I’m now among the roughly 700,000 Georgians who have become a Covid statistic.  I’m one of the lucky ones in that I remain here, relatively healthy, with the ability to write this piece.

I’m also lucky in that when I began to notice I wasn’t feeling well on the morning of New Year’s Day, I decided to skip the family dinner hosted annually by my mother.  Instead, traditional black-eyed peas and collard greens were delivered via a 90-mile round-trip by my oldest sister.  

My luck seems to have held with aid of those peas, as those that I was around in the days prior to developing symptoms didn’t catch the virus.  I will continue to apologize to them for their quarantines and/or tests.  I’ve been on the receiving end of a few of those calls, and I can confirm they are not pleasant to make.

I got a test first thing the following morning, a Saturday.  Because of the holiday and weekend, I didn’t get the results that I was positive until late Monday night.

My symptoms were relatively mild for the first few days and were mostly gone by the time I had the test results.  I experienced a low-grade fever, headache, and a sore throat.  I have chronic sinus issues that I’ve experienced off and on since the pandemic began, which has made it difficult to determine when I might need to be tested and/or skip an in-person activity.  

I believe I had five negative tests leading up to the one that was positive.  That, and the duration of this emergency, can lead to a false sense of security and to letting your guard down. 

I’m glad I resisted the urge to just plow through the latest sinus infection and head to Mom’s for one of the best meals of the year.  Had I done that, the tone of this column would likely be very different.

There have been two things along this journey that I was not expecting.  Because I have read many times that “loss of taste or smell” was a sign that I might have developed Covid, I assumed it would be a leading symptom.  Instead, I was at least a week into fighting the virus before I began to lose both taste and smell.  They remain completely absent.

The other became clearer last week, even as I was technically able to resume normal activities and in-person contact.  My cognitive functions were getting worse and did so for most of the second week after my first symptoms had appeared.

I had read this was possible, though I assumed it to be rare and associated with the peak of fevers brought about with Covid.  Instead, it was the last symptom for me to recognize, when I thought I was “fine”.  

I wrote two columns prior to this one after I began to experience symptoms.  The first was only made difficult because of some physical discomfort.  The one last week took much longer than normal, despite feeling pretty decent.