Well, it was bound to happen. Last week in my family, we all agreed that given how communicable the omicron variant of Covid is, we should just accept that it is unavoidable at this point. We know too many people who have been vaxxed, boosted, and who take precautions, but who are getting it anyway. And now, I’m one of them. So, I went about two years of this pandemic without getting sick, and when I did get sick, I acquired the least serious version of it. I’ll call that a win.

Still … not gonna lie, this week has been a beatdown with this stuff. Since childhood, respiratory viruses hit me especially hard. Omicron was no exception. I believe people when they say it was like a minor cold for them. For me, it’s been like a major case of bronchitis, verging on the flu. It started like a head cold on Monday, but quickly moved into my throat, which has been on fire all week. I’ve almost entirely lost my voice. It’s intermittently hard to get warm. I sleep a lot. Some brain fog. It really does seem to be true, though, that the omicron variant doesn’t get into the lungs — and thank God for that! I do want to emphasize, though, that for me at least, omicron has been a harder thing to deal with than I expected from other people’s descriptions. This almost certainly has to do with my particular susceptibility to respiratory problems, as well as a weakened immune system. In my family, we figured from the beginning of this that if Dad got Covid, it was going to hit him hardest of us all. So far, nobody else in my family has it, but I am hopeful that it will be mild for them. Milder than it has been for me.

I was supposed to catch a plane later this morning for Wichita, for the Eighth Day Institute conference, one of my favorite annual events. Obviously that’s off. If I get my voice back, we might try to Zoom me in to give my talk, but it’s not the same thing. So many friends I’ll miss seeing. These last two years sure have been hard on us all, haven’t they?