news, updates and recent discoveries about the virus for months on end to the point where that’s all we were hearing about. The thought that it had travelled all the way across the world, infected millions of people to finally reach us was just hard to conceive.
I thought that being in the population range that seemed to have the best outcome (early 30s, healthy, active), our symptoms would probably take a couple days to clear and we could quickly go back to normal.
But I was wrong…
The first day was probably the worst of it. Chills, intense body aches and extreme fatigue.
Knowing that it was Covid and not the usual flu made things much harder to deal with mentally.
The second day was quite a bit better. Myalgia symptoms were slowly going away, but the fatigue persisted. In fact, it took me over two weeks to feel a semblance of normalcy again. By the 4th day we lost our sense of smell and therefore taste, which we knew was the key indication of having the virus. It came back after a week of blend food and other frustrations.
I followed isolation recommendations and, after 2 grueling weeks without any recurring symptoms, went and got a negative test. Finally it was all over.
The first thing I did was go on a hike, getting some fresh air and reconnecting with nature. It’s amazing how being outdoors can improve your mental state.
Since then I have been able to start running and exercising again, as well as ice climbing.
I do still get the occasional cough or need to take a nap, but I can’t tell if those are residual symptoms are simply associated with the cold and dark winter months.
Now that I am back on my feet, I look forward to enjoying our winter wonderland and hope that everyone gets to do the same, responsibly.