Well, I guess it was just a matter of time, I had not felt that great yesterday, but this morning, I woke up feeling really bad and I took my temperature and it was 100.3 degrees, obviously, not good. I felt like I slept well, but it was a little on the restless side. I had taken some Tylenol before I went to bed last night, just for precaution, and maybe that had helped to control any fever I was obviously getting last night. I went ahead and took some more Tylenol this morning, and worked on the blog posts while having my coffee and eating a Pop Tart.
Stephanie was still sleeping in until 10:30 AM, so I could not tell if she was feeling bad or not, obviously she was tired to sleep in that long.
After she wakes up, we will go ahead and take our rapid tests we brought with us to see if we are now infected with COVID, which I expect we are, most certainly I am with the fever and slight cough.
Stephanie may have more resistance to getting infected since she had COVID in February after we got home from Antarctica. I was obviously not able to protect myself on this trip like I had when we were home, I never got COVID when she was sick with it at home for a few days. Unfortunately, she is about 30 days out of the CDC 90 Day window for antibody protection from her previous infection, so it may not matter. After 3.75 years of taking a lot of precautions to avoid getting COVID, I guess my time had come
We had wanted to wait and take the rapid tests when we had more symptoms, that is when those tests are most accurate. Now, if we are positive, we just have to hope that we get better in the next few days before we go home on July 15.
Today is our last day in Seward, and it has not been that exciting here with the rainy weather and the COVID issues. I do not think we will be doing that much in the last few days of this trip either, not wanting to go out and infect other people. We will certainly be wearing our masks on the way home on Saturday.
We are heading to Talkeenta tomorrow for two nights there, and then spending Friday night back in Anchorage before flying home on Saturday.
Ashley and Bryan will have an advantage since they are about two days ahead of us in the timeframe for being sick, they may easily be better by Saturday, we just don’t have that many days left to recover.
I took a COVID rapid Test at about 11:00 AM, and the result was negative, but I just think I did not have enough viral load yet to show up on a rapid test. Also, this was a brand of test we had never used, and it did not seem to be as easy to take as some of the others, it seemed fraught with error with the way you had to put the swab into the test kit.
Stephanie still had no symptoms at all, so she elected not to take a rapid test, especially since my test came out negative even though I have a fever and some other symptoms.
I will ether test again later with the second test of that same test kit, or we will get another type of test kit from the Safeway pharmacy. It could be something other than COVID, but the odds seem unlikely since Ashley and Bryan both tested positive a couple of days ago.
Stephanie and I made some soup and sandwiches for lunch with the Lipton’s soup mix we had bought yesterday in anticipation of wanting something warm and soothing today.
A little while later, Ashley and Bryan decided to go into town for some lunch, and afterward, they will be stopping by the Safeway to get the same type of tests they used for their COVID testing the other day. Stephanie is still feeling fine, but a little congested, so she went outside to sit just to get out of the house. It is not raining yet today, but it is mostly cloudy, and rain is in the forecast for later this afternoon and evening.
I went ahead and got most of our clothes sorted and folded, and placed them into our suitcases for tomorrow’s travel day. I doubt I will feel better later on tonight, so it was something I could do while I did not feel that bad, just a little tired.
I took another COVID test at about 5:00 PM. This was one of the new tests Ashley picked up for us at the Safeway earlier today. I can now report that I have joined the COVID positive club after almost 3.75 tears of avoiding catching it. The test line was somewhat faint, but still clearly positive. Stephanie seems to be doing OK, hopefully she still has enough antibodies from when she had COVID in February. She still did not test since she is not feeling bad.
Stephanie Wandering On The Beach
Everyone else sat out by the fire pit with a fire this late afternoon, but I just stayed in the bed, taking it easy and hoping I do not feel much worse than I do now, which is tolerable. My throat is dry, but not sore, and I do not have any congestion, just a dry cough every once and a while. I am still running a fever, but it is mostly being controlled by Tylenol and Ibuprofen, just slightly above normal, maybe 0.5 degree.
Property Manager Sue
At about 7:00 PM, I made some dinner after I showered. I just reheated the leftover pasta and sauce from last night, along with preparing some fresh italian loaf bread. The rest of the gang were planning on having something else, and were still enjoying time out at the firepit. Stephanie had offered to come in and fix my dinner, but it was easy, and I let her enjoy the fire pit a bit longer.
They all got caught up in a long conversation with the property manager/previous cabin owner Sue, who had been out there before I got into the shower, and was still there while I was heating up my dinner. She had come over for some reason, probably just to have someone to talk to. She was out there for about 40 minutes, and it was apparently way too long, no one wanted her to stay that long, so I heard from them later.
Dinner was good, I was really hungry. By the time I was finishing, everyone else came in and started their dinner. Ashley was making some type of corn chowder salad, with a side of small potatoes and some grilled meat on skewers, which Bryan cooked on the gas grill.
After dinner, I just headed upstairs to work on some photos and the blog from the bed. Everyone else got showers and it was not long before everyone was heading to bed. Everyone is tired from fighting COVID, except for Stephanie so far, and we hope that she does not catch it.
I decided to sleep in the extra room we have upstairs with two twin beds that we had been using for our suitcases, but I moved one over to the other bed and slept there, trying to separate myself from Stephanie, hoping not to expose her to anything more than necessary.
Tomorrow is a travel day to Talkeetna, we are checking out of the cabin here by 11:00 AM. It is about a 4.5 hour drive to Talkeetna and we should arrive about the time we can check in to our cabin there.