COVID-19 has shaken the nation, with 8.28 million contractions and 221 thousand deaths in the United States alone; it is hard to say that the disease has not drastically affected the world we live in. 

This past week, on Tuesday, October 20, 2020, I tested positive for COVID-19, and I will be telling you about my journey with the Coronavirus.

Sunday, October 18

On Sunday morning, I woke up like normal and got ready for church at 8:30. I had a busy day ahead of me, as I had volunteered to cook dinner for my entire family. 

The whole week I had scoured through cookbooks I had checked out at the library, where I work, to find the perfect dish that would blow the minds of my dinner guests. 

After lunch, my aunt and I went to Walmart to purchase all of the groceries I needed to prepare my menu of Lemon and Oregano Chicken, Parmesan Risotto, and Asparagus with a lemon-shallot vinaigrette.

 I came home, took a shower, and immediately began preparing for my dinner. I prepped and cooked for about 3 hours and then the time to serve came. 

I had been cooking for three hours, so I had just assumed that my extreme exhaustion was a product of my hard work. The dinner was probably a 7/10, I sadly overcooked the chicken, but the sides were very good.

I went to bed that night extremely exhausted at around 8 o’clock. I had some heaviness under my eyes and a very slight sore throat. 

The thought of the coronavirus entered my head only one time, which prompted me to smell a candle at the end of my bed; I could smell, and this settled my worries. Sadly, my candle test was flawed, and my journey with the coronavirus had already begun.

Monday, October 19

On Monday morning, it seemed that my symptoms from the night before had only gotten worse. I still had some heaviness around my eyes and a sore throat. I was also, even with over 8 hours of sleep, extremely fatigued.

 I went to school passing it off as a sinus infection because all of the things causing me trouble were symptoms of a common sinus infection. I only thought that I had COVID-19 once during the day, but when I could taste my CLIF bar, my nerves were calmed.

After school, I was sitting at my kitchen table eating a block of cheese and doing my statistics homework when my Mom received a call from the school telling her that I had come into close contact with someone who had tested positive with COVID-19.

The minute my mom got the call from the school, I started looking back at all of my symptoms, and I was convinced that my immune system had lost its fight in keeping away the coronavirus. We decided that I was going to get tested the next morning.

Tuesday, October 20

The next morning, I had the same symptoms I had Sunday night and Monday morning: a sore throat and heaviness under the eyes.

At 9:30 A.M., I pulled into the doctor’s office ready to get tested for COVID-19. 

Since my mom works at a skilled nursing facility, she gets tested twice a week, so she was attempting to get me ready for the test. Nothing she could have said would have gotten me ready for that assault on my nasal cavity. 

The nurse came with a stick about 6 inches long and put about 3 of those inches into my nose. Safe to say, when she took the stick out, there were tears in my eyes. She then talked to my mom for a second and then went inside. 

About 15 minutes later, the doctor came out with some papers and began talking to my mom. He then tells me that I have tested positive for COVID-19 and that, since I had taken the antigen test, there was only around a 5 percent chance that the results of the test were incorrect.

He then gave us the spill on my quarantine. I, along with everyone I had come in contact with, had to quarantine. 

This included everyone that had attended my dinner on Sunday, which was my entire family. I only have to quarantine for 10 days, while everyone I had exposed had to quarantine for 14 days.

I got home and had to go upstairs. I was not allowed to leave the upstairs at all, nor will I be allowed to until the end of my quarantine.

Wednesday, October 21- Wednesday, October 28

The week of Wednesday, October 21 through Wednesday, October 28 was the bulk of my quarantine. My symptoms stayed relatively the same. 

During the hours of 8-3 on M, T, W, R, I logged onto google meet and attended school. I watched an excessive amount of Tik Tok and played a lot of Among Us. 

I even got an article written about me in the local paper entitled, “Library employee tests positive for Covid-19,” which of course made me feel amazing (In case you did not realize, that was a joke, I did not feel amazing when I saw that article).

One thing that I took up over quarantine is online shopping. On Thursday night, I bought a pair of Air Force 1’s. I also bought two The Ordinary serums from Ulta because they claim to be good for your skin and are very affordable. My reasoning behind these purchases was that if I were to get anything out of this home imprisonment, I will get clear skin and good style.

I also listened to a lot of music over quarantine. I broadened my music palette with the likes of various artists, including some alternative groups like The Lumineers.  It is safe to say that I am now a force to be reckoned with in “Finish The Lyric” games.

My quarantine ended Thursday, October 29 and I was beyond excited. 

That was until I received an email saying that school was to go fully virtual for the next week. I was extremely disappointed that I would not be seeing any of my friends. I was also disappointed that I had to sit in front of the computer for a whole extra week.

Overall

Overall, my experience with COVID-19 was a relatively good one. I only showed mild symptoms, and I began to feel better on the Sunday before my quarantine was set to end. One thing I was able to learn from this experience is that I had not been spending enough time dedicated to myself. 

I would come home every day and do homework and then go to dinner and then go to bed. 

After a week of doing nothing, I have decided that I am going to do less sitting on my phone and stressing about school, and I am going to do more things that are dedicated to keeping my spirits up, like reading a good book or playing the piano. m

If I could rate my experience, I would give it a 9.5/10.