Tag: Paxlovid

Rolling Isolation

I tested positive for the Covid virus about 72 hours ago. I still have no symptoms other than those from my seasonal allergies. It seems that every lawn crew around is spreading shredded bark mulch which causes my sinuses much distress. I found out the hard way by spreading it in my garden years ago. A good snout-ful makes me seriously sick. I am also allergic to tree pollen, specifically pine and cedar. It’s a bit ironic that my childhood home was down the street from Pine Tree Lane and that I moved to Mount Vernon which is full of cedar trees.

In any case, I have been vaccinated five times, have had Covid once already (a very mild case), and I am taking Paxlovid. I must have antibodies out the wazoo.

Other than the allergies, I feel fine. So I took The Mule for a ride to DC to take in the cherry blossoms on Wednesday. It was a day before full peak bloom and the Tidal Basin area was packed. I had masked up on the Virginia side of the river and was otherwise careful to hold my breath whenever I passed or was passed by someone on the trail.

Even though I was masked I avoided the throngs at the Tidal Basin, surfed through the cars in East Potomac Park and made my way to Hains Point which had surprisingly few people. After returning to the Tidal Basin area I made my way away from the crowds to the National Mall. On the north side of the mall, with fewer people around, I rode west to the Lincoln Memorial and then home. A 36 1/2 mile jaunt. Not bad for having a supposedly deadly disease.

For what it’s worth the best time to see the blossoms at the Tidal Basin is at sunrise when there are few people and slanting rays bouncing off the blooms and the water. Of course, the best way to get there is by bike. I am not just saying this because I ride. The area becomes an epic car sewer as the day progresses. (Walk around the basin (never ride on the sidewalk.)

Yesterday I rode to the Kenwood neighborhood of Bethesda, Maryland. All the streets in this stately old slice of suburban heaven are lined with cherry trees, mostly quite ancient, in full bloom. WOW. It is really much nicer than the Tidal Basin. There were very few cars and just some folks rolling and strolling beneath the canopy of white. It is incredibly peaceful and beautiful. It is easily accessible off the Capital Crescent Trail which runs from Bethesda Row to the Georgetown waterfront on the Potomac River. (Turn off on Dorsey Road, midway between River Road and Bethesda Row.)

After my half hour of zen, I stopped for a snack along the Capital Crescent Trail, once again away from others. Then I rode the trails home. Another 46 1/2 miles in the books on The Mule.

The only down side to the day was the lousy shifting on The Mule, caused most likely by stretching shifter cables. I will deal with this in a day or two.

On the way home I received a text that my wife’s car battery had died. When I got home I tried a few tricks to get it started. I scraped some corrosion off the battery’s negative pole. Then I turned off all the accessories in the car. I turned the key in the ignition. Click. No luck. Dead battery.

This morning instead of riding to Friday Coffee Club, I jumped the battery using my car. It’s a bit of a hassle getting the cars to line up and to figure out the proper positioning of the cables. I took off my mask to read the instructions on the cables. The instructions were ambiguous. As I was futzing around with the cables my helpful neighbor Ted saw me struggling an came over to help, looking up the proper procedure on his phone. He then walked me through it standing a few feet away, the cars awkwardly angled between us.

Success. Then the perils of being asymptomatic struck. I went to thank Ted and as I shook his hand I suddenly realized “Oh no. I have Covid.” Derp. He went inside his house to wash his hands. Being outdoors I doubt I infected him but it was a reminded that I need to be more careful.

We next drove to the mechanic. I had the windows in my car open and my wife drove her car. I masked and stayed outside, well away from the mechanic. I drove my wife home, she being masked and recently recovered from Covid herself.

This illness would be a lot easier to navigate if I was actually, well, ill.

I contacted my bike mechanic to let them know I won’t be picking my bike up until late next week.

According to the CDC I should be in the clear by Sunday and non-infectious by next Friday or Saturday.

Cherry trees at peak in Kenwood
Kenwood – note the temporary pink no-parking signs.

Covid tag

About ten days ago, my wife arrived home after a 13-hour drive with her octogenarian mother. The next day my wife became sick and tested positive for Covid. My daughter was home from law school for spring break. We all masked up and kept our distance.

After some Paxlovid and four or five days of misery, my wife recovered and tested negative, as did the rest of us. How the heck my mother in law tested negative after being in a car that long with my wife is a mystery. (My negative test result came before I went to Friday Coffee Club, which was held outdoors so no worries for the caffeine crew.)

Crisis passed, right?

Tomorrow I was planning on driving my mother in law home to Indiana. Despite having nothing but allergy symptoms, I took a Covid test just to be sure.

I tested positive.

Get out of here! So I tested again using a different type of test kit.

I tested positive.

The only symptoms I have are allergy symptoms. The cedar tree outside my window is orange, covered in pollen. I have been sniffling and sneezing and had itchy eyes for a week or so. Otherwise I feel completely fine.

This is my second bout of Covid. The last one was at the end of July when I returned from my 2019 bike tour. I took Paxlovid and had a mild case. I was vaccinated for the fifth time last October.

Of all the people in our household this week I was the one that did the most distancing and mask-wearing. And I got the damned disease again. No wonder the medical profession has had such a hard time dealing with this virus. It makes no sense.

