What to Expect With COVID-19

I was that person who told themselves that they would never get COVID because I am young, healthy and active. There's just no way "someone like me," would end up with it. Well, I am a fool.

So, you think you have COVID-19 or you know someone who tested positive and now you're freaking out about whether or not you have it even before you get tested? Or you simply want to know what it's like before the virus takes over your entire body. Well, let me take you through the COVID-19 journey.

Here's how it started; I just got back from visiting my parents in Michigan after 1 week of vacation with them. I flew back to Charlotte, NC, my fiance picked me and I feel wonderful. A week later, which would be a total of 14 days since I last saw my family, I got the sniffles and a headache. I came home around 3pm and I figured I would have a cup of coffee to relieve my headache. That worked. Still sniffling around 4:30/5pm and at this point I honestly feel like I have no energy. Trust me when I say I am an energentic person. I'm a personal trainer, always perky and smiling, love being around my people, but that night it went down hill.

Around 7/8pm that night my whole body started aching. My headache came back and I lost all motitivation to do anything. I stayed in for the night and I told myself to reach out to my clients before I go to bed to let them know I don't feel so well tonight incase I need to cancel tomorrow morning. It's 9:30pm and I'm laying in bed, stressing. I keep asking myself "how did I get sick?" and "do I have COVID or is this just a cold?" So I back tracked. Here's where the contact tracing is important. When I was at home visiting my family, my Dad was sick. He didn't test yet for COVID, but had regular flu symtpoms. So in my head I'm thinking maybe I just have a cold, but in reality, I am freaking out that I have COVID and that if/when I find out that I do, I'm going to have to tell everyone who I came in contact with to be mindful.

Anyway, I didn't sleep at all that night. Tossing and turning, my lower back felt like it was on fire. Could it be because I was about to start my period? Was this just adding more stress to my body making me feel even more in pain? Most likely? Is this COVID symtoms? Who knows, but I was struggling. My alarm goes off at 5am and I shoot a text to all of my clients that I'm feeling under the weather and I won't be able to make it today. This would considered day two of self-islation. I am in P A I N! My muscles ache and my head hurts. At this point I'm assuming I have the flu due to the body aches. I am praying that I don't have covid.

What my doctor told me to do to help expedite the healing process:

She informed me to drink Emergen-C. Not just one packet, but a packet every 3 hours. I dumped this into my water, chugged it and refilled my water with Emergen-C in the enxt 3hrs. It worked. I was feeling better. Even the next morning. I only took Tylenol before I went to bed so my headache was gone before I actually fall asleep.

Day 5 self-solation; night sweats 2 nights in a row, still no fever, my muscles still ache, small headache, I'm congested, cannot breathe out of my nose and I lost sense of smell and taste (this was the newest symtom). My head feels like it's going to pop off. At this point I am thinking to myself, it's possible I have COVID because of the loss of taste and smell. So I set up a test online through CVS. I couldn't get an appointment until the following Monday. So I wait and continue to quarantine. The loss of taste and smell is weird. It pops up out of no where. I couldn't taste my morning coffee at all. I couldn't even smell pizza that my fiance ordered that night. It was weird.

Day 6: I am feeling better. My congestion is gone and I can finally breathe. I figured that because I could breathe normally again, my test and smell would come back, but it in fact, did not.

Day 7: Slept great. I had somewhat of a pressure headache. Meaning, if I bent over to pick something up, my head bothered me. Other than that, I feel almost 90% back to life. I have my test set up for tomorrow afternoon and I am hoping I don't test positive, but we will find out.

Day 8: I got my test results back. I weirdly did not test positive for COVID.

Day 9: I feel 100% by now. I figured I would self isolate for a few more days.

Moral of this story is that although I felt terrible, had symtoms of COVID, I still did not test positive. Could it have been a slip up? Maybe, but for those who are wondering what it feels like (obviously it's different for everyone else), but this was damn near pretty close to everything that my parents felt like as they tested positive for COVID.

I am still drinking my Emergen-C drink 3x a day and I feel great. Keep up with your health before it's too late. Lots of fluids and vitamins. Get your vitamin C and D in!

Happy health!