The downside to having steroids injected into your bum is that steroids wreck your immune system and make you more vulnerable to infections such as The Corona. Having a good record of evading symptomatic infection and a recent vaccine, however, I didn’t worry too much about this and when I noticed a persistent dry cough on my first night in Italy I thought it might be due to withdrawing from the codeine I’d been munching to keep my leg pain under control. I even joked that it couldn’t be covid because I could still smell an unpleasant wee-smell on the street corner and started Googling “I have a cough but do not feel ill, what is wrong with me?” (Google:: lung cancer, heart failure, asthma, you have somehow taken some ACE inhibitors, you just have a random cough). However on my way home I noticed that the cough had been joined by a snuffle and that I slept the entire flight back, most of the Elizabeth Line and then had a nap as I caught up on Coronation Street. My LFT was negative but I called in sick anyway mainly because I thought the volume of my coughing would make me unpopular with colleagues.
The next day I took another LFT and a faint line appeared. I said some very bad words quite loudly and then went about making myself unpopular with friends by telling them the news. (So far I have thankfully not claimed any victims).
My current symptoms are:
- Very very sleepy and lethargic
- Can’t stop coughing (these symptoms do not sit well with each other, since every time I lie down for a nap I wake myself up coughing)
- Bored, but not well enough to do anything to make self less bored (or indeed allowed outside to do anything interesting)
- Everything tastes a bit funny and I can’t be bothered to eat it
- Got the hump
I was supposed to go to Goole this weekend to celebrate Helen’s 250th parkrun but I’ve had to say goodbye to that idea as even if I am testing negative by Friday (unlikely looking at the colour of today’s line) I think it would be unwise to sit on a train and a confined space with other people. I am holding out some vague hope I may be able to go to Mile End instead although how I think I am going to be able to run 5k with this cough is a bit of a mystery.
7:07 