Hunting season never seemed so far out of reach: an outdoors writer, dealing with COVID-19

It seems like it’s been forever since we started this whole COVID-19 fear search, but I’d managed to avoid it for three years.

I’d managed to avoid it until three weeks ago, anyway. That’s when I woke up one morning with a scratchy throat and an annoying cough. I told Rana I thought it was an allergic reaction to early cedar pollen, but she wasn’t buying that. She put me down with a testing kit and told me to make sure.

I had been through a similar scare back in September when Camp Verde Ranch worker Pancho Prado reported testing positive the night before. I’d been through this several times with pretty much everybody on the ranch, but I’d missed every time.

This time, though, we had ridden around in the truck together during one of our annual night census runs through the ranch. Rana, who has serious asthma and a tendency toward pneumonia with any respiratory ailment, told me to hit the drugstores to buy up as many COVID-19 tests as I could.

Leggett:Bream fishing with my grandfather among some of my favorite memories

I bought out a Walgreen’s in Kerrville and carried the tests back to the ranch to begin the prescribed four- or five-day quarantine period. I tested myself that day and the following three days but was always negative. I had to go purchase more tests until I could prove that I hadn’t acquired the virus.

Finally, after getting the all-clear from Rana and without showing any symptoms, I cleared waivers and started home. But I still had to take one more test on my way out of town. It was negative.

I headed toward Fredericksburg with a lighter heart and managed to make it home without any other problems.

After three years, I thought I was immune. Umm, no.

Our daughter Casey and her family had a couple of rounds of infections some time ago that we were pretty sure came home from high school with one of the twins. One of those forced us to cancel Christmas dinner with their family, but Rana and I had avoided catching it from them. So I wasn’t really worried about taking this latest test, but I was proven overconfident when the pink lines lit up like Christmas tree lights. POSITIVE.

Not me, I thought. I’m immune. I must be, I can’t have COVID-19. Sure, thousands of people, including old friends and family members and some people I went to high school with had confirmed cases and a couple of them died in hospital as a result. But I truly never thought I would catch it and had foolishly told Rana not to worry when I went among folks at the ranch who might be retaining some small number of infectious germs when I was around them.

But I had it and there was no avoiding it. I gathered all my stuff and moved into our television room, where I could stay out of Rana’s way and let the virus play itself out. I tried to schedule a doctor’s visit but was told there were no available spots in the schedule for my doctor until after the first of the year.

There ain't nothing positive about being positive

They did arrange for me to have a computer visit with a doctor’s office in Dripping Springs, but there wasn’t anything they could do for me. Just tell me to rest as much as possible and drink plenty of water. I did that for a week and then tested myself again.

POSITIVE AGAIN! Even though I’d stayed away from everyone and hadn’t run any fever that I was aware of and had no real symptoms other than fatigue, I was back in quarantine. A few more days and I was still positive, and so we missed Thanksgiving dinner with Casey and Matt and the twins.

I’m testing myself again today (Friday) and hoping I can escape this home prison cell, but I don’t have much hope. One person told me they had a friend who continued testing positive for months after they’d first acquired COVID-19 and that didn’t fill me with hope.

Right now, I’m shooting for a Christmas release and hoping I can get out of here. I’ve watched just about all the football and HBO movies I can stand. The dogs don’t even know who I am anymore and the clock on deer season is slowly ticking away.

If I’m positive again, that moaning you hear will be me, feeling sorry for myself and cursing the person who infected me with this miserable case of whatever kind of cold on steroids this stuff is. I want out. NOW. Maybe by turkey season.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Outdoors writer Mike Leggett's forced hunting break due to COVID-19