Do I Have Covid-19?

2020-04-05 UPDATE (the next day): Today, I reached bowel titration on the second round of ascorbic acid, meaning my body tolerated only 5g. Also, my resting heart rate is back to normal, and my body temperature is back down to my lizard-like 96.4 degrees. In the words of Batman: “BAM! KAPOW!” Down goes whatever my body was fighting yesterday.

This being Saturday, I figured I would try the Vitamin C to bowel titration method that I described two posts ago in “Covid-19 and Vitamin C“. Today, my body tolerated 20g— four rounds of 1-teaspoon servings of ascorbic acid on the hour — without reaching bowel titration; titration tripped over on the fifth round. What this means is: I must be sick.

Over the past three weeks, I had established 10g of ascorbic acid per day (two rounds) as my “healthy baseline”. Three rounds would cause bowel titration. I’ve done this test 3-5 times over the past month, so this 10g baseline is quite firm for me. Doubling that baseline today is quite meaningful. It means I’m sick.

But sick with what? I literally have no symptoms — certainly none of the covid-19 symptoms: neither cough nor fever nor shortness of breath, and certainly no aches or fatigue. Today, as well as every day during this shelter at home period, I knocked out > 10,000 steps on my Fitbit, walking around our land doing certain physical work.

We live in a clearing within the vast forested mountains that form the south-western border of Silicon Valley. Our property spans five acres, three of which are a mow-able rolling meadow; two are a steep forest. Just walking around our land provides decent exercise.

Today, we’re having a late Spring rainy day. Given we’re near the end of the California “firewood burning season”, I took our chainsaw to our forest edge, and in the rain, cut some rounds from a dead oak, split the rounds, pushed the wheelbarrow of firewood up our hill to the house, and carried in the seasoned firewood for burning in our fireplace.

This is reasonably vigorous work that I would not even think of doing, or have any appetite for, if I was feeling ill.

In contrast, I felt energetic today, and was even excited to spot the next suspended dead oak tree in our forest that I’ll be cutting and processing tomorrow or Monday. (Dead trees and branches hanging in air like in the picture, as opposed to lying flat on the ground, keeps them from rotting.)

But 20g? I must be sick. This conclusion arises from the theory of Dr. Cathcart. Corroborating this conclusion is the change in my resting heart rate. The chart at the top of this post shows my resting heart rate over the past year. The chart reveals a clear bump of 2 beats per minute in the first four days of April, compared with the steady six months that just passed. This clear bump in resting heart rate certainly suggests that my body is fighting something.

A couple of nights ago, I awoke in the middle of the night with some kind of nasal congestion. The congestion manifested only when I lay on my side, not on my back or stomach. But by morning, it had cleared up and it hasn’t returned. But that minor, unusual sleeping discomfort of a couple of nights ago caught my attention.

What about my body temperature? I took a reading midday today and it was 97.1 degrees. This was 0.8 degrees higher than my lizard-like reading of 96.3 degrees last week. But anyway you slice it, I’m nowhere close to having a fever.

But still, 20g? My wife suggested that perhaps my body was fighting seasonal allergies. But I’ve never had seasonal allergies.

Maybe I’ve picked something up in the all the land work I’ve been doing during these pandemic days. I demo-ed our existing garden, flattened the area, and am preparing to set up 200 square feet of raised garden beds.

For the wood for the raised beds, I’m using lumber that we’d been storing in a now derelict tent for the 15 past years. This is lumber we took out of our house when we renovated it back in 2005. This is Douglas fir lumber that is at least 50 years old (35 years in the house as framing; 15 years in the tent). It is dry, hard, and well-suited for raised beds — especially after we treat it with boiled linseed oil to slow its decay.

I pulled this wood out of our derelict storage tent. That place was an absolute mess. Rat poop and many years of rat nests were everywhere.

It has taken a couple of weeks to get the tent into the state it is in the image below. The lumber you see in the above image and also the lumber covered by a tarp in the garden area came from the right side of the tent which is now bare ground. In another week or two, there will be nothing left where the tent is standing now — just bare ground.

One of the places the tent materials will go (other than the trash or recycling bin) is our derelict pool house. This is another rat-infested area of our land where I’ve been spending my time these past few weeks. Here, I’ve been working on clearing space within the shelves on the back wall to receive building materials that I will relocate from the derelict storage tent.

We installed those back shelves a few years ago. In doing so, we removed an old booze bar that the previous owner had installed in that place. In fact, the sunny area on the right side of the pool house image leads to a former sauna. Boy, the previous owner must thrown some fun parties here. But now it’s just the rats, skunks, and other forest creatures having their fun with this place.

Is it possible that in stirring up the rat-infested dirt and materials in these two places that I’ve ingested some foul air that my body is now fighting off?

Maybe. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time that my body has had to fight off an infection it received from our land.

But then again, maybe the 20g does mean that I do, in fact, have covid-19. But perhaps my healthy body plus the health protocol that I’ve been following is keeping any symptoms of illness at bay. That protocol is the following: on a daily basis, 5-10g of ascorbic acid, Quercetin, Stinging Nettle tea, and periodically, 110-degree 30-minute steam showers and 10,000 IU of Vitamin D.

Now, my wife speculates that I might have brought home covid-19 on my return flight from Europe to San Francisco way back on November 18. Immediately upon returning home from that trip (to Greece), I was ill for a day, requiring throat lozenges, Theraflu, steam showers, and copious sleep to recover. Although I was feeling better by the next day, my wife recalls that she felt very ill for the next 5-7 days.

November 18, 2019 is right round the time experts believe the first Wuhan covid-19 cases emerged. Did an infected traveler from Wuhan fly through Munich to San Francisco on the same flight as me on that day?

As you can guess, I’m full of questions. But none of them are pressing. Cause I ain’t feeling sick. And, given what I wrote above, I don’t expect to.

20g or no 20g.