I am not generally a superstitious person but I've always had a thing about the number 17.
Insofar as there is a "logic" to this, when I was aged 17, my grandfather, uncle and father all died and since then it is a number I have tried to avoid. As a much younger man, it held a particular terror when I played cricket. Indeed I was once run out trying for an eighteenth run in an attempt not to be stuck on 17!
Later, I have always tried to avoid seats or rows numbered 17, or planning events for the 17th and, when I merged my legal practice a few years back, I had a certain apprehension about doing this in......2017.
Nonsense! I hear you say.
Except that when I woke up on the 17th of October I was feeling pretty rough. I'd been fine the day before, had run a trial and then had my usual Friday curry and bottle of wine. The wine had tasted a bit odd but beyond that an ordinary day.
But the next morning I woke up all aches and pains and with a bit of a sore head. I thought it was perhaps the wine. I had no temperature or cough or gastrointestinal symptoms. Paracetamol made things a bit better but I was seized with an extreme lethargy which didn't lift all day. Most strangely, I had absolutely no appetite. At about 3pm I realised I hadn't eaten, so I made myself a roll and sausage but, after a few bites, I had no inclination to finish it. Later I had half a fish supper in a similar spirit. I went to bed early thinking I'd probably be fine the next day. As indeed I was a bit, so much so that Andi and I went out shopping for various items needed for our current home improvements. But I remained really tired and, again, up for little of the roast pork dinner one of Andi's boys had cooked.
On Monday, I worked from home. As is quite easy and common at the moment. Had the working world been "normal" I don't think I would have stayed off, particularly as, had things been normal, that would have involved cancelling client appointments.
On Tuesday however I developed a persistent cough and the suspicion what might be wrong became a bit more than that. This is only anecdotal but I can't find any fault with what happened next. First thing Wednesday, I signed up on the website for a test. It was briefly down but for no more than ten minutes. I was directed to Coatbridge that lunchtime, provided the swabs required and was told I'd probably get the result the next day as indeed I did. I had a text when I first picked up the phone the next morning. I was positive for Coronavirus. Within 24 hours so were also confirmed Andi and my stepson Crawford, Sunday's cook. At lunchtime on Thursday I was phoned by the contact tracers and dealt with them in ten minutes.
We're are all fine, although I remain very tired and lethargic. Yesterday I slept until one in the afternoon and again until noon today. Even when awake I have no inclination to any great physical or mental activity. Normally if I was lying in bed ill I would read something and/or listen to the radio. Not this time. I still have little appetite although its clearer now that's because my taste is affected. Even if I wasn't required to isolate I wouldn't be well enough to go to my work.
But, insofar as I understand matters, if I was going to get worse then that would be happening by now. And I am not.
No idea how I got it. I've only been in the house or the office for the last week and nobody else in the office is ill. I had one face to face client meeting but they are fine.
So that's my story.
Except that I'd say that this has brought home to me, much more even than seven months of hugely disrupted living, that this is a real thing. And it is not going away.
