Yesterday I had a therapy session, the first time since contracting Covid. I had been given the news my husband had tested positive as I returned from my last meeting with my therapist. Then my own positive test. My feeling when I saw the double red line was sheer panic – that I must have been positive when I sat in the room with my therapist.

The actual diagnosis was a relief, the waiting was over. I knew what to do and did it very quickly. The response was slow and laborious, but I got the magic drug Paxlovid. It was like Christmas coming early! The relief I felt was incredible. It lived up to its reputation, brought my temperature down and stopped the main symptoms. Having the label Covid was actually counterproductive. If I hadn’t tested I would have thought I had a bad cold. But in a way it was a good thing, I was no longer wondering what it would be like. At no time did I feel the virus was going to make me seriously ill. My main preoccupation was where I had caught it, who caught it first, me or my hubby, and who had we inadvertently passed it on to. Fast forward to testing negative. The Paxlovid worked fast and I was spared the metallic after taste as I lost all taste and smell for a while. That has come back now. I only retested when I felt better, seven days after the first test. I still had a runny nose and a tickly cough but no fever or low sats. Seeing just one line was a celebration! Then came the worry- would I get the rebound effect? More anxiety, plus the fact my husband was still testing positive. He actually continued to test positive for five days after my negative!

Yes we missed Christmas as we had planned. The plan had been just the two of us and a lovely quiet meal. We had the meal but the pleasure wasn’t there due to lack of taste. Our energy levels were low and we slept a lot. Time kind of stood still. We managed a doorstep visit from his family just to deliver presents on the 27th and a FaceTime with New Zealand relatives twice. Covid Christmas was a real anticlimax. Yes we got through it with relative ease. As a precaution I did get a course of antibiotics just to clear my chest, but in all probability it would have cleared up on its own. If I hadn’t tested positive for Covid I would have just put up with a mild chestiness.

Two and a half years of fear and shielding and isolation for one week of a very mild reaction. Was it worth it? That’s the question I now am pondering. How much of my fear came from the unknown? Covid had instilled me with fear for all that time. Yes the media and my work added to my fear, hearing of deaths and long Covid and families grieving the loss of family members, not being able to say goodbye or attend funerals. That was real and tragic. In the early days of the pandemic it was so common. Now all that seems to have been forgotten. Was it all an over reaction? Who knows! But many hundreds of thousands of families sadly lost relatives in those early days. To compare their experiences to ours seem trite, yet there is a question whether it was also a pandemic of fear artificially created to try and slow its spread. What psychological trauma has actually been caused by lockdowns and shielding and fear? The long term effects are yet to be seen I think. Hindsight is wonderful. I suspect the real toll is long Covid and severe mental distress because of the enforced isolation. Whilst there is no scientific assessment, I am beginning to wonder if the pandemic was the worlds way of allowing natural selection to thin out the population (Darwinism) as has been the case with other historical plagues and pandemics. All I know is I am still being cautious as I don’t want to catch flu which is also rife right now. But my fear of dying from Covid is far less. At my age it’s very likely something else will get me now!

Fast forward three weeks to yesterday. Back to therapy, no my therapist didn’t catch it from me. My guilt was assuaged . I am not one of those clinically vulnerable who had escaped the virus! I lived to tell my tale.