My Christmas With COVID?

After 21 months of asymptomatic luck, did Omicron claw its way into me? Oh, and happy holidays!

Let me preface this by saying I merely *SUSPECT* that I may have contracted COVID-19 over the December holidays. I haven’t been tested, so I still don’t know for certain. I’ve gotten both of my vaccinations plus my booster. I work from home and rarely go out. When I do go out in public, I wear a mask and practice socially distancing.

But here’s the thing: *if* I did indeed contract COVID, I’m pleasantly surprised at myself that I kept from freaking out to the degree that I’d feared I might — given my anxiety disorder and susceptibility to panic attacks.

Here’s what I did, over my Christmas and New Year’s holiday…

I completed a majority of my Christmas shopping early, throughout late October and all of November. I took this precaution due to all of the supply-chain disruptions that were rumored to be forthcoming.

Guess what? All of my deliveries (for gifts that I ordered) arrived in a timely manner. Go figure!

During the week leading up to Christmas, I did have to go out to look for a few remaining gift items, here or there. Everything I’d wanted to find at the store, I found.

Also, I purchased pre-made Christmas cookies, since, for the second calendar year in a row, the local churches in my city wouldn’t be holding their annual “Cookie Walks” (due to obvious safety precautions).

So I bought four platters of assorted Christmas cookies at the local supermarket. I also ordered some gourmet-style spritz cookies from an online bakery on the other side of my state.

I’d highly recommend the online company Cookies From Scratch for all of your seasonal cookie needs. In fact, its owner, Laura, personally phoned me the day after I placed my order because it was still early November and she wanted to make sure I really needed to receive my order so early.

When I explained to her that I was planning to freeze them within two weeks of delivery (as per her website’s recommendations), she suggested that we wait until right after Thanksgiving Weekend. She told me she’d heard on the news, earlier in the week, that measures were being taken to ease the anticipated backlogs at local post offices.

My cookies shipped on November 29. They arrived promptly. They froze well. And they were DELICIOUS, once we began thawing them out over a gradual two-week period.

I first began to feel slightly ill around December 23rd or 24th. If I did pick up COVID from somewhere, I’m guessing it was either:

• on Dec. 17, when I had a dental appointment
• when I went to pick up last-minute grocery items on Dec. 20
• when I went to buy last-minute Christmas gifts on Dec. 22

Or, it’s possible that I picked it up from an asymptomatic member of my household. Maybe from my sister, who was visiting us for the holiday season?

But, as far as I know, nobody in my household was a carrier. So if they were asymptomatic, they wouldn’t have known it themselves.

Here’s a timeline of my Christmas & New Year’s festivities:

Thursday, December 23

My sister had arrived, the previous night. So I prepared Pasta Ponza (a fantastic dish by Giada de Laurentiis) as a dinner entrée. This is a baked pasta dish featuring red grape tomatoes, yellow cherry tomatoes, capers, breadcrumbs, shredded Pecorino cheese (for which I substituted Parmesan), and shredded Romano cheese. The yellow cherry tomatoes were grown in my garden, last summer; I had frozen them, and we thawed them since they would get “smashed” and baked into the dish anyway.

Then, we put together homemade gingerbread so we could bake gingerbread men and gingerbread women as cookies.

As we did our food prep, I turned on two PBS Christmas specials: Santa School and European Christmas Markets.

While eating dinner that night, I watched a Season 2 episode of Gilmore Girls entitled “The Ins and Outs of Inns.”

For about two or three days, I had been feeling a very minor burning sensation on my right shoulder near my neck. It came and went, intermittently. As Christmas and New Year’s passed, I would occasionally feel it on other random parts of my body.

This “burning” was never constant throughout the day. It could best be described as a slightly-uncomfortable tingle. There seemed to be no consistent pattern or duration to when (or for how long) I would feel it. Once, I asked my mom to examine the spot on my neck where I’d felt it…and she reported that there was no visible rash, bruising, discoloration, or redness of any sort.

