In November, I tested positive for Coronavirus as did my close family. With COVID-19, you do not always feel under the weather, but when you do, it feels worse than the flu. For me I had three not so unique COVID symptoms.

My first symptom was coughing, the most common symptom. It’s not so nice. The coughing I felt when I had the virus reminded me of when I was a child and could not get rid of the croup cough. I have also heard of friends who strangely had older health issues return when they became infected, making it quite possible anything you may have had in the past that has to do with your body could make an unwelcome return. This coughing was violent and came in fits, usually prompted by things like staying up later and talking too much as well as eating cold things.

The second symptom I had was arguably the worst, a lack of taste or smell. At first, I didn’t notice anything because the lack of those senses are much less apparent when they go away gradually. Even when I was over COVID for two and a half weeks, my sense of taste was not exactly strong, and my sense of smell was practically nonexistent. It’s like breathing air in your room; you’re used to all the smells and so you just breath air rather than smell.

The lack of taste was apparent when I bit into a burger with pickles and could not taste it. I just felt the texture as I bit into it. When I taste things, I just recognize the texture and feeling while getting a general sense of what I’m eating. It is like eating a flavored version of the actual item that is identical in texture and volume. Overall, this was my least favorite symptom, because to this day I cannot smell, and doctors say it could take up to three months to regain these senses.

The third symptom I experienced was congestion and a runny nose. It was a pain being congested constantly, and it is one of the reasons I did not notice my lack of smell right off the bat. After all, you cannot smell if you cannot breathe through your nose. The congestion was so bad that when I took the nose swab test to check if I had COVID, I got a nosebleed.

With all that being said, I prefer these symptoms rather than the others commonly associated with COVID: fever, chills, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle aches, head[1]ache, sore throat, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea.

A major misconception around COVID is that if you get it once, you will not get it again. This is not true. Even if you got over it once it can come back and just because you resist it more does not mean the people you infect do.

Overall, COVID-19 is something that will not stop on its own, as we saw during the resurgence over winter break. My advice to ensure your safety is to get tested before going to visit family or friends outside of your immediate bubble.

I didn’t even know I had COVID until my test came back. I thought it was just a cold. Thankfully, I take online school, so it wasn’t much of an issue, but if you end up infecting your family, you may end up regretting it dearly.