My name is Kent Taylor, and I have some lasting symptoms from COVID-19. October 7th is when the symptoms began. I got tested about the 10th or 12th. The symptoms for me, had I not lost my taste or smell, felt like a bad cold. I had runny nose, not much congestion, a little bit of a headache, maybe started off with a sore throat. So for me I thought it was just a cold coming on. I went to the football game on Friday night, and they always grill hot dogs and hamburgers outside and I can always smell that. That’s when it occurred to me that I should go get tested. If I hadn’t lost my taste and smell I probably would have never gotten tested.

Within the last couple of months there have been times I felt like I started to taste a few things and smell a few things, but there’s nothing consistent yet. What I do know is that there are a few things that still taste or smell pretty strange to me. Chocolate, peanut butter, anything with lemon in it, coffee…has got a really odd taste. I can’t really describe in words what the taste is. There’s nothing like it. Those things are tough to eat.

In June I developed what I thought was a bad summer cold. Just about the time I thought it was going away, it took a turn for the worse and I ended up with a sinus infection. That was another couple of weeks that I had that. I still have a bit of a cough. So that’s been a bit of a long time.

Working with machinery, especially with flying – if something isn’t smelling quite right, it always alerts you a bit so you know you’ve got to be checking something out. I hope someday I can get those kinds of things back.