A visit to Corona (virus)

Some of you, I suppose, figured I'd be posting photos of the ultra rare crescent chested warbler today from Arizona, and despite it all, I'd be down on the west slope of the Chiricahua Mountains finding a great bird, but well...that would be irresponsible.  To put it simple, I just can't go.  You see, today is day #10 in my probable experience with Corona, Coronavirus, or COVID-19.  Nine days ago when I suspected I was coming down with it, I fully expected to be on a ventilator today, or dead.  I was writing letters to my wife and children last week but I got too sad and could never finish. I was writing down all of my passwords and thinking about my past.  I had been a good run. Such is this dreaded disease, one that moves fast but slow enough that you sit and wait, hoping for the best but fearing the future. It seems you either got it hard, or you hardly get it, luckily, I got off easy.

I say presumed, as my wife made contact with two clinics, one never responded and the other: we didn't meet the criteria for a diagnostic test.  I even wrote to the State department of health for South Dakota, wondering if since I had been thinking if things got bad in Grant or Day County SD, and knowing if we had it, we'd volunteer as doctors to help, and since both counties, have as of yet have had no confirmed cases, it may be good to show it is around to keep people from being reckless, that email, went unanswered.  I will only say to you, trust me, people with this disease are closer than you think.

It was an odd illness and an odd feeling.  I dreaded the nights, not that they were so bad, but that the unknown awaited in the morning.  It is hard to sleep when one thinks about would I be short o breath, would I even wake up in the morning?  But each day I did, and so did my wife.  We had GI symptoms, a persistent gut ache that was just there to remind you that things were wrong.  We had a really mild Upper respiratory symptom, a little sore throat, headache, a severe case of malaise, and well, some night fevers, but I am not complaining, it was pretty calm.  It was odd at times, though, I could feel something wrong in my chest and occasionally had to force myself to breath....the rare times I coughed it was like I didn't want to stop and then...I did, and I said a prayer every time the coughing ended, and it was only rarely.

It is clear that we either got it from buying milk in town or from our two sons, which if you work backward, our son Tyko was in Seattle late before they closed the city down in March and timing wise, he could have brought it back, then gave it to his brother (he is now holed up in Madison WI with his twin) and then they came to visit two weeks ago, thinking they had been isolated for a week and had never had any symptoms.  Six days later, I had a fever....So, at least it was the West Coast variety...I think that is a milder strain, but it is hard to know.  Oddly, our cat was also diagnosed with mild pneumonia at the VET last week, he had a UTI to boot, but he seems to have also gotten by with a slight case.  Kitty is out stalking again but it makes you wonder...did Tiger have COVID?  The Vet didn't think it was worth the test which he wasn't sure he could get.  There was a real tiger with COVID in New York....

I also might have been lucky as I did have Yellow fever vaccine series a year ago, another RNA virus and there is some studies that if you get your immune system turned on for RNA viruses, yellow fever is an RNA virus, oral polio is maybe a better one, that can help you fight it off, but who knows.  Yellow fever was a nasty vaccine for me so anything it helped with later is a good thing.  I also spent the worst days in the sauna, figured what didn't kill me made me stronger and the Finns had good survival numbers

The fact that we probably got it, considering how out of touch we've been with people, makes it important to realize how contagious this bug is.  The USS Kidd has not made port in over a month , yet, cases suddenly appeared on the ship at sea, I think we experienced the same situation.  It harbored in our kids for a month until they spread it to us.

You may ask, why have I been going out?  Well, we haven't seen anyone.  Even talking to a neighbor who seemed to want to get closer, I stayed 10 feet apart.  I felt the fresh air helped clear the lungs as did moving.  We tired quickly but we still went looking for stuff, the birds are migrating and in some cases, our deck was the best place.  I am lucky to be where I am and seeing each bird made me believe that it would be the last time I would ever see the species....kind of a last of life list.  It was very very macabre.
A pair of Solitary Sandpipers, part of a "Contradiction" of solitary sandpipers, the approved name for a group of them, a group of solitary birds?  A true contradiction
Wilson's snipe
common loon and FOY red-necked grebe field sparrow Harris sparrow
Black and white warbler white-throated sparrowWell, the stories and thoughts of (my) our demise have luckily been premature, now we just wait to fully get rid of this virus (assuming our symptoms are over and we did beat it) and then we can worry about the future to find out if we can catch it again, maybe next time, we won't be so lucky.....today, though I think I've lived to bird another day,

There will be other rare birds in Arizona, ones I can safely chase and be safe to the other birders and fliers.  For those of you doing things....take this seriously...The Beast is a beast.  I (we) was (were) VERY very lucky, assuming this was the real deal, and just because it appears that this virus isn't nearby beware of people like me, or others who don't appear sick but yet harbor the Beast.

Olaf