Is it too dramatic to buy a bell, don some sackcloth and start wandering about shouting “unclean”? You know – if you have Covid for a THIRD time?
Yep, you heard me right. I’ve been thrice infected. I mean, what are the chances?
No seriously, I want to know, and it seems nobody can tell me.
While a quick scan of Twitter will tell you I’m not alone in starring in Covid 3: The Virus Returns (Again), there is so little data that not even the Office of National Statistics or the UK Health Security Agency can shed some light on my propensity to keep catching coronavirus.
My first foray with the strange lurgy was in April 2020. Several colleagues caught it and we had already lost friends to the virus but, because I was employed by a frontline care organisation at the time, we had to work from the office and not in our pyjamas at home.
Predictably, I started getting symptoms. A cough, aches, high temperature and bizarre things like chilblains on my toes, swollen hands and a mouthful of blisters.
In the absence of community testing at that time, I was seen in a Covid diagnostic clinic.
On arrival in the car park, I entered a scene akin to the film Contagion. Met by two hazmat suit-wearing medics, I was walked into my own white paper boiler suit.
I took my own temperature and was examined, as much as possible, at arm’s reach. A temperature of 38.9C and an inability to smell the disinfectant being fogged around me, combined with other symptoms, settled it.
“You’ve got Covid.”
A certificate of infection was issued and bedroom isolation for two weeks commenced, while Mr Bruce slept on the couch.
Breathlessness at night, flu-like symptoms and an impending sense of FOMO were by far the worst parts. No one else in the house caught it.
Covid take two
Covid Two occurred in August 2021. Wee Bruce went by bus to a packed youth camp in England. No rules were broken, but let’s just say I was unsurprised that the little filth bag who returned, stinking of three-day old sweat, brought home more than unopened toothpaste.
He tested positive first. A headache, tiredness and a cough gave the game away.
I was studying emerging pink lines on lateral flow tests like I was in the Crystal Maze and the first one to spot a positive would win a prize
A few days later, as suddenly as a light switch can be flicked, my skin started aching.
With the same feverish disbelief I had when I fell pregnant, I was studying emerging pink lines on lateral flow tests like I was in the Crystal Maze and the first one to spot a positive would win a prize.
No weird skin issues that time, just a cough, fever and general tiredness.
On that occasion, my other son also joined the Covid club and has been struggling with breathlessness ever since.
Third time unlucky
Until this week, my husband had been boasting about his “natural immunity”, due to avoiding it for so long. “Probably because I was raised in the mountains of New Delhi, darlin’,” he told me.
But that was until our six-year-old returned from school, peely-wally and complaining of a headache.
Oh, dear. Hello, Covid, my old friend.
Within days of her getting “coroma-virus” as she calls it, old Mr Immunity was next in line.
On the first day he said: “This will be the extent of it… I’ll just have a headache.”
Day two: “I’ll probably only have one day of this skin-burning fever.”
Day three: “Don’t speak to me, I’m too ill… But I bet I’ll test negative sooner than anyone else ever has.”
For the record – he’s still testing positive.
And, no shock, so am I. As of writing this, so is my eldest.
This time around I’m just knackered and have gone through a dozen loo rolls since Thursday, blowing my nose.
Reinfection rates increasing
However, I’m most certainly not alone in getting the virus more than once. According to Public Health Scotland, 10% of all recorded coronavirus infections last month were reinfections – the highest this figure has been.
And, although there is some evidence to show that those who aren’t fully vaccinated could stand a higher chance of getting Covid more than once, I don’t fit that bill.
Despite cancer treatment, I’m not classed as being immunocompromised, and I’m as vaccinated and as boosted as I can be.
Based on all of the above, I henceforth declare myself a “supercatcher”.
Although I don’t know why I’m surprised. I am the woman who caught an Asian flu by falling asleep under an air vent in Singapore airport, and who got chicken pox, nits and impetigo working in a chemist for a summer.
But, however much I joke – and genuinely wonder if I’ll catch Covid 19 times before I’m free of it – please understand, it’s just a coping mechanism.
From all my dalliances with the ‘rona, I’ve been left with rheumatoid issues in my hands and my child is still breathless. Still, so many have lost their lives.
I’m choosing to laugh, sure. But only because the reality is still far from funny.
Lindsay Bruce is obituaries writer for The Press and Journal, as well as an author and speaker
