The answer is I don't really know, but we have been treating it as if I had. Here's the time line of my symptoms and experience:
April 4th: I woke up feeling fine but could no longer smell anything and had much reduced ability to taste. Otherwise I felt just fine and did some painting and chores like normal. I felt a little more tired than usual in the evening, which I assumed was from painting and chores. My temperature was only slightly higher than normal before bed.
The next couple days: Continued to have no sense of smell. Increasing bouts of fatigue. Still slightly elevated temp. No other symptoms.
Monday April 7th - Friday April 10th: Slight temp continued, Fatigue increased drastically and now fatigue bouts also had strange body pains and aches at times bad enough that I would just sit and rock. I just felt like something was wrong, really wrong and I couldn't really describe what it was. Couldn't stand for even light activities for longer than an hour without fatigue and pain starting. Thursday and Friday started having tightness in chest and dull pain in chest with deep breathing. There were bouts of feeling normal that would last maybe an hour then fatigue would hit again. Started monitoring SPO2 which would drop to 88%. Used short bouts of activity and deep breathing exercises to bring readings up to 94%, sometimes I could get it as high as 97%. Normal readings should be 98 - 100%.
Sat 11th and Sun 12th: Started to have longer periods of feeling better, particularly in the morning could handle 2 - 2.5 hours of light activity before fatigue and pain. Chest continued to ache at times. continued to have bouts of low SPO2 readings.
Monday 13: In the Morning I felt great, completely normal. Temperature was back down to my normal. State Health Department changed testing policy that anyone with symptoms could get tested for Covid. Contacted Health department and arrange for getting a test on Tuesday. That afternoon my Temp was again slightly higher than normal and fatigue and body aches were back.
Tuesday 14th Temp normal in the morning and I felt pretty good for most of the morning. Steve drove me to the drive through Covid testing in Howell which was a back alley behind an Urgent Care clinic. The doctor stepped out of the clinic and tested me in my car, my SPO2 was low, my Temp slightly elevated. After listening to my symptoms he said he was confident that I had a lighter version of Covid but the test has issues with false negatives and I should continue to self isolate and he wanted me to make an appointment with a doctor at Beaumont who had been working with Covid patients. Steve took me home and fatigue and body aches returned for the day. An appointment was made for a teleconference with the doctor from Beaumont who when consulted agreed with the clinic physician that I had a lighter version of Covid and my symptoms were similar the patients that she saw who were able to recover without intervention. She prescribed a Z-pack as a preventative for secondary infections, said to continue to self isolate and continued with increased rest and fluids and SPO2 monitoring as I had been. If my symptoms increased or if I was not able to raise my SPO2 to contact her again. Otherwise she felt I would be fine and could return to normal activity after 14 days symptom free.
For the rest of that week I continued to improve with longer and longer bouts of "feeling fine and back to normal" If I did too much activity at once I would be hit with another bout of fatigue and body aches. Too much activity seemed to be standing for longer than a couple hours to cook or clean. By Friday My SPO2 was staying at 95% or greater and I no longer had tightness or chest pain. And The doctor texted me a picture of the negative results of my Covid test. By the weekend I could walk a couple miles slowly with stops and rest breaks around my yard.
The rest of my days have kinda blended together with gradually increasing stamina and I have mostly returned to normal activity. The first time I tried running my muscles were very sore. I'm having increased cramping at night on days that I run and my calves especially cramp up when i get up after a long period of sitting on the day after I have run. So I have tried to alternate days of running with days of walking.
This past Monday the 27th I spent all day raking and weeding the gardens around the house, I took 20 - 30 min breaks every couple hours. It still wiped me out that evening I could barely move and the body aches seemed to be back. Tuesday again for the morning I was fine and my normal self but in the afternoon I crashed and couldn't get up and had to doze on the couch. So I'm probably not ready for a full day of energy exertion yet. It's probably a good thing for me that I have had this enforced rest period from not having a job and a stay at home order.
So did I have COVID? I don't know. 2 doctors are fairly confident that I did. The test result was negative, which could be false. I know I have never been sick like this before. it was not like the flu, nor was it like a cold and the body aches were strange and almost nerve like pain referring down my arms and into my fingers or down my legs and into my toes. I have never had an illness where I completely lost my sense of smell with no congestion or sinus drainage. Losing your smell might seem like a small thing but I found it very disturbing and scary.
So for everybody's protection, I continue to social distance and wear a mask when out in public. I'm still not sure if I should go to a grocery store, but I have been to parks that are easier to distance at
I don't think I will know unless there is an accurate antibody test. And if there is a vaccine that comes out for it, I will still want to be vaccinated.
Stay safe, stay well, and keep distancing my friends.
-Jennifer/Jenna
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