My COVID Diary, Day 3: The Last Daily Update

Discomfort level: ★☆☆☆☆ (slight sore throat + some runny nose + occasional sneezing + a little phlegm)

Brain-fog level: ☆☆☆☆☆

Vaccine brands: AAM

Why call this the final day? When the outbreak was starting to surge, I thought about how much time I would allow myself to rest if I happened to catch COVID.

“Three days.” That was the target I set, probably based on what I know about my own body.

Other than physically breaking both a leg and an arm—which took two months of recovery—very few illnesses have affected my concentration for more than three days. As long as I can still focus, I can basically work. The other symptoms do not matter much even if they remain, so I chose three days.

That does not mean I will never update the diary again. Once I return to work mode, though, life becomes rather boring XD: nonstop work and not much entertainment, so a daily update would not be very interesting.

Maybe I will save things up and post a one-off update once something interesting happens? At the very least, I will absolutely write about the enormous meal I plan to have after isolation.

So what does “rest” actually look like for me?

No tasks on the to-do list, no forcing myself to study for the national exam, permission to draw and code, and maybe some silly videos while I work. Apparently doing absolutely nothing at all is a little difficult in my life XDDDD.

I slept fairly well last night and could finally sleep for longer. (Why do I sound like a mother describing a baby?) My throat still hurt a little. It was no longer the knife-like pain from before, but swallowing was still pretty uncomfortable.

Because this was a rest day—and because I stayed up a little late updating the website last night—I let myself sleep in. I woke sometime after eight.

I casually considered what I particularly wanted to do today: perhaps watch a first-stage civil-procedure review and outline an article I wanted to write later about Put Up or Shut Up.

So I watched the archived YouTube stream of Put Up or Shut Up, along with the mentors’ and host’s post-show review, while also reading my civil-procedure notes.

After testing things out for a while, I felt capable of returning to this level of efficiency and this working style. That meant I could probably resume work properly the next day.

Those two wonderfully easy days of light rest also left me highly focused and not sleepy at all.

I did not even feel sleepy while reading civil procedure. That is genuinely impressive, okay? Civil procedure is so boring!

I am not sure whether this is a matter of preferring one school of thought. My system follows Attorney Chiao, while my problem-solving approach comes from Yi-Wei, so I could never quite fit Li Su’s first-stage review into that framework. Anyway, that is beside the point.

I do not think that had anything to do with brain fog... probably.

At ten in the morning, I received a call from the Neihu District Office. They were checking whether I had filled in the form from the text-message link, whether I had received my isolation notice, and whether I was physically doing all right and still holding up.

2022 diary note: the isolation notice, phone follow-up, and rapid-test decisions here describe my experience at the time. They are not present-day COVID care or reporting instructions; consult current Taiwan CDC and medical guidance.

I gave a round of mm-hm and uh-huh answers, and then the call ended.

Wait—is this a little like the routine welfare calls soldiers receive while they are on leave? (Is “welfare call” even the right phrase?)

My physical condition was worse in the morning. My throat still hurt quite a bit, I could barely speak, and I coughed occasionally—which made my throat hurt, because of course the two came as a package 555. At least the fever was gone. My regular temperature checks stayed around 36°C.

At lunchtime I supported the breakfast shop again. This time I wanted to test how much food my body could tolerate, so I chose a satay-noodle set with a croquette and a large iced black tea.

What? You think I did not care at all about what I should or should not eat?

Correct.

Having COVID was miserable enough. Worrying about what I could and could not eat would have been far too painful! Obviously I was going to eat everything!

What if my throat became truly unbearable?

Power through it! Later, though, I mostly relied on pudding and aiyu jelly. Eating something cold and smooth helped ease the discomfort XD.

In the afternoon I switched on light-work mode. I did not force myself to reach any particular milestone, but I still wanted to move forward slowly.

Revisiting Put Up or Shut Up in the name of gathering article material turned out to be excellent rest too.

In the evening I ordered delivery again: wonton soup and zhajiang noodles—the meal I had mistakenly blamed as the cause of my acid reflux after eating it before.

Turns out I had completely wronged that innocent meal!

By evening, the throat pain had improved dramatically. I still could not speak properly and continued to cough a little, but the phlegm had clearly eased as well.

The larger problem was that part of my job depends on speaking. I hoped my normal voice would return by Saturday; otherwise, Sunday’s online class was going to explode Orz.

Overall, I first felt genuinely ill on Monday morning. By the evening of Wednesday the 15th, it had taken about three days to get mostly through it, and I felt roughly 70% back to normal.

The remaining symptoms were mainly a sore throat that kept me from speaking properly, along with occasional coughing and sneezing. Neither affected my work efficiency; they felt more like a mild ordinary cold.

After drinking NRICM101, I felt that my condition was improving. I cannot tell whether that change came from the medicine, rest, vaccination, or the illness running its course; this is just what the day felt like to me.

Still, I wondered whether my quick recovery came not only from my supposedly unusual constitution, but also from the powerful buff of the AAM vaccine combination—perhaps that was why I could return to a normal working state in only three days.

What, did I take another rapid test? No. I would test once I actually needed to leave isolation and go outside. Do not waste rapid tests RRRR.

Anyway, that is about it. Rest is over—work, here I come!