I had my COVID booster shot on Monday morning, and everything seemed to go downhill from there. Apparently, I had an hyper immune response to the booster shot, and I spent the entire week feeling absolutely miserable! It started that day with diarrhea, shaking chills followed by burning up and sweating, fitful sleep, and all-over body aches, in addition to the usual intense pain in the injected arm. I expected most of that, as it was like that for me after the second dose.
The next day, I started with a sore throat, continued the all-over body aches, and had a headache. I still had chills, but I wasn’t shaking…I just couldn’t get warm. As time went on, though, the sore throat only got worse. By Wednesday night, my throat hurt so badly that I could barely swallow my own saliva. I was terrified of being stuck so ill over Thanksgiving when nothing would be open, so at about 7 PM, I headed off to the urgent care center that I knew would be closing at 8. I figured that gave me just enough time to be seen and to fill whatever prescriptions I might need before everything shut down for the holiday. I was convinced at this point that I must have strep throat, as I have never had such difficulty swallowing unless it was strep.
The nurse practitioner checked me out while waiting for rapid lab tests for COVID, flu, and strep. She said I had tons of wax in my ears (nothing unusual there), my nose and throat were very red and inflamed, and I had a lot of sinus drainage. But she did not find any swollen lymph nodes, fever, or any other signs of any type of bacterial of viral infection. And while we were chatting, the lab results showed up and indicated I was negative for everything. She concluded that I wasn’t actually sick, but instead, I was having a hyper immune response to the booster shot. She said I’m lucky that my immune system is so reactive and is learning to do the job of defending me against COVID. She said she could give me a steroid shot to get rid of all the inflammation, but it would also suppress that lovely immune response to the booster, which would defeat its purpose. So instead, she gave me Flonase for my nose, which she said contained a steroid that would keep the treatment localized instead of systemic, and she gave me a lidocaine gargling solution to numb my throat so I’d be able to eat my turkey dinner on Thursday. I filled the prescriptions on the way home.
I was thankfully able to eat on Thursday and prepare all the food without fear of infecting anyone with any germs. I was very hoarse that day, but still able to speak and be heard. By Friday, though, it was a different story. The chills and body aches were long gone, but I got up with complete laryngitis. Not a peep was to be heard from me the entire day. All I could get out was a whisper. I did, however, manage to finally finish my Christmas decorations, which I’d attempted to do on Monday before I was stricken so ill.
I looked up how to treat laryngitis, and the Mayo Clinic website said the best remedy was to breathe in steam, drink plenty of fluids to keep the throat moist, and rest the vocal cords. It said whispering was worse than talking. So I was a bump on a log on Friday. I didn’t do any Black Friday shopping at all. That night, we started up the spa outside, and I made a special point to breathe in as much of the steam as possible. I could feel the tightness in my throat beginning to ease. By Saturday morning, my voice had returned!
My husband and I do 6 podcast shows a week. The poor fella got stuck recording most of them without me because I just couldn’t squeak anything out of my raw, irritated throat. I felt bad for him. But we did have one guest on Thanksgiving day…my daughter’s boyfriend…and all of my kids were home long enough for dinner, so that was nice. No one would assemble for a family photo, so I had to snap a quick shot of just the two of us instead.
Despite feeling lousy, I felt very thankful this Thanksgiving. It was so nice to have all of my kids around me as well as an honored guest, and my husband was so sweet to help me manage the cleanup and some help throughout the day. He’s a keeper.
And all the while of feeling so bad, my faithful rescue dog, Pepper, was right by my side taking care of me, as she always does.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! And although I’m still recovering from that booster shot, I’m still thankful I was able to get it. It had been nearly 10 months since my 2nd dose, and it was really making me nervous with the new strains that have emerged and continue to do so.
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