My Fake Brush With Corona

Two things: ONE – I was going to stop writing about Covid-19 and, TWO – I knew I was coping well with my relaxed, confident approach concerning my ability to avoid any threat of catching the dreaded virus.
After all, I was isolated at home for 95% of the time – only emerging for necessary purchase of food. I continually washed my hands (the instructed way) and anointed them with sanitiser if I ever ventured out.

But then, one day, I awoke with a terrible sore throat. Eeek!

The previous day, I had read an account from an infected passenger from the Ruby Princess cruise ship. He stated that the first sign of illness for him was a ‘scratchy throat’.
Eeek, again!

Swallowing a couple of Panadol, I grabbed the two lists of symptoms we had attached to the front of the fridge and went through the ‘identifying the symptoms’ message:
SORE THROAT: COVID-19, rates ‘Sometimes’
Ah, well, that’s assuring.

BUT, on the other list, (‘Important announcement – CORONAVIRUS’) I read something very unsettling:
THE SYMPTOMS:

1. It will first infect the throat, so you’ll have a sore throat lasting 3-4 days. YIKES!

 
I hopped on to ‘Doctor Google’ and searched ‘sore throat’ to see what usually causes such a complaint.
It seems there are virus-caused and bacteria-caused sore throats. What was mine? And where did it come from? I hadn’t been anywhere – or near anyone.
Throat infections – sometimes called ‘strep throat’ have to come from a source. But I hadn’t been near anyone!

A couple of days went by. As my Panadol taking increased, I resorted to the age-old remedy of gargling with salt water, but I still had a sore throat and my anxiety was rising. My head hurt, and my ears were aching.

Perhaps a walk in the park would provide relief from my (hopefully imagined) deadly virus attack.
It had been raining and the towering gums in the park emitted a gorgeous eucalyptus perfume that did, indeed, help me feel better.
But then I sneezed – not once, but five times. So, home to check the list of symptoms again. Sneezing?

From COVID-19 message No. 1: Sneezing rated ‘NO’  Great!
From the second info sheet, ‘sneezing’ is only mentioned as a distributor of the virus. Not sure if that was reassuring or not.

By day 5, I was taking fewer Panadol and only gargling with salt water once a day. My headache had eased considerably and my ears were only feeling a little raw. Hardly enough to worry about.

I settled down to read the latest news on COVID-19, and found that here, in Queensland, there are only 12 ‘active cases’, with a mere 4 people in hospital suffering from the virus.
That was very comforting.

I swallowed – to feel my previously angry throat was very subdued.

So, it seems I probably had a case of the ‘Common Cold’ – source unknown…but it showed that I was not such 'a smarty pants’ after all -  so confident that the virus wouldn’t touch me…
which it didn’t.

BUT a sore throat sent me into quite a spin.

I may not be alone.
Anyone else imagined they’d possibly succumbed to the ‘rona’?