anyone else medically quarantined?
18I don’t have a job where working from home is an option (Retail, Grocery Cashier/Gas Station Clerk - I help out the station when their short staffed)
This past Saturday, middle of the afternoon felt suddenly rundown while at work. didn’t think much of it, as i hadn’t had my normal second belt of caffeine for the day…
when i got home, went to the basement for a bit, came up, felt…flu like, tight/sore muscles in my neck/shoulders run down again.
Find a thermometer, 100.6… Fan Fucking Tastic…
check again a couple hours later, 99.3. couple hours later 99.3, go to bed.
when i get up in the morning (5 am Sun) 98.3. so i go to work. feel largely fine. when i get home, start taking my temp on the regular, every 2 hours, and logging it. 99.6, 99.0 99.0, and just before bed, 100.3
Thankfully I had the next 2 days off (Mon/Tues). When I get up noonish on monday, 98.3. 2 hours later 99.0.
so I call the community hotline they have set up in my area to pre screen you over the phone, and advise you what to do next.
they referred me to a “Community Testing Center”, that just happened to be my doctor’s office, to be tested not for COVID, b/c we don’t have those tests yet, but for Flu/Strep/etc.
They did swabs for both Flu and Strep, Both Negative.
so they don’t really know WHAT is causing my Symptoms. it’s not a confirmed case of Covid-19, but… it could be Covid…we don’t know.
apparently i didn’t meet the testing threshold set by the state of Ohio, whatever that may be.
so they told me to stay home from work for 14 days…
Lucky for me, while i do have the optional short term Disabilty package they offer, I also still had 2 Weeks of paid time off to use before the end of May. (expires on my company anniversary, no roll over)
so now here i am, stuck at home for 2 weeks. With my Elderly Parents (whom i live with). now i need things to do and Not get THEM sick…
I suppose I COULD clean my room that i’ve been putting off for like…2 years…maybe…
- 9 comments, 14 replies
- Comment
Not sick but have stay at home orders. I am sooo bored but my house is spotless…
@earlyre The criteria the CDC put for testing, which I believe is what most states are using, is a temp of 100.4 at the time of testing. So if you want tested call again when/if it hits that. Around here (they only started testing 2 weeks ago) about 1/4 of the people who meet that criteria are testing positive.
Of course not testing more broadly a number of people are being missed. For example around here they aren’t even asking about GI symptoms (because the CDC guidelines for testing weren’t telling them to) and a study out of S. Korea (where they tested most of their population) documents that around 1/2 of the people who end up testing positive start with GI symptoms.
Hope you don’t have it and that your parents stay well.
@Kidsandliz
I was amazed, when the army sent my buddies brother back stateside from S.Korea in the midst of their outbreak, that they didn’t have him undergo any sort of quarantine when he got back to ft hood.
They even let him have a 3 day pass.(during which his mom flew in and took him to San Antonio…)
@earlyre Sheesh… nothing like having a plan and implementing it. SMH Sounds like though at least no one got sick.
@earlyre I’m surprised, given your work, and that the flu and strep runs came back neg, that they didn’t test you, but I suspect tests are in short supply in Ohio also and you need to hit all the conditions (or have a lot of money or a good friend in the government) to get one.
Aside from the GI symptoms K&L mentions above, loss of smell and taste have also been confirmed as markers, especially in those that have low level symptoms or are asymptomatic.
I hope it doesn’t develop and that you stay healthy, and take care to keep yourself isolated from your older parents.
Unfortunately we are trying to play catch-up with this thing and it is not cooperating well.
Testing locally is taking about 3-5 days to return results. We are still not sure if one is ‘contagious’ during the prodromal stages, or how long the virus is viable on various surfaces. Current thinking is that you can be actively spreading the disease around before you are symptomatic, hence all the social distancing stuff.
Make sure you take care of yourself, plenty of fluids, rest, acetaminophen or ibuprofen for fever . As mentioned, try not to give it to your parents, especially if they are over 65 and/or have co-morbidities like heart disease, diabetes or lung issues…
Good Luck and keep us posted…
edit a good example of the shifting info is the prior push to avoid ibuprofen which the WHO has now walked back from…
NO, not these guys:
@chienfou yeah, they’re mid 70’s, Dad has had a bypass, type 2 diabetes, and Parkinson’s…so…yeah
I also slightly question the swabs done…
The flu swab barely went in my nose, and the strep I swear hit my tounge, not my throat… and both just felt like a touch, not a touch, roll, swipe that I would consider a swab.
But I’m just a cashier, not a trained medical professional.
@chienfou @earlyre Yeah those sound sketchy. The ones I got felt like they went to my brain. Maybe they’re using the guidance that said you can test just the inside of the nose? Also, the flu test is famous for false negatives, especially when there is a lot of flu activity.
@earlyre @Knightp When I do a flu swab I always tease that I am looking for a piece of brain on the swab when I am done to be sure I went far enough…
I’m shocked that they didn’t consider risk to your parents when figuring whether to test you for Covid. That really should be a factor for prioritizing tests.
I got a tingle in my throat which turned to a cough, which turned to a 104 degree fever. They tested me for flu and covid and told me to quarantine myself at home and control the fever.
Over the weekend, it became harder and harder to control the fever, to the point where Monday after seeing no response to tylenol, I called 911.
Medics tried to talk me out of it, but those were my doctor’s instructions.
After blood work and scans came back, they found pretty significant pneumonia, gave me antibiotics, and admitted me to the hospital. My fever briefly got up over 105, so they moved me to another ward and retested me for covid. My fever broke over night and stayed low most of the day. They broke my quarantine, saying they felt confident it wasn’t covid. The hospital is starting to get overwhelmed with people, it’s scary out there. I want able to get any help this weekend when I needed it, and that is a terrifying feeling.
Please take good care of yourself, and get help while you can during the week of things get worse. Protect your loved ones because they’re everything we’ve got. God bless.
@Knightp 105?! Holy crap. I hope you make a full recovery from whatever it was.
@mehcuda67 Thanks. My poor heart would get up to 144+ range when i stood up. They say it’s pneumonia, and I was vaccinated late last year for it. My temp has been creeping up tonight, so it’s one day at a time.
@Knightp That vaccination though doesn’t cover all the pneumonias. Hope you recover sooner rather than later!!! Keep us posted.
@Knightp Update: I was released from the hospital yesterday afternoon, as I had become stable enough and it was getting way to risky keeping me there much longer. A lot of people were coming in with covid issues, where on Monday it was pretty quiet. Still have a while to recover, but at least I’m somewhere safe.
Each species of virus has a temperature tolerance range. There are viruses that can’t tolerate 102°F. For those, you definitely don’t want to treat a fever. A cat normally has a body temperature of 104°. There is a virus that is dangerous to pregnant women that can be caught by inhaling kitty litter dust. That virus does better at human fever temperatures, so treat those fevers.
A fever of 105° must be brought down. I have read conflicting information as to whether more mild fevers should be treated at all with cases of COVID-19.
With the current restrictions on which tests can be used in the US, the country can only process about 100,000 tests per day. If we could process ten times that much, then we could start testing whole groups and their families. Sick individuals could be isolated and treated, the rest could go back to work with other tested people.
@hamjudo It sounds like my body wanted to bond more with my cat.
Good info, thank you. The lag in testing time/capacity is definitely a massive roadblock. I’ve read and heard about some quicker tests, but they seem to be in very little supply.
@Knightp There is a test that takes between 5 and 12 minutes per test. That machine can only do one test at a time and each test uses up an expensive cartridge. Each cartridge has some chemicals and electronics like the cartridges in inkjet printers.
If you get a result in 5 minutes from that test, it will be bad news. It means the viral load in the sample was so high that the testing machine had sufficient proof of infection to stop early. If the test runs to the end without finding matching viral material, that is good news, but it takes longer.
The machines that take 4 hours per test are doing hundreds of tests at the same time. Each of those machines can do a whole lot more tests in a day than the so called 5 minute test.
It would appear to me, that I had a 48-72 hr bug…
The highest temp I’ve recorded in the past 2 days is 98.6. Most have been below that, which is normal for me…
I put off a fair amount of heat, but run slightly cool…
@earlyre That is very very very good news - I hope you have a full recovery!
/giphy 48 hr bug
@earlyre Hope you are well on the road to recovery now. How did your peeps fare?
So far, so good
@earlyre
/giphy wonderful