Symptoms
 

After 10 months of carefully remaining in my family bubble, wearing masks religiously (everywhere except the cockpit), and cleaning hotel rooms before I even take off my shoes, I finally drew the short straw.

Figured I would share how it's going, and maybe others will do the same to show how symptoms differ between people.

1/6 Woke up with an intermittent dry cough, and a migraine headache. Headache lasted throughout the day but was easily managed with Tylenol. Went to bed early that night, but woke up freezing! Could not get warm. Put on sweat pants, sweat shirt, thick socks, winter ski cap, two blankets including an electric blanket on 'high' all night. Still couldn't get warm. Fever only about 100.3

1/7 Woke up feeling ok, but went to get tested right away since those symptoms were uncharacteristic for a cold for me. Rapid test showed positive. Went home and quarantined in the master bedroom. Wife and son stayed away and we both wore KN95s when they brought food. Mild symptoms the rest of the day. Chills, body aches, fatigue. No fever. O2 saturation 97-98%

Started taking Vitamin C / zinc
Mucinex
Tylenol for pain and fever

1/8 Slept well. Woke to achy muscles, general feeling of fatigue. My skin 'hurt' if that makes any sense. Like it hurt to brush my hair. Took a two hour nap in the afternoon and awoke to head-cold type symptoms. Cough, runny nose/stuffy nose. No fever. O2 saturation holding at 97%-98%

Added vitamin D supplement

1/9 Woke up a lot. Hot and cold again. Couldn't get comfortable. General head-cold type symptoms. Unproductive cough. In the morning woke up to no fever. Headache. Stuffy nose. Oxygen saturation 95-96, but can increase it back to 97-98 with deep breaths.

So that's where I am right now. Guess this is day 4 of symptoms. I'll update if there are significant changes.

What really makes me mad (at myself) is that after all this time, to get the virus NOW, within just months of being able to vaccinate. So frustrating.

Stay safe out there everyone.

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Sorry to hear this. Hopefully you recover quickly and the family doesn't catch it. Glad you are checking O2 levels.

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This is a great post to follow and add to. Any idea how you were exposed?

Hope you feel better soon!

sounds like a NYE party...

Seriously though, OP, feel better.

Symptoms
 

I suspect it was at work. My family is/has been very careful with regard to masks, distancing, etc. We stayed home during the holidays, haven't been out of the house with friends or any type of gatherings. If we did go out, it was typically to get groceries and then come right back home.

My son does attend physical school but there too they wear masks, have plexiglass dividers, and have to clean shared materials. Plus school had been out since mid December.

The only place I dropped my guard was at work, and only once the cockpit door was closed and the constant parade of flight attendants, gate agents, mechanics, etc stop coming up front. I would take the mask off during flight.

On overnights I was bringing my own food and not congregating with the crew.

I am based in a southern city with a overwhelmingly conservative pilot group. The captain who I believe I may have acquired it from wore a gaiter - but removed it every chance he got. He talked about visiting friends and family over the holidays and even met a college friend for dinner on one of our overnights.

So no way to know of course. Could have just as easily gotten it from a TSA agent or a Walmart cashier, but that's my guess.

PS - stayed home with the wife and son on New Years Eve. Started a trip on 1/1.


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I would also like to know how you think you caught it. Zap, I know you’ve been careful and took this serious... Thanks for making the post.

Edit:
Just saw the follow up. Very frustrating when you have selfish coworkers that don’t take it seriously.

Zap,

I had covid 12/19, symptoms ended 12/29 with lingering occasional cough which is gone now. Positive pcr test 12/24 and a recent follow up negative antigen test.
​​​​​​
Some highlights for me: no fever & no shortness of breath (or very occasional shortness of breath).

Constant symptoms were fatigue, feeling of a head rush that would last a couple hours, nausea, loss of appetite. Wet cough became progressively dry
First three days was bad body aches, felt like I slept on a concrete floor or something. Took motrin and it helped some

Day 4 I lost taste and smell COMPLETELY. It's a very weird situation. It lasted 3 days before it started to come back. But things didn't taste right at first. Honey bunches of oats cereal tasted minty and coffee which I love tasted terrible. That lasted another three days.

All in all, I'd call my symptoms mild, but still was not fun. I did the same vitamin regiment as you except I also took 10 mg of melatonin at night. As I understand it the melatonin helps your immune response.

