Is it my age or a weakened immune system?

I’m just starting to recover from a cold that pretty much knocked me completely out of commission for the past three full days. Even today, I’m feeling it, but at least I’m starting to feel somewhat better — or at least good enough to take a shower, do some light household chores, and take care of sending orders out to Etsy customers.

I started feeling it on Friday afternoon, after yet another full day doing things around the house and yard and helping one of my contract pilots settle in for his five week stay nearby. Really feeling tired and run down. I was supposed to visit with a friend at the local winery but cancelled. I needed to rest.

The Lead Up

Let me take a few steps back. The previous weekend had been super stressful for me. I’d signed up to sell my jewelry at a festival in Wenatchee that was originally supposed to be held in early May, long before cherry season. It had been postponed to June. There was rain in the forecast and two of my clients had pushed their start dates up a week earlier. I was short a pilot because a guy had cancelled two weeks before his start date and I hadn’t been able to find someone to replace him. One of my pilots was brand new and had never dried before.

I flew on Saturday morning at 4:30 AM, then spent the day sitting in my jewelry booth, trying not to worry about the weather. The weather for Sunday looked so bad that I packed up my booth a day early, risking the ire of festival management for the sake of my sanity. Another night with four hours of sleep led to a beautiful day — until around 7 PM when the thunderstorms rolled in and frantic clients started calling. I still can’t believe we tried to dry cherry trees in that wind with t-storms in the area. We wound up landing to wait it out — one of us in an orchard and two of us on a building site adjacent to one of the orchards. When the storms passed, we each dried an orchard block before landing. It was nearly dark.

Up at 3 AM the next morning. Rain and sun on and off all day. The drying conditions were much better, but we flew a lot. One of the pilots and I even launched at 8:40 PM to cover an orchard in Quincy. Although we didn’t finish, we gave it our best effort. It was dark when we got back.

Here are our helicopters in the LZ on Monday evening. We were waiting for more rain and actually did get called out one more time after this.

Up at 3 AM again the next morning. Called out to dry that Quincy orchard again. Then a meeting with the FAA to inspect my helicopter. (Don’t ask; even I don’t understand why they sent two guys in two separate cars all the way from Spokane.) Then helping settle a pilot in and trying to catch up with the work I’d been neglecting all weekend.

I tried to sleep in every morning for the rest of the week. I really did. But my body clock wanted me out of bed before 4 AM. And I had things to do, so I didn’t argue. Occasionally, I found time for a nap in the afternoon.

And that brings me to the end of the week, when I was physically exhausted and starting to feel a cold coming on.

The Symptoms Multiply

The next morning, Saturday, I was a mess. Sore throat, dry cough. Aches all over. Flu-like symptoms.

I immediately thought the worst: COVID. Sure, I’m vaccinated, but the Johnson & Johnson vaccine isn’t at the top of anyone’s list of vaccine choices. I got it because that’s what was available. None of the vaccines are 100% effective, after all, and I’d spent way too much time in public, eating in restaurants with my pilots and shopping without a mask in a mostly maskless environment. There are just enough wackos out here who think the virus is a hoax — did I mention that I live on the red side of this blue state? — or don’t believe in vaccines. Or — heaven help us — that Bill Gates is putting microchips in the vaccine to track us. Do you think those people will be wearing masks when no one is checking to see if they’ve been vaccinated?

I tried to get sign up info for COVID testing at the local health care place, Confluence Health. Although their drive-up facility was still set up, you needed a doctor’s order to get the test. And it looked as if they might be charging a fee for it — $200+? — which doesn’t surprise me, given that they recently charged me $240 to talk to a doctor for 7 minutes about my arthritis, which she couldn’t do anything to help.

Walgreens had free drive up testing. I’d used one of their locations in Arizona with a friend back on Super Bowl Sunday so I was familiar with how it worked. Of course, the test wasn’t available that day. I’d have to come back on Sunday. I made my appointment.

I spent the day eating and sleeping and reading. Eating because warm or cold food going down my throat really felt good. Sleeping because I had no energy. Reading because I had to do something while I was awake.

My dogs were surprisingly understanding about all this. They slept near me on my bed or the sofa or the reading chair in my living room. They didn’t seem to need to go out very much, which was fine with me.

My pups slept even more than I did, which is difficult to believe, considering how much I slept.

My neighbor brought me chicken soup, zinc tablets, and some sort of “essential oil supplement” that she used when she had a cold. “Put a drop on your tongue.” She demonstrated by putting a drop on her finger and then putting it on her tongue. “It doesn’t even taste that bad,” she told me. It reeked of cloves, which isn’t a horrible smell, but not something I wanted in my mouth. I read the label. “For aromatic or topical use,” it says. Needless to say, I did not put any on my tongue.

I did have a few zinc tablets, though. Why not? And the soup was good.

I took my temperature and was shocked to see it at 99.1°F. “Normal” for me is in the 97s, so this was a legitimate fever for me. I never get fevers. I was already taking ibuprofen for the pain; I added aspirin for the fever.

Before bed, I took a nighttime cold remedy, hoping it would knock me out. I slept restlessly most of the night, prompting one of my dogs to sleep on the sofa.

Sunday was more of the same, although my nose was starting to get into the act.

I went to Walgreens at the pre-determined time and got the kit at the drive up. But I made the mistake of giving my nose a good blow before using the swab. As a result, there was a drop of blood on the swap and the girl on the other side of the plexiglass said she couldn’t use it. Same result on the second swab. “You get one more try,” she told me, sending over a third swab. I swabbed gingerly in one nostril, as instructed, and got a blood-free result. But did it have enough snot on it to conduct the test?

I got the result by email 30 minutes later. Negative.

But did the swab have enough snot on it to conduct the test?

I may never know.

I went home and slept the afternoon away. I took my temperature a few times. I reached a high of 101°F. I felt like total crap. Even ice cream didn’t help. I had to sleep sitting up to prevent the drip at the back of my nose from aggravating my throat.

By Monday (yesterday) morning, my nose was all in. I’ve had worse runny noses — usually allergy related — but this was bad enough to keep a tissue box close at hand. At the same time, my cough had gotten worse and was now producing a thick, yellow mucus. Every time I coughed some up, I figured I was done — there couldn’t possibly be any more in there. But there was.

I napped in the morning and spent the afternoon watching a variety of weird content on YouTube. I learned how women in 18th century Europe dressed. I learned how a volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815 killed likely over a million people worldwide by changing global weather for a year. I watched the entire final season of The Clone Wars animated TV show on Disney+.

Another neighbor came by with “hydration multiplier” packets. This is apparently a substance you can use to turn water into something like Gatorade. I had been drinking a ton of water, tea, and orange juice. I didn’t really see the need to put chemicals — including salt — into what I was drinking. But I really do have to thank my neighbors for being so caring and trying to help.

The End is Near

I slept sitting up again last night with a nighttime cold remedy to help me sleep better. It seemed to work. I slept well — right until Rosie decided I needed to wake up and came over to stand on me. It was after 5 AM — the latest I’d slept in over two weeks.

I felt a little better, too. I had my coffee in bed, then made some cream of wheat with honey and applesauce for breakfast. It sure did feel good going down my (still) sore throat. I coughed up some more yellow mucus. I took a shower and put on clean clothes. I started this blog post.

I have a few non-strenuous things to do today in my jewelry shop before making a trip to the post office and a neighbor’s house to drop off eggs. Then I’ll keep resting up. I’ve learned (the hard way) that you can’t rush a cold’s recovery.

At this point, I just hope I’m back to at least 90% by Friday. And, for once, I’m glad there’s no rain in the forecast.