The 15 minutes were up and clear as day, there were the two red lines. Damn. After a two year streak, it was official: I tested positive for COVID-19.

Let’s wind back about 72 hours. I had missed school all of Friday to attend Thescon, a yearly event where all the high school theater departments in Montana meet up and put on shows and meet other Thespians. It was great to be back in person after not having one for the 2020-2021 school year for obvious reasons. Now, we were all allowed to be together, but masks were strictly enforced, with some teachers threatening to kick out students seen without masks. All the schools performed shows and I met new people and reconnected with old friends from the other MCPS schools. Our massive banquet was a success and two of Hellgate’s own Thespians were awarded acting scholarships. Saturday was very similar with more shows, but with more fun, including a tongue twister competition, dying in the most over the top and dramatic ways, and an award ceremony for best actors and shows. On Saturday afternoon, everyone went home and that was the end of it.

Sunday morning. I woke up and felt awful. Not that “Uuuggghhh” feeling you get when you stay up too late, but like I was about to vomit. I laid in bed for hours and felt sore. I wasn’t in any of the shows or anything at Thescon, so I shouldn’t have felt sore. I chalked it up to the fact that I was probably just recovering from all the social interaction. After a while, I felt really cold and nothing I did would fix it. I threw on a hoodie and nothing happened. I still was really cold. It was so bad that I was wearing a hoodie, a winter coat, and wool socks all while wrapped underneath my blankets. I was still cold. By this point, it was about midday and I was still feeling sore. I had told my mom who decided I would not be going to school the next day. She went out to get some at home test kits just in case. That afternoon, my first test read negative. I went back to my room and at some point, still wearing all those ridiculous layers, I had fallen asleep. My mom woke me up almost four hours after I went downstairs and took my temperature for the first time. My temperature was 102 degrees and I still felt frigid. She gave me some ibuprofen and I went back to bed. On Monday, I didn’t feel sore anymore. I was still freezing though. I went upstairs and had my temperature taken again and something wasn’t quite right. For some reason, my temperature read 105. A 105 degree fever means you are dying and should go to the Emergency Room. I was fine and sitting at the breakfast table talking to my parents. We checked again and it was back at 102, a perfectly normal, feverish temperature. 24 hours after taking my first test, this test came back positive. I immediately texted everyone I hung out with the most that weekend and as it turned out, out of everyone I texted, I was the only one to get COVID.

The week I was in quarantine was not enjoyable. I’d battle between being cold, hot, in pain, tired, and sometimes, perfectly fine for about an hour or two. On Wednesday, I stopped feeling cold and moved onto having a sore throat, making eating or drinking painful. That carried over to Thursday, which also gave me a terrible cough that scratched my throat as well. Other than that, I felt healthy. In fact, I was pretty much back to normal health. My temperature had come down to reasonable levels, around 99 degrees. The whole “ordeal” was over by Saturday, about a week after when I theoretically could have gotten COVID during Thescon. 

However, me being sick didn’t stop anything. In fact, it complicated a bunch of aspects of my life. For example, during rehearsals for the play, I could not attend in person and our stage managers would set up a Zoom for myself and anyone else who missed that day of rehearsal. I would just watch as my friends ran blocking and choreographed dances to our songs. Another awful way it messed with my life was in my own classes. My physical theater group had to cut my part of our show because I would be gone when they would perform the final piece. The worst part was seeing what it would do to my grades. Missing a week’s worth of material is bad enough, but being gone only a week into the second semester on top of missing the assignments given while I was sick was enough to drag my grades to 0% in some classes. I’ve since raised those grades up to around 60-70%, which isn’t great, but I’m satisfied with that. That cough I mentioned earlier is supposed to last for a few weeks at least, but is not contagious. I did not lose my smell or taste, either. Having COVID wasn’t a pleasant experience, however making sure you wear your mask and social distancing should prevent you from going through a similar experience.