Mild

Mild. Even the word sounds gentle, with its soft consonants. Unthreatening. Covid would be mild for most. I hung on to the word. Reassuring, a comfort blanket. Mild is a sniffly cold, a sore tummy, a light haze of headache. That sort of thing.

Don't be fooled. What started out as mild Covid-19 back in March soon escalated for me. Thankfully – and I am so thankful for this – not to hospital admission level. More of that in another post. But Covid mild is not in the same league as even a seasonal flu.

Does mild cover an illness that lasts 102 days – and counting? Having to crawl along the floor to get water because I was too weak to stand? A heart pounding as if I'd been running a 10K, but all I'd done was lie down and breathe? Hallucinations, rashes, blinding headaches, pain all over my body, memory loss, days of sleeping for 12 hours? 

It seems that coronavirus is not simply either mild or severe in the sense that the initial public messaging suggested. There's a version somewhere in-between that causes debilitating symptoms that drag on and on. I have no idea why, nor is there any official medical guidance yet. The government has been slow to address this issue.

Mild, this illness is not. Mysterious, that's the only certainty I have.