On Tuesday, December 21 Andy noticed his throat was scratchy. Wednesday morning he woke up and knew at once he was definitely coming down with something, so shortly after 9 o’clock we walked a few blocks to a pop-up COVID testing site on Halsted. There was already a line but it moved pretty quickly, and within 45 minutes both of us had gotten a rapid test and a PCR test. Our rapid tests both came back negative. We were told the PCR test results would be ready in 2-3 days.

By late Thursday, December 23, Andy was feeling better. I still had no symptoms. We talked things over for quite a bit and finally decided to go ahead and host Andy’s father and our friend Chris for Christmas dinner. Which we did. It was a busy day: ferrying Andy’s father to our place on the bus, breakfast, opening gifts, preparing and serving dinner, a board game, dessert, accompanying his father back to his apartment. The afternoon of Christmas Eve I had begun to feel a bit worn down and by Christmas evening I definitely felt rotten. I merely thought that I’d caught Andy’s cold; our rapid results were both negative, and supposedly 80% accurate …

Andy woke up me at 4 o’clock on Sunday, December 26 to tell me he’d gotten an alert on his phone. His test result: positive. My results hadn’t come in. But there was no denying that my symptoms were exactly the same as his had been. A scratchy throat at first, followed by a short spell of chills and fever, a certain tiredness all over, then nasal and chest congestion alongside watery eyes and occasional sneezing.

We immediately isolated ourselves. Not hard to do during the dead week between Christmas and New Year’s. We had plenty of leftovers on hand.

It has now been 7 days since Andy tested positive. He’s nearly back to normal and I’d say I’m about two days behind him. Luckily, neither his father nor our friend Chris have experienced any symptoms. I’ve followed up multiple times with the testing facility, but I still don’t know the results of my PCR test.

I’m very relieved that Andy and I were both double vaccinated, and that we received our booster shots earlier in the month. I can’t imagine how much worst things could have been for us. On Friday night, New Year’s Eve, we plan to order a pizza and binge the original British House of Cards with Ian Richardson. No party for us. But I’ll be happy to celebrate the end of 2021.