Get well man

Hey thanks Bobby. I forgot to mention the melatonin because I take that pretty frequently anyway, but yes I've been taking that as well. Also added a baby aspirin to try and prevent blood clots.

My wife brought a chair into the bedroom so I could sit up, rather than in bed all day. I've heard being upright helps to prevent fluids from pooling in the lungs.


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Wishing you the absolute best during your recovery.
You did the right things to mitigate catching and/or spreading COVID. So, commend yourself for taking those proven actions. It is all about decreasing the odds of spreading or catching the virus. Ultimately though, sometimes it still boils down to luck and circumstances. You cannot control them all the time, but you work to mitigate the odds. Even Vegas loses occasionally.

Ah these damn conservatives!!!!! I'm sure its their fault you caught the Rona. I was going to take your posts seriously until I read this!

Was just trying to paint a picture of a demographic that tends towards less adherence to mask wearing and distancing. You are correct in that it is irrelevant to what types of symptoms we endure. Sorry that I ruined the value of the thread for you.

I didn't get that from his comments, and apparently a simple well wish was too hard for you. The reality is once you get this you have to consider possibilities of where you got it even though it's very hard to know for sure. And along the way, it's quite annoying to be around people who go out of their way to increase risk for themselves, you and ultimately the people in your life. So I get it. The crazy thing is, some people I know can care less about all these measures and have had multiple exposures and never get it, while others follow the letter of the law perfectly and get it. It's a crapshoot, it seems sometimes.

The best you can do in my opinion is mitigate risk the best you can and go live your life. Only once you get symptoms of any kind, quarantine immediately. In my case, for the first couple days I wasn't totally convinced I was even getting sick no less had contracted covid. However, out of an abundance of caution and respect for others I quarantined immediately, and it turns out I was freaking right, it was covid. It also turns out you are most contagious at the start of the event, so being careful can really pay off sometimes.

It's a lot like flying: assess and mitigate risk, be responsible and safe, and go fly.

Get well soon Zap! I've personally gotten more stringent about social D with the vaccine a few months out, I had always assumed I'd get the 'rona eventually but now might as well hold out for the vaccine (especially with "long haul" symptoms and the FAA... more afraid of them than the bug honestly). Frustrating to roll snake eyes so close to the finish line.

I think the demographics are entirely relevant to painting the picture, I live in a blue state and have a vacation home in a red state and behavior is night and day. It's relevant to knowing where you stand.

I think I’m right there with you rick. I had assumed I’d just get it at some point but being so close to vaccine time, I’ve been even more careful than before thinking maybe I’ll be one of the lucky ones. And yeah, it would SUCK to be this close and to get sick. Hang in there Zap!

Pretty sure if I do get it at this point, it will be from a pilot I share the cockpit with or my son (19 yr old that lives at home going to college). I’m starting to think my son has some sort of previous derived immunity. Almost all of his friends have had it at various points and exposed him in the process several times but he’s never gotten sick. Wife just got her second shot yesterday so it won’t be from her.

NOPE. You woke up with a headache. Period, dot.


Shame on you. You have no business making a medical diagnosis unless you are a licensed practitioner. I’ll accept that you understand where your head is and if it was aching, but diagnosing it as a migraine - unless you have previously been diagnosed as having migraines, is not the purview of a pilot. Even worse, you have no business making it on a PUBLIC FORUM. Perhaps you were just too sick to understand the potential implications.

https://i.ibb.co/tbQp5BD/E3-E57-AF3-...4-D2565-A0.jpg

;)

I think we all know that he meant a "headache that felt like a migraine but was caused by the virus". But you have a good point, and fortunately self-diagnosis doesn't usually count.

Right. Was trying to be descriptive, not diagnostic. Not a doctor and didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Quarantined to the master bedroom. Thanks


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Really had me in the first half there.... nice.

Get well soon, Eeyore! Thank you for sharing your experiences.

Your family will get it.

The loss of taste and smell is miserable... but a mediocre weight loss plan.

Not necessarily. I was right there in VERY close proximity with my wife when she had The Coof back in February before we knew what it was. She tested positive for antibodies in April after she fully recovered (despite having COPD). I didn’t get so much as a sniffle and tested negative for antibodies.

There is a bigger portion of the population that is naturally immune than many are willing to acknowledge. But Zap’s story proves, yet again, that a virus is gonna virus, much of this is a crap shoot, and “mitigation” is largely ineffective window dressing.