Friday, December 24

This ended up being another day of cooking. My mom made Baked Chicken Parmesan, and I prepared Vegetable Couscous. While eating dinner that night, I watched “The Bracebridge Dinner” — another episode from Season 2 of Gilmore Girls.

We opened half of our presents on Christmas Eve.

By this point, I had begun to feel intense soreness in my throat. Also, my ears began to feel plugged — the way they would when getting seasonal allergies. But I still didn’t have any reason to believe it was COVID, since my senses of taste and smell were working at full capacity.

Friday, December 25

This was yet ANOTHER cooking day for us. As we prepared a variety of seafood and side dishes, I played several more specials: The Disney Parks Magical Christmas Day Parade from ABC, The Secrets of Christmas: Revealed! from Fox, and Rick Steves’ European Christmas from PBS.

We prepared fried oysters, baked scallops, boiled shrimp, and Paula Dean’s Cheesy Broccoli Bake (swapping in Half & Half and cream, in place of the canned soup). We also had some leftovers from the previous night. By this point, we’d broken into the Christmas cookies.

While eating dinner, I watched the episode “Termination” (featuring Margot Kidder) from Season 5 of Earth: Final Conflict, which is a Christmas tradition in which I’ve been engaging for the past twenty years. We finished opening the rest of our Christmas presents.

Some of the gifts I received included:

• Book: Woke Racism by John McWhorter
• Book: Red, White, and Black by Robert L. Woodson, Sr.
• Book: 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster
• Book: Mixed Feelings by Avan Jogia (aka my heterosexual boyfriend)
• Red Grape Sparkling Wine
• Clearly Canadian Sparkling Water (raspberry and blackberry flavors)
• Unsalted Donkey Tortilla Chips
• Gift Basket of Summer Sausage and Gourmet Cheese Spreads
• Bamboo Drinking Straws
• Computer Screen Cleaner for my laptop
• Liquid Air Cleaner for my computer keyboard
• Peel ’n stick Business-size Envelopes

My plugged ears and sore throat were a little more intense, now. I began to get worried since I have “instinctive hypochondria” where something seemingly minor happens to me (health-wise) and I blow it up in my mind as being indicative of something more severe (e.g., me wondering if my earwax-esque crackling in my ears meant I might lose my hearing). Accordingly, I’d already been wondering whether the on-and-off “burning” tingle on my body might be a sign of skin cancer.

Saturday, December 26

We had assorted leftovers, but I baked a couple of the stuffed clams I’d bought from the supermarket. My main evening DVD was “Deep Sleep” (also from Season 5 of Earth: Final Conflict) with dinner.

That night, I began reading 4 3 2 1. I took Flonase before I went to bed, which gave me temporary relief. My taste and smell were still working fine, but my throat and ears felt fuller and heavier with congestion.

Monday, December 27

My mom made a baked ham. I watched “We Got Us a Pippi Virgin” from Season 5 of Gilmore Girls. We still had surviving Christmas cookies.

I took the Flonase again. It seemed to help less than it had the previous night.

Tuesday, December 28

More leftovers. Watched “Secrets & Loans” from Season 2 of Gilmore Girls with dinner.

NOTE: during the daylight hours for this entire time, I was engaging in my usual “rounds” — checking my social media online, writing new pieces, recruiting for my upcoming Online Reality Game, doing political research for my advocacy campaign, writing to political activists and civic leaders. I’m just highlighting what was “special” about the end of my day, on each calendar date.

Wednesday, December 29

By this point, the Flonase seemed to be having minimal positive effects— and I began to suspect that I may have contracted COVID-19. I was reading obsessively about the Omicron variant, and many of the online accounts I’d perused were indicating how doctors had reported a lot of sore throats from their patients who had milder symptoms.

Obviously, the unvaccinated or barely-vaccinated were more likely to be hospitalized.

