Every year when I got sick it always began with a scratchy throat in the morning. At the first sign of this symptom I would begin taking the usual Dayquil/Nyquil medicine I had been taking for years. The flu would always end with the mucus loosening up and causing the coughing when laying down. This was the part I always hated because it prevented me from sleeping.

When I first got this in late 2019, I got no scratchy throat, no runny nose, aches or cold shivers and it instantly progressed to the thick mucus that took forever to loosen up. I remember saying many times at the end of 2019 to friends and family that whatever this was it was not the flu. This was a few months before I had even heard of Covid.