That's likely, since there are other coronaviruses running around, including some random ones which aren't well documented. Previous exposure to a similar bug can confer some immunity, depending on several factors. But hard to predict of course.

My wife didn't get it. Loss of taste and smell really really sucks. I lost a few pounds but already gained it back. I was using those Christmas danish butter cookies to periodically see if I could taste again and thought... How fat do you have to be to lose taste and smell and STILL be eating cookies?!?

Answer: this fat 🙋

Not necessarily.

My spouse and oldest child tested positive twice each (rapid and PCR). Spouse had 12-hour fever, fatigue, lost taste/smell for a week, lingering lethargy. Child had a 100.3 fever for 12 hours, then fine, that’s it.

My other two children and I have had three PCR tests each since the first symptoms appeared in our house three weeks ago, all negative and no symptoms.

I even woke up the morning after our child’s symptoms appeared with them in our bed breathing on my face. We did not make much of a social distancing effort in our house, figuring we’d all get it regardless.

Obviously you spoke to this Captain about you having covid, right? Did he then get tested?

He had already been exhibiting symptoms, tested, and removed from flying status by the time I reached out to him.


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Did he test positive as well? Do you know if he became symptomatic before or after you?

Are there really people that think a mask in the cockpit is doing anything? I know of only one person that has gotten sick while flying and it is the only person I know of that was strict about using masks in the cockpit. They do nothing when you are sitting 3 feet next to someone in a tiny space for hours on end.

They probably don't do much under those circumstances. They're an irritating distraction, an impediment to communication, and they fog my glasses, so I don't wear one when actually operating the plane.

I've been out doing Navy stuff, doing all the Navy's over the top stuff.. (I've spent a total of 6 weeks locked in my house/BOQ room since August)

Still caught the Rona. I was a suspected early case in 2019, two days of fever, sweat, chills, nagging cough that took a month to clear up. When we did a command sweep for COVID, I had negative COVID but hat antibodies (this was in May)

September, clean nasal swab pre-surgery.

Two more weeks in iso post surgery because a Nurse on my care team popped positive.. Negative then.

Last week, getting a pre-deployment PCR. "Pathogen Critical High" was result.

Have not had any of the "COVID LIKE SYMPTOMS" the Navy asks us about every time I go in or out of a building.

Minor head cold. Runny nose only on the side they swabbed me. Cough 2-3 times when I wake up and spit up stuff, and that's it. I don't cough again all day.

Haven't left the local area since July. Haven't really gone anywhere other than squadron, Lowes, Grocery and the mountain bike shop. Not like I've been out clubbing.

Wife, same.

So far, a big nothing burger.

I certainly don’t think they do much of anything good in the cockpit. I’ve had exactly one partner insist on wearing a mask while flying. Our company policy is such that all people in cockpit must want to take it off to fly without it. That and the fact it was for one single turn, I played along. It was very annoying having to constantly ask for him to repeat himself or me having to repeat myself. It’s definitely a hinderance. We would not have lasted a four day together that’s for sure.

And yes, they fog my glasses too. I mean, I can fiddle with the mask enough that sometimes, it’s not a problem. But that’s not the norm. It’s a good thing I barely need the glasses anyway (20/30 without).

And by "minor head cold" I mean I have not taken anything, I just have a minor stuffy nose, maybe some very minor sinus pressure.

Leave an opening on the side or something no need to call sick or transfer the rest of the trip. It’s just a piece of cloth. Turn on the intercom so you don’t have to shout with your cloth on.

The number of people that “can’t hear” because someone else is wearing a mask is kind of surprising. Either people mumble or there’s a lot of people out there with significant hearing damage. Just turn up the intercom or ask the other person to move their mic if it’s low. There’s a reason the headsets have knobs.

On some fleets, there isn't a VOX/HotMike option.

Whole time I was on the 757/767 we kept inboard earcup off and talked across the cockpit. Heatsets off above 18k for most people.

I’ve worn them in the sim, and recently did a flight where the guy wanted to wear them. I think you’re being overly dramatic, it really wasn’t a big deal.

I've tried, it fogs my glasses. Doesn't matter what mask or glasses, it's a nuisance when I go to the grocery store just not a safety issue.

You ready to be really surprised? Not all airplanes are like the one you fly, some don’t have an intercom that can be used to speak with the other pilot.

Yeah, wearing glasses does suck with a mask no doubt.