by I have taken lockdown orders seriously since they were enacted in Los Angeles County. I try to get all of my weekly shopping done in one trip, have not even bothered with outdoor dining, and do little more to leave the house than take a walk a couple of times a week — which took three months to work up the nerve to do.
With few exceptions such as shopping for a new place to live, I have engaged in only one non-essential social outing; one that was masked, physically-distanced, and outdoors. It has been three months since I have ridden LA Metro, almost five since I last touched another human being, save for one person who seized outside the grocery store on the Fourth of July that needed my assistance.
And yet, in late July 2020, I kept waking up tired. It started just two days after my last period ended. Though I am usually rather energetic once the crimson tide goes out, I thought perhaps something lingered and didn’t think too much of it.
Yet I still needed a third or fourth cup of coffee in the mornings, kept reading the same page over and over in books, had a mysterious headache that would come and go, and unusual aches. These symptoms were only mild, but persistent and felt unlike anything else I had experienced before. I could not do anything or get enough sleep to make them go away.
By Saturday morning, on August 1, I almost burned my eggs when I realized I was zoning in and out within an hour of waking despite getting otherwise perfect rest.
It was time for a COVID test.
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Reidun Saxerud 
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