Our household has been hit by COVID twice.

The first time was in October of the first year, before there were vaccines or any real treatment.

My husband is an LPN and he spent March through October as a nurse on a COVID-only floor of a Binghamton nursing home.

Patients were being transferred from other homes to be cared for in isolation from all the other residents. Patients were still dying. No visitors allowed.

He worked in a full hazmat-type suit complete with booties and plastic face shield and face mask. He developed a sore from the plastic shield rubbing on his forehead. He was tested daily. He showered as soon as he got home and all his scrubs went right into the wash.

In spite of every precaution he got COVID.

Because he worked in the nursing home he found out right away. We went into quarantine and isolation immediately. At that time it was 10 days for him from the positive test and 14 days for me after a negative COVID test.

I had to go to a drive-through testing facility in the parking lot of CMH. I have asthma so I sweated waiting for the results. In three days the results came back negative.

Fortunately, The Evening Sun had the foresight to set us up to work from home and we had been successfully building the newspaper pages remotely so I didn’t miss any days of work.

It was scary.

I don’t think he realized it, but I watched his every breath.

He ran a temperature of around 102 degrees F. He was extremely congested and after about three days lost his sense of smell.

He slept a lot and didn’t have any appetite. On the fourth day he lost his sense of taste.

After about five days he started to feel better and his temperature went down. We won the COVID lottery. It was more like the flu than the deadly disease that killed so many.

While he was sick, I had to quarantine from him which was not an easy thing in a small house with one bathroom.

Luckily both of my kids are grown and live elsewhere, so it was just the two of us. We were stuck in the house with no groceries. Some friends and my parents left us groceries on the porch. Chenango County Health Department had a very nice nurse call us daily for updates. I did all the cooking and handled all the laundry and dishes.

Somehow, I never got it. We gave a sigh of relief and moved on with our lives.

In February of 2021 my husband was able to get his first shot - Pfizer. The nursing home had a raffle for everyone who got vaccinated with all kinds of prizes. He won a 40” TV.

At least he’d be protected now.

In March 2021 I got my first shot - Moderna. By April of last year we had both received our second doses and both of our kids had managed to get theirs. We felt like we had turned a corner. Summer came and the masks came off.

In the fall we got our boosters. Sighs of relief all around. We had survived.

My son and his fiancee re-started their wedding plans. My daughter managed to graduate from college Magna Cum Laude in spite of having half of her classes go online. Neither of my parents or my husband’s dad got sick.

Fast forward to 2022.

Omicron is the variant of the hour and everyone is suffering from pandemic fatigue.

There are fights on television about about how long quarantine or isolation should last. Should you or shouldn’t you wear a mask? Governors are mocking school kids for wearing masks.

Omicron struck. My husband tested positive again.

A whole different experience.

This time he had no symptoms at all. The nursing home gave him five days off and expected him back at work after the fifth day. I called the health department looking for guidance as to what we should do next. The secretary I talked to didn’t have any information but the director called us back later on. We were referred to the CDC website.

About two weeks before that I had sent to get my free home COVID test kits. Miraculously they arrived right when my husband was sent home after testing positive.

I took a COVID test immediately. Twenty minutes to get the result, so much better than three days! Negative. Yay!

Two days later I started coughing and my throat and sinuses filled up. so I tested again. Positive before the twenty minutes were even up.

I ran a temperature and popped cold medicine on a careful schedule. I was still working from home so I didn’t miss any full days of work, but I did work shorter hours.

I fell asleep at the drop of a hat. I had a pretty good fever one day and don’t really remember Monday. I am one of those people who get every cold in the world so it didn’t seem much worse than my normal nasty winter cold. I didn’t lose my sense of taste or smell and it never moved into my chest. I credit the vaccine for keeping me out of the hospital.

The CDC instructions were to isolate for five days and then carefully keep face coverings in place and social distance if you had to go out for an additional five days. I wanted to be extra careful so I avoided people as much as possible for the second five days, but then went right back into my normal routine. There was no daily call to make sure we were isolating. No checks to see if we had enough groceries.

There is some information about where to get tested and where to get vaccinated on the Chenango County Health Department website. There is a form on the website to fill out so you can go back to work. But there is no place to note that you have tested positive from a home test. No one noted that my husband had tested positive or said anything about recording the statistic for the county. Makes me wonder how accurate the COVID numbers are.

Over a year and a half since my husband first got sick things still don’t taste the same to him, particularly soda and sports drinks.

So far I haven’t had any lingering effects, though it took about two weeks from the time I tested positive for my energy to come back.

According to the CDC, long-term effects of COVID in an individual can include “fatigue, shortness of breath, difficulty concentrating, sleep disorders, fevers, anxiety and depression.” The long-term effects for our society are still to be seen, but the short term effects certainly include anxiety and fatigue.