Guess who tested positive for COVID recently?  This girl, that’s who.  Surprisingly, my experience was not too horrible, but how did I manage that?  Let’s start at the beginning.

An Ounce of COVID Prevention

As with any virus out there, prevention is key.  I wrote an article about all the things you can do to avoid illness.  The CDC and WHO have all the tips on what to do to protect yourself from COVID.

I did it all, y’all.  Masked up in public, washed/sanitized my hands, and did all of the things.  Dangit, I’ve seldom left my house since this all started.  I’ve traveled out of state by car and avoided it.  I’ve been to and had small gatherings and avoided it.  Mr. Graft Diaries had it and I avoided it.

So what the heck happened then?

Nothing is 100%

Like many things pre-transplant (HE for example), you can do everything right and still get sick.  And we are immunocompromised which gives us that extra whammy of vulnerability.

In my case, I had been battling a cold for a couple of weeks.  It’s that time of year when everyone and their dog gets a cold, so it was no surprise.  Despite my diligence when going out in public, I don’t live in a bubble.  Mr. Graft Diaries and my son both work out of the house and live here.  My daughter goes to school and is here too.  So, I got a minor head cold.  And I took an at-home test at that point to be sure it was nothing else.  Nope.  Negative.

Anyone who is post-transplant can attest that, for us, it is a not-so-common cold.  What your average person deals with for a few days, can stick around for a few weeks with us.  I was creeping up on the second week of my cold and one day I just felt worse.

The Dreaded Positive COVID Test

I was sitting on the couch and thought, “man, I’m so sore.”   We’d had a storm blow through the day before, and I fell on some ice.  That’s a whole other story.  It involved a not-so-graceful splits move with one foot in the house and one at the bottom of our backdoor steps.  I was pretty banged up (in fact, I’m still sporting a bruise from it) and initially chalked up my soreness to that.

A couple of hours later I determined it was not a pulled muscle, but all over achiness and my skin hurt.  Do you know that feeling?  When it hurts to touch your skin?  Mr. Graft Diaries calls it, “the oogies.”  I also started to run a very low-grade fever (we’re talking 99.5 here).

So I decided to take an at-home test.  You know, to be safe.  I waited the required 15 minutes for the results and there it was.  I was positive.  I looked at the directions again and realized I had not followed the instructions very well so I decided to take it again.  Maybe there was a tiny bit of denial going on there too.  Positive test number two.  Shoot.  I called Mr. Graft Diaries and my son to let them know since they were both exposed.

Monoclonal Antibodies

I notified the state of my positive result and got in touch with my transplant team.  My team suggested I call their monoclonal antibodies hotline.  I called and a few minutes later I had an appointment scheduled for treatment.

So what are monoclonal antibodies?  I am not a scientist or a doctor, but here is my basic (uh, very basic) understanding.  A lab creates a molecule designed to copy and boost the body’s natural immune response to a virus.  A protein is taken from a particular virus and exposed to a white blood cell which then clones.  These clones mass-produce antibodies to target that particular virus.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has spikey proteins on its surface.  This allows it to attach and enter the body’s cells with ease.  The monoclonal antibodies bind to this spikey surface to prevent it from entering the cells.

COVID Treatment

The day after my positive result I traveled to the hospital for my treatment.  Because I was COVID positive, I had to enter through the back door.  Like, around the outside of the building and past the generators back.  Way back.  There, a nurse greeted me wearing full precautions.  Mask, gloves, gown, the whole bit.  After confirming my information, she escorted me to the treatment center.

I have received outpatient IV treatment before for rejection and so I expected a large room with IV stations.  Although, in retrospect, I don’t know why I would expect that.  It’s COVID, so having people all in one room seems a little risky.  What was there was more like a post-surgical recovery area.  A large nurse’s station surrounded by individual rooms.   Each room had only one treatment chair, IV, and a small tray for medical tools.

The whole process took a little over an hour and a half.  A simple IV insertion and infusion of the antibodies followed by some saline.  There was an hour of observation after the infusion and that was it.

Results

Later that evening, I spiked a fever of 101 and generally felt crummy.  I had trouble getting comfortable and I was achy all over.  By the next morning, my fever had subsided.

Throughout the entire 10 days from the positive test, the evening after my infusion was the worst.  Even though I am fatigued regularly, that period of time was more intense.  I also had a very tight chest particularly toward the end of the day.  Other than the low-grade fever on the first day and the higher fever on day two, I never spiked a fever again.  The achiness and tight chest subsided by the end of the 10 day period and I now feel pretty normal.

What If?

Despite the controversy surrounding the vaccine, I follow scientific evidence.  So, I received my COVID vaccines and my booster as soon as they were available to me.

The vaccines did not prevent me from contracting the virus.  But I believe that if it were not for the vaccines and the monoclonal antibody treatment, things could have been much worse for me.

Throughout my life, whenever I have contracted a virus or bacterial infection, I have had a very negative response.  I run a high fever (103 degrees or higher) and have the more serious of symptoms for any illness.  And that was before the days of immunosuppression.

There’s no possible way to know what would have happened without the vaccine and treatment.  I know that even a cold or stomach virus can knock me down for weeks.  So the fact that I experienced only mild symptoms after contracting a virus that has killed millions is a pretty strong argument for both.

Pandemic Paranoia

Since COVID hit the US, I have been on high alert.  Initially, as data was still limited, I erred on the side of (probably a little extreme) caution.  As time has gone on, I have relaxed more and taken precautions, but have still tried to live a relatively normal life.

As transplant recipients, any illness can take a big toll on our bodies.  Throw a deadly pandemic in the mix and the anxiety and concern could reach all-time highs.  There are only so many things we can do as individuals to protect ourselves.  But because we are immunosuppressed, we have to pick up the slack for others around us too.  This is something we have become accustomed to even before transplant.  Avoiding others when they are sick is part of what is normal for us.

High levels of anxiety aren’t going to be of any use to us though.  Taking the recommended precautions for the general public with an extra layer for ourselves is all we can do.  What that extra precaution looks like will differ for each person, but it is part of our normal.

If there is one thing we can all appreciate as transplant recipients it’s the value of every day we’re alive.  We’ve teetered on the line of mortality and have prioritized our lives accordingly.

I am grateful for all the advances in medicine and the treatments and vaccines available for COVID.  They allow me to live my life.  Still with caution, but without so much anxiety and fear.