Thankfully, the symptoms aren’t too bad; I had a headache spanning over two days, a cough that doesn’t look like it will subside, a very dry mouth, throat pain for about a week now, slight muscle pain, and recently I’ve lost my sense of smell and taste. However, I do think I’m better off than most, I am still able to move about my room and sustain myself.

I quickly came to realize that I won’t be able to exercise while the symptoms persist. I had biked to the testing site for my PCR test, and about 100 meters down the road I was already panting and having a hard time getting air in my lungs. Nevertheless, none of these symptoms come close to the worry that I might have infected other people, people who are at a higher risk than myself, before I found out I was positive. That, for me, is the worst part of the virus, not the effects on my own body, but the possibility of my recklessness potentially causing harm to someone else.

At this moment, I’m sure a lot of my friends are thinking that I deserve this, and I wholeheartedly agree with them. Ever since the New Year, I’ve posted three times on Twitter about going two years without catching the virus whilst being around it numerous times. At some point I thought I had a natural immunity because people in my household were catching the virus and I always turned up negative.

Until I finally jinxed it on February 18^th, 2022. My return to twitter on that day was marked with a post ‘Do you remember when I kept tweeting about never getting COVID? Sike.’ That tweet got countless comments saying ‘You jinxed it’ and ‘I told you so.’ Naturally, there were more people sending me their best wishes, but it was funny to see how things I said not even a month ago would no longer prove to be true. That the words I said jinxed my own fate.

I live in a shared accommodation, so I stayed in my room the entire time and only left to use the toilet which is right next to my room and to fill my water bottle. I was a little worried about my food situation in the beginning, but I had stocked up on some snacks from before, so I pushed through with that and never mentioned that this was something to worry about. However, my housemate started cooking some meals for me. Then the next day my cousins in Canada sent me some food via Uber eats and my brother in Den Haag sent some food via ThuisBezorgd.

Countless other people had also offered their help where food and groceries were concerned. I felt very overwhelmed with all the love I was receiving. I always appreciated the people in my life, but now that appreciation has risen to a new level. I would try to explain how much I appreciate all these people, but I don’t think words would suffice.  

That was my experience with COVID-19, at least for the first five days. Beyond this point the situation can either worsen or I can completely recover. Either way, the Carnaval break is coming up and I can catch up on my classes!