IRATE BUTTES

here's your monthly update.

before july 4th, i had this super dry, unproductive cough. i didn't think a whole lot of it. the summer illness is what i chalked it up to. went to my dad's house. we had hamburgers and ribs. my wife, dad and stepmom, sister in-law and her husband, and nephew were there. seven people total.

every time i had left the house, i wore a mask. every time.

so, sometime before the 4th, i came into contact with someone who had CHINA AIDS. needless to say, i contracted it and gave it to my wife. we didn't know. that sunday i had said "i'm probably going to call in to work. i feel like mega shit." wife had said she was feeling under the weather too. her work was like "you had better go get checked out for the rona. just to be on the safe side."

there's a local clinic called "trustcare." they're the only ones in town that have the results-in-an-hour-or-two tests. they're also $190 up front. all the other tests have to be shipped off to a lab and will get results in 7 biz days. can use your $40 co-pay with this version.

wife's work paid for the $190 test. results came back positive. this was on tuesday, july 6th. so then we had to call every person we came into contact with before then. which was a lot. i don't remember all the places i went. dad's house and a buddy's place. as well as the grocery store - which is probably where i got it, if we're being honest.

our primary care doc was treating us for "the summer crud" initially. it wasn't until i had said something about losing my sense of smell and taste that he was like "yall need to get tested."

i'm probably remembering the timeline wrong. up until now, everything has been hot cold hot cold fever hot cold another fever

here's what i wrote on twitter:

Jul 8

I caught the China AIDS. Shit's real. I wish it was just a flu bro so I could pin down why I have a constant fever and cough with no results. Feels like someone is sitting on my chest.

Jul 8

Migraine level headache pretty constant. Hot-cold flashes.Quarantined since March. Went out a day or two before July 4th. Caught it then, I guess. Wore a mask and all.Hell yeah a statistic

Jul 10
CHINA AIDS update:i passed out after posting last night. still can't smell or taste. headache is down. cough is down. have some sort of snot or WHATEVER in my sinuses and back of the throat. all in all, i feel "fine"haven't gotten results from the clinicthat's prob mon/tue

Jul 10
CHINA AIDS update:went to sleep around 3am and slept until about noon. headache still there. low grade fever..Then I feel fine, but I know I am not fine.Breathing is normal. Sinus shit went down. Cough is down. Still feel fatigued. Hot-cold flashes still there.Shit sucks

Jul 10
One of the not-great parts about CHINA AIDS is losing all sense of smell and tasteeverything tastes like nothingnon descript "food""beer"

Jul 11
CHINA AIDS update:it's on an hour by hour basis. i feel fine, then i don't. it's hot then it's cold. the fatigue comes in waveswould never want this on anyone

Jul 13
CHINA AIDS update:still ongoing. still day-to-day/hour-by-hourfelt like i had food poisoning last night minus projectile vomiting; seems that's a "normal" symptomsmell and taste is still shotrolling fever is still a thing. sinus/cough/hot-cold flashes still a thingshit sucks

Jul 13
CHINA AIDS update 2:i smell ozonelike burning electrical, if that makes sensei don't know if this is a bad signit probably is"Phantosmia is also associated with Alzheimer's and occasionally with the onset of a migraine."ohnicethis si fineit's finefineFINE

Jul 14
CHINA AIDS update:Now I have this really dry cough and I do it so fuckin hard I see spots.Something is breaking up in my chest but nothing is coming up

Jul 14

Every fuckin day is something new

the worst parts are the unproductive dry cough and the rolling fever.

take last night for instance. i had to take a muscle relaxer just to be able to stay asleep. and golly did i. i also woke up at 5am sweating bullets. got up to pee and took my temperature. 103°F. nice.

the night before, i had godawful nightmares. fever dreams, very likely.

fast forward to today: still haven't gotten my test results. doc said that if i didn't have the rona with being in such close proximity to muh wife, he would be very surprised.

so there you have it.