I will be a good boy and take it easy. I’ll wear a mask. I’ll avoid other people. I’ll eat some chicken soup.

Once in my college years my neighbor and I came down with the flu. After three days of feeling wretched we decided to through caution to the wind and drink some single malt Scotch. The next day we were both fully recovered.

I bought some Guinness for St. Patrick’s Day and never got around to drinking any. I wonder if it has anti-viral properties. In the interest of science I will investigate.

Top Ten for 2022

This year turned out to be a relief, mostly a relief from the pandemic. It was also rather uneventful.

  1. The year began with the receipt of paperwork making me an Irish citizen. I immediately sent away for a passport which arrived in early May. I don’t really need a second passport but it is my understanding that it’s good for a discount at the Guinness brewery in Baltimore.
  2. January brought a whopper of a snowstorm, the first in many years. The magnificent maple tree next door split near its base and landed an impressive tree chunk inches from Mrs. Rootchopper’s car. A few weeks later, the neighbors had the tree removed. We missed its blazing colors this fall. On the plus side, we now have a sunny kitchen.
  3. We travelled to St. Charles, Missouri to attend my niece Irene’s wedding. After the wedding the bridal party came down with Covid. We were spared. For the next two months I managed to avoid the virus despite travelling among the great unmasked out West. Alas, my luck ran out when I got back home. I came down with Covid and had strange symptoms. My ears were stuffed up for a week. Otherwise, I had a very mild case and, with the help of four Pfizer vaccinations and Paxlovid, I recovered in a few days.
  4. After a two-year hiatus thanks to the pandemic, I launched on another bike tour. This one began in St. Charles, Missouri and ended nearly 3,500 miles later in Portland, Oregon. The first half was solo and included an epic day fighting 50-mile per hour crosswinds in Kansas. In Canon City, Colorado I hooked up with Corey and Mark, whom I met on my 2019 bike tour, for the second half. The highlight of the trip was the final mountain climb up and over McKenzie Pass in Oregon. Definitely one of the top ten rides of my life. I managed to intercept Keith Adams, whom I met on my first 50 States Ride, in Eastern Oregon (or maybe western Idaho, it’s all a blur). Keith was riding from Bend, OR to Cody, WY. A few days later I met up with Rachel Cannon, another 50 States posse alum, and consumed talk, nachos, and beer in Redmond, OR.
  5. When I got home from my bike tour, I found that all my pants fell off whenever I put them on. My first physical in three or four years confirmed that my weight had dropped over 20 pounds on the trip. Thankfully, I have some stretchy belts to keep me from flashing the neighbors.
  6. My physical included some blood work results that were rather upsetting. I started eating more sensibly, avoiding junk food, eating less red meat, and such. I also started eating almonds and Brazil nuts which are supposed to lower cholesterol. My cholesterol fell from the 270s to the 220s in three months. My weight also fell another eight pounds. Dang. In retrospect, having all my slacks altered in the spring was not such a great idea.
  7. For the 14th time, I gathered a posse of friends old and new and rode the 50 States Ride in DC in September. We had a stellar time and I only fell once. (I got a boo boo on my elbow.)
  8. Most of the posse returned for the Cider Ride in November, during which I learned that celery is a bodacious dentrifice. This info will come in handy whenever I need to brush my teeth at the farmer’s market,
  9. Earlier this year I couldn’t walk a half mile without back pain. At the end of the bike tour, I needed to walk around Portland and found that I could walk a mile without pain. Alas, schlepping my baggage through National Airport brought the pain back. After much hemming and hawing, I decided that rather than have surgery, I’ll live with the pain and accept that I am now officially old.
  10. Tickets to Washington Nationals baseball games were dirt cheap. This had something to do with them trading away Juan Soto, their last star player, and others, and ending the year with the worst record in baseball. On the plus side, we attended a minor league game at The Dunk, Dunkin’ Donuts Park in Hartford.
  11. I managed to ride 11,355 miles, my fifth 10,000-mile year in a row.

Bike Tour 2022 – Update and Pictures

My Covid symptoms are milder by the day. I am taking Paxlovid and staying indoors which has given me plenty of time to get most of my tour business done. (I still need to make my Cycleblaze journal but that will take a few days.) I expect to be released – masked for the first five days – on Saturday as long as I have no symptoms. Right now my worst symptoms (minor though they are) seem to be side effects of the Paxlovid.

While I’ve been lolling about I’ve read two books, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, a memoir/novel about a platoon of soldiers in Vietnam. It won a Pulitzer Prize back in the early 90s. I bought it more or less on impulse after reading a couple of pages. It is extraordinarily well written. Today, I finished Larry McMurtry’s first novel, Horseman, Pass By about a family in turmoil in north Texas in the 1950s. It was the basis for the movie, Hud. I liked it a lot as well.

Today, I went through my pictures from the trip. Some were uploaded to this blog. Others were put on Instagram or sent to friends. I tried to find all of them but I am sure I missed a few shots trails and roads and rocks. I sorted them by date so you can take a quick 3,449 mile bike trip across the country by accessing my Bike Tour 2022 album on Flickr.