Almost fainted today, after two days I can say that my decision to quit taking my medicine was a poor choice, back on it now
Yesterday I was feeling so much better, maybe 7/10? I showered, got dressed, and actually cooked a simple dinner (Frozen entree on baking sheet, microwaved baked potatoes, chopped and sautéed wedge of cabbage, sat on chair between steps) Today back in my nightgown, ill and weak, brain fog messing up my speech, dizzy as I have been in two weeks One of the worst parts about COVID is the roller coaster, feeling better then worse, worse then better, completely unpredictable Talked to one of my friends from Virus Brunch, she is still sick and it’s been a month, may as well reset my expectations now Maybe I won’t be contagious any more, which is great, but sort of a moot point because there’s nowhere to go, not missing out on anything Where would I go? Would not trust to expose myself to friends or family. Too tired to walk or ride bike. Bookstore, movies, I can get books and movies online, restaurant? Can’t taste anything Very curious whether I could taste wasabi but not worth shelling out for sushi just to find out the hard way I lost my sense of taste and smell not quite three weeks ago and only a few specific notes have come back so far, supposedly this is a symptom of the milder cases, so it wouldn’t be too morbid to have a COVID game show, you could even do it remotely Get the COVID person on camera with a blindfold and feed them samples of random stuff from the fridge, see what we can and can’t taste, laugh riot Like 9 1/2 Weeks except I sure hope I am not sick that long I can taste a generic “red fruity” flavor that is apparently the same for cherry, berry, and pomegranate, but I can’t taste lemon Can smell one specific body wash and one specific perfume, why I thought I got my sense of smell back a while ago, but I can’t smell soap, shampoo, conditioner, other body wash, bleach, deodorant, the only other fragrances I have really picked up are one scented candle for a minute or so, and freshly washed sheets Cannot smell any body odors of any kind I can pick up “cooking food steam” as ‘food’ but I can’t tell what is cooking, not even baking bread or grilled onion Can taste potato, broccoli, cauliflower, sourdough bread (any other bread tastes like nothing), margarine, salt but not pepper, can kinda smell garlic but can’t taste it Can feel heat from spicy stuff like curry or black bean soup but can’t actually taste it at all Can’t taste any flavor of tea, just hot water Can’t taste chocolate or mint, thus my Valentine’s Thin Mints are still safe in freezer Starting to get alcohol burn back from mouthwash but still no flavor Can taste vinegar again, so pickles have flavor, but can only taste the vinegar part of mustard, strange lunchtime mystery One of the ways a person with a mild case of coronavirus can repay kind friends and roommates is to give them dibs on anything good, anything with any kind of flavor, it’s just wasted on us Eat the soup that nobody else wants, why not I ate black bean soup tonight and it tasted bean like, but that was about it, I think there was tomato in it? Looked like it anyway I guess only about 30% of COVID patients lose taste and smell, my hubby didn’t and neither did my friend, but for some people it is the only symptom they get, if you’ve been wondering whether you already had it or not, that is one of the big clues Research still trying to figure out why this happens, a few speculations, one, yeast overgrowth, i don’t think that is it because I can taste and smell a few things Definitely not nasal congestion Another guess, receptor cells in nose, no idea if those are selective for specific scents, does not really explain loss of flavors Yet another guess, neurochemistry, this I believe because I have had a series of problems that seem more brain-related Woke up from groggy nap to see that my thumb was just twitching away Vertigo came back, my friend hasn’t been able to shake it I can read okay now, and guess what? Been solving cryptograms! But when I try to speak even very simple sentences I mix up words, so frustrating, blurt out a word that wasn’t what I intended, pull a word I had planned from later in the sentence, substituting nouns, swapping word-initial consonants We studied all this stuff in linguistics, speech pathologist want to talk to me HMU One of the little disappointments of a protracted illness is the deadlines that slip, I really had been looking forward to surprising my family and inviting them on a call tonight But talking is still the hardest thing right now, makes me so so tired, also very annoying when I can’t get through a simple sentence without messing up Can mostly read aloud okay though This is why these posts are so long, one of the few things I have the ability and attention span to do, I used to type 100 words per minute and now it’s more like 40, pretty good for a talking dog huh I’ve been thinking about the book Flowers for Algernon lately quite a bit, could be either cheerful or depressing depending, if only I could see the future Either I will gradually feel my brain coming back to life and be able to talk like a normal person Or it will go the other way and I’ll just wind up a cranky, aphasic picky eater They wouldn’t want me in Flavor Town anyway Off my meds, as they say, although in this case it’s just acetaminophen and Mucinex. Suddenly occurred to me that I should quit taking them
Sudden insight, because I’