Patrick C Notchtree

My Covid Diary 2022

April - May 2022

A glass of wine with friends in Belfast

It started on Tuesday (19 April). I was on my way to Belfast for one of my regular visits. When I arrived I took a lateral flow test which was negative. I had a slight head cold but that was all.

I returned home on Thursday still a little 'under the weather' but not worried. But I took a LFT just in case - a very strong positive! I spent some time contacting the people I had been with in Belfast and a friend I met on the journey home. Fortunately they were all negative. There was a bed ready downstairs in the 'scriptorium' which proved useful for frequent rests in the coming days.

On Friday (22 April 2022) I started to feel extremely tired and spent much of the day sleeping. My head got even more bunged up and the persistent cough developed.




A view across Durham from the park

On Saturday I felt a little better and even went out for a walk in the sunshine to a local park, bought an ice cream and decided I was on the mend.

One of my routines on Sunday mornings is to get up and do some house jobs while everybody else is still in bed, 'out of the way'. I was so weary that I could only manage the most sedentary tasks. It turned out to be another sleepy day. Also my breathing was more laboured and even after the simplest jobs I was tired and had to lie down. I felt sore down my sternum with each breath. Unfortunately I noticed that the perspex skylight on the utility room was flapping in the strong winds.

Monday (25 April 2022) therefore saw me get out the ladder to examine the skylight. I felt as though I were doing everything in slow motion, which I probably was. Luckily the fault was easy to fix by redirecting a loose fixing screw into a new hole which secured it. But that small job exhausted me again. Another long rest. The head, cough and chest were no better and when eating in front of the TV that night, things tasted odd, the so called metallic taste. I started to get a painful ache in my upper back and shoulder blade.

Tuesday was supposed to be a day when I went by train to Newcastle for a book club meeting. As walking up the stairs made me breathless that was a non-starter. So another day being short tempered, trying to clear my head and lying down. Or sitting at my desk in the Scriptorium trying slowly to clear the brain fog to type this.

Wednesday (27 April 2022) saw no real improvement. The doctor phoned me this morning and ascertained I wasn't at death's door and said to contact them if I was. Not quite in those words perhaps but that was the gist of it. I was supposed to attend a meeting on Wednesday, partly because I am the treasurer and the AGM is coming up, but all I could do was email the balance sheet for the rest of the committee to look at.
Also heard that a friend has been admitted for hospital for urgent abdominal surgery, but of course I can't visit. Still got the full head, a sort of 'locked' feeling behind my sternum, pains around the diaphragm area and wandering aches and pains. I told the doctor I thought the virus was doing a "Cook's Tour" of my body. He laughed at that. But as a positive, I don't seem to have got any worse.

Other household members tested negative on Thursday (28 April 2022). I am still feeling about the same. I was down for a one hour research Zoom meeting in the afternoon which I did quite well, but was very tired afterwards. Still taking things easy and very tired at night.

Friday (29 April 2022) was a lovely, sunny day. I woke up feeling better, so I decided to cut my lawn. Apart from running over the cable that went OK. Brain fog still apparent. Afterwards I was rather short of breath and so had to lie down for a while. But in the afternoon I got my first negative LFT result. Light at the end of the tunnel. By the evening, feeling better generally, but still a little breathless compared to normal.

First negative lateral flow test

The last day of April (Saturday 30 April 2022) was another good day, weather-wise. Again I woke up feeling good, but as I started to move around, I got all bunged up again. But after a second negative LFT, I decided to walk into town, buy one or bits and call in at my favourite café. It was walking home back up the steep hill that, most unusually, I had to stop several times. By the time I got home I was very breathless and lay on the bed for an hour.



May Day (Sunday 1 May 2022) started wet. Another good start but still had the head cold. But apart from that I felt pretty good, perhaps a little more breathless than my normal, but considerably better than Saturday. As the weather improved I pottered around in the garden a bit, and did some jobs in the computer. I decided to take a further test, and once again it was negative. The third consecutive day with a negative lateral flow test. So I'm guessing that Covid has gone and now all I have is a so-called "summer cold". I assume my Covid was Omicron and I am just thankful that I did not get an earlier, more deadly variant. I was due my Spring booster vaccination this week but now I have to wait until the end of May. But if that's worst effect of my brush with the pandemic, I'm happy. So I'll leave it there.

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