Phew! Apparently it’s been three weeks since my last post (which was about people stealing my work! 😠).

That’s almost like a whole isolation period and a bit!

Because it was. 😅😂

A couple Sundays ago, my partner and I went to a birthday lunch, followed by some shopping.

I was being cautious, so I did a RAT the following morning, and it was negative. I breathed a sigh of relief and went about my day. We even smoked some homemade bacon in the afternoon with my partner’s family. It was great.

The following day (Tuesday), I was working away at home, and all of a sudden… I just felt really tired. And I sneezed.

That was it, but I just felt really suspicious…

So I did a tentative RAT at about 2pm.

And uh… Haha. Lo’ and behold…

I had a little bit of the shakes at the time of doing the test, but overall I just felt exhausted all of a sudden. Mind you, I was perfectly fine in the morning. It was only after lunch I was like- oh boy! I feel like it’s the end of the week and I haven’t slept much.

I immediately called my partner, while messaging my mum and figuring out what to do about work. My partner was working by himself, thankfully, so he simply packed up and headed straight to a PCR testing site.

I had to contact my partner’s mum (she hadn’t been exposed but she had to know), his sibling (whose family we hung out with the day before 🥓), my friend who had their birthday on the Sunday, and my employer/s… then record my positive test result with the Vic Gov website…

Eventually my partner came home, so while he did a RAT, we had to discuss how to proceed.

Obviously we both had to isolate, but depending on his results, we could isolate together, or I would have to isolate from him.

I had some N95 masks lying around at home, so I was already wearing one by the time he came back. The house was also ventilating.

But when his RAT came back negative, we decided that it would be best if I tried to steer clear of him so that he remained negative.

And that was the most difficult part!

Obviously I had to sanitise everything, because I’d been home all morning without a care in the world.

I quickly made up the spare bed so that he could sleep there instead.

And after grabbing my laptop in case an urgent work matter popped up, I set up shop in the main bedroom and ensuite.

😵

We kept the house ventilating as much as possible. All the windows were open, the fly screen doors were open, and I had the air purifier (purchased for allergy reasons) going in the main bedroom. If I came out of the room, we both had masks (me in my N95, and him in either the same or a surgical mask) and I washed and sanitised my hands constantly. I didn’t touch my face/mask, clothes, phone, or watch after I washed my hands, and I generally made sure we were never in the same area for very long. Unfortunately it was too difficult to separate cooking and preparation of meals, so I still cooked us food. We ate in separate rooms, though, unless we were outside, at which point we were at least 1.5-2 m away from each other.

It was exhausting. I was already feeling pretty tired from the infection, but this was just…

I could see why it was near impossible to maintain hospital grade standards at home.

I think the really fortunate thing in all of this was the fact I wasn’t really sick. I wasn’t sneezing or coughing (no projectile droplets), I wasn’t feverish, and I didn’t really get a sore… anything. There was inflammation at the back of my nose and throat for a little bit (like it was irritated and swollen), but that was it.

I definitely had virus, though.

I was very lucky. I know plenty who had it much, much worse.

So while we’ve come out of isolation now (as of last Tuesday), there’s still some risk of viral shedding, so my partner and I still slept in separate rooms (fortunately he’s also been working elsewhere and staying overnight, so it’s been easier) and wore, at the very least, a surgical mask around each other. He tested negative the entire time (thankfully), and we’ve not been around other people without masks on. I’ve only been out to get groceries once, because I just want to play it safe until I hit the two week post-infection mark.

Funnily enough, I haven’t come out the other side of it with an, ‘oh it’s just a cold it’s no big deal’ attitude.

Because it’s not a cold. I was just very lucky.

The moral of the story is,

GET VACCINATED. GET THAT BOOSTER.

Because who knows what my symptoms would’ve been like if I didn’t have three doses already?

I’m not taking that chance, and neither should you. Because we should all look after ourselves.

Stay safe!

Categories: General

Tagged as: 2022 COVID COVID19Aus COVIDTesting Testing Victoria

ABugsLife

A Ph. D graduate in Microbiology, residing in Victoria, Australia. Currently working in multiple locations but still in the STEM field. 👀 🦠 🧫 🧬