The CLL Society COVID-19 Action Plan is brilliant!
I’ve kept my filled-out copy of the COVID-19 Action Plan pinned to my home office bulletin board for the past couple of years. It seemed superfluous since I have a very responsive oncologist who is a CLL expert.
Then last month, after all my years of caution, I caught COVID-19 on a camping trip with friends. The fever hit me fast, and I was really out of it. I was wandering around like a zombie, not knowing what to do with myself. My doctor was on a long flight and didn’t return my call for several hours.
Having the Action Plan ready helped me to act in my best interest. I pulled it off the bulletin board and started going through the steps. When I first downloaded the pages of the plan such a long time ago, I had filled out the planning checklist and had prepared the supplies and documents on the checklist. In addition, I used the backside of one of the pages to make a chart of pain, temperature, and oxygen level so I could let my doctor know the details of my condition. When you have a fever, time loses meaning. When you are very sick, you want to hold still, and you definitely don’t want to move or think. The Action Plan helps you put one foot in front of the other while you are sick. A written plan is wise to have for any illness! I want to add that my husband, who is not immuno-deficient, also had COVID-19 and couldn’t think any better than I could, so the plan worked for both of us.
When my doctor called, he urged me to take the Paxlovid I already had in my “travel kit,” which contains Tamiflu, Paxlovid, and Z-pak. More preparation I was glad I had done.
Luckily, the variant I had wasn’t too rough to get through, but I did rebound from the Paxolvid two days after testing negative on a home test. My doctor set me up with Remdesivir as my fever persisted for several days. By the time I got the Remdesivir a couple of days later, I was already on the mend without fever or symptoms, but I went ahead with five days of treatment to be sure.
Who knows what future variants will be like. I’m keeping my Action Plan handy!
I definitely recommend downloading CLL Society’s COVID-19 Action Plan from the website, filling everything out, and pulling everything on the checklist together. It’s comforting, and without it, I would have been just one more zombie in the apocalypse!
Thanks for everything you do, CLL Society!
Melissa Messer
CLL patient
