Christmas is a time for surprises. My big surprise was a gift that came wrapped in a spike protein: covid.
Oh, Santa! You shouldn’t have!
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Fortunately, I’ve had a fairly mild viral experience, a fact I attribute to my Full Fauci: two vaccinations and a booster. File me under “Breakthrough infection,” which is not nearly as exciting as “Breakthrough discovery” or as danceable as “Break On Through (To the Other Side).”
I tested positive on the eve of Christmas Eve. I’d been feeling a bit tentative all week: a stuffy nose, a cough, fatigue. I thought it was a cold, but it was hard to ignore the news reports about omicron. My Twitter feed was full of stories with such headlines as: “With omicron, it may be harder to tell if you have covid, the common cold or the flu” and “Is That Sniffle a Cold? Or Is It Covid?” and the oddly specific “Attention John Kelly: It’s Not a Cold. It’s Covid.”
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I’d been tested by the pros before — at the pharmacy, at my doctor’s office; all negative — but this was the first time I’d have to do the honors myself. I reluctantly dug out the BinaxNOW antigen test kit from under the bathroom sink. With home test kits this year’s hot, hard-to-find holiday item, breaking the seal was like cutting the clamshell on a mint Star Wars figurine.
I stared dumbly at the instructions. Brain fog is another coronavirus symptom and I had to read the directions again and again. I didn’t want to botch my chemistry experiment. Six drops (exactly) of extraction reagent into the top hole in the cardboard test card. Insert swab into bottom hole. Twirl swab shaft. Close test card. Wait.
You’re supposed to wait 15 minutes for the results, but my sample was so excited that it drew the second purple line instantly. A second home test confirmed the diagnosis.
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Our empty nest had already started filling up for Christmas. Our older daughter had arrived from Los Angeles. Our younger daughter and her boyfriend were in from London. Covid meant we had to pull up the drawbridge. I called my father and stepmother, due to arrive after Christmas from North Carolina, and told them not to come. My Lovely Wife did the same with her sister and brother-in-law, who were flying in from Illinois.
Ours was just one of countless families across the country whose holiday plans were upset by covid realities.
I sequestered myself in my upstairs bedroom and wore a mask whenever I ventured downstairs. I wore a mask when we opened presents on Christmas morning. I wore a mask when I cooked the standing rib roast.
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I didn’t wear a mask when I ate it. Temperatures were in the 60s on Dec. 25 so we ate outside. Once again our screened porch — completed during the first covid summer — saved the day.
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The first covid summer. The second covid summer. The second covid Christmas. This is getting old. Even before I felt physical omicron fatigue, I was feeling mental covid fatigue.
I wasn’t sure whether to share the news of my covidity. I worried some people would see it as proof that vaccines and boosters don’t work. I think the opposite. If this is all that I experience — a stuffy nose, some aches — I got off lightly, especially compared to people struck with covid earlier in the pandemic and to health-care workers, who have been on a roller coaster since March 2020. If you won’t get boosted/wear a mask/stay home for yourself, do it for them.
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As I write this, it’s quiet in the house. The kids have all left, back to their respective cities. In the end, none of them caught covid from me. Neither did my wife, Ruth. Like I said, we were lucky.
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My hope for 2022 is that omicron peaks, then burns out — after conveying immunity on everyone who catches it. My hope is that we can soon get back to “normal,” while holding onto some of the changes the pandemic has forced on us: Don’t go into the office when you feel sick. In fact, work from home as much as you can. Wear a mask on airplanes. Keep current on your vaccinations. Open a window.
And appreciate every interaction with your friends and loved ones. You can never take them for granted.
Helping Hand
I have another hope, too, and that’s that we will power to a fantastic conclusion to this year’s Washington Post Helping Hand. Our charity partners — Miriam’s Kitchen, Bread for the City and Friendship Place — are working hard to help the neediest people in Washington. Your donation will help in this worthy effort. To give, visit posthelpinghand.com.
Our campaign ends on Friday.
Read more from John Kelly.