'Health is wealth.'

I'm back almost 100%.

The first day I felt sick was Monday last week, June 24. I had a fever, I guess. But the telltale sign was that my body ached (just like last fall when I first got COVID-19).

On the positive side, my body did not hurt as much as it did the first time I got COVID-19. Nonetheless, I did not want to move. I lay all day Monday and Tuesday. I knew I had a home test kit somewhere, but I was too sick to look for it.

The first time I let someone know I was sick was my sister on Tuesday because she asked me to visit our mom, and I said I could not because I felt bad. My dad called that night to ask me to go to the emergency room.

So the next day, Wednesday, I went to Kaiser Vallejo ER. The emergency room was packed. But soon after the ER clerk checked me in, she asked me to go inside one of the rooms for the triage. Soon after that, I got a room and spoke to the ER doctor. He said I'd be given a COVID test, and I would get a call from home or I can check online.

Within two hours after I got home from the hospital ER, that same doctor called my cell to let me know I was COVID positive. He would prescribe Paxlovid, which I could pick up from the discharge pharmacy.

Thank goodness for Paxlovid, but I actually felt so much better on Wednesday (without any medication) than on Monday. That let me know the COVID variant I got was less lethal than the one I got last year (and that the vaccinations I had gotten helped).