Was I a “breakthrough” case? Should I be isolating from my family?

Except that our house is small, and there really is no place for any of us to isolate. I had to settle for washing my hands frequently and avoiding everyone as much as possible.

Why didn’t I go to my hospital or clinic to get tested, at this point? The main reason is that I’m terrified of having a swab-stick rammed up my nose. People who’ve had to get tested describe it as “going almost to the brain.”

Besides, even if I got tested and it came back positive…there’s no generic treatment to remedy COVID. Other than keeping my distance, what else was I going to do — drink bleach?

I tried to keep busy with my daily tasks and evening entertainment. My featured DVD that evening was another Season 5 episode of Earth: Final Conflict entitled “Boone’s Assassin.”

Thursday, December 30

Since the rest of my household ate crappy spaghetti that evening, I made myself a roasted-and-seasoned Cornish game hen, and watched the Season 5 episode of Gilmore Girls entitled “Norman Mailer, I’m Pregnant!”

Still no real improvement with my throat or ears…although they weren’t getting worse, at least.

Friday, December 31

New Year’s Eve. It was almost 2022…which I’d been dreading for a long time.

I felt a little bit of relief in my ears and throat. But, at this juncture, I was preparing (or reheating) all of my meals when absolutely no one else was around.

That afternoon, I did some of the prep work for Baked Stuffed Manicotti along with Ina Garten’s (aka “the Barefoot Contessa”) Baked Shrimp Scampi. Oh, and my dad fried up the last of our oysters. I baked more frozen stuffed clams. I watched another Season 5 episode of Earth: Final Conflict — this one titled “Entombed.”

Saturday, January 1

Happy New Year. Meh.

Noticeably less pain in my throat and very little popping within my ears. I was still getting the on-and-off “tingles,” though.

My dad made Italian Beef, and my mom prepared a roasted cauliflower dish. We’d already thawed our second round of Christmas cookies, over the past two days. That evening’s DVD entertainment was a charmer from Season 3 of Gilmore Girls entitled “The Big One” (where Paris infamously reveals on national television, via a CSPAN broadcast, how Rory is still a virgin).

NOTE: My family doesn’t eat this elegantly or with such grandiose preparation all year round. We aren’t a white-collar household. These ingredients and dishes were just assembled as part of our holiday celebration.

On January 2, my sister had to go back home. I’d holed up in my bedroom, by this point — so she didn’t ask to hug me goodbye. Probably a good safety precaution to avoid that, anyway.

Throughout the first week of this month, my symptoms gradually decreased. I experienced my usual sadness and melancholy over how the enchantment and nostalgia of Christmas had passed for another year.

If indeed I did have COVID during this time, I suppose the festivities of December 24 through January 1 were a nice distraction. If it had happened during a run-off-the-mill time period on the calendar, I might have let myself get more consumed with panic and ruminations.

And, of course, I’m grateful that I was able to be twice-vaccinated (in April and May of 2021, respectively) and the recipient of a booster only weeks earlier. If that was COVID, I could have had extremely severe symptoms in the absence of those vaccinations.

It is entirely possible that what I had was merely a standard sore throat coupled with seasonal allergies. But my main circumstantial evidence for pegging it as possible COVID-19 would be:

• Normally, if I get ear-popping allergies, they last for several weeks; here, my ear discomfort had subsided in tandem with my sore throat
• Sore throats were reported to be a common symptom of the Omicron variant, even in mild “breakthrough” cases endured by fully-vaccinated people
• My smell and taste senses remained intact the entire time, which were also components being retained by many of the reported Omicron cases
• The odd “burning tingles” I’d been feeling also sounded similar to another widely-reported COVID side effect

On the other hand, my body temperature never rose above 99 degrees (according to my daily thermometer-checks)…but COVID symptoms seem to be all over the place within different individuals.

Regardless, I hope the year ahead of us goes well enough for me to be able to enjoy these holidays once again at the end of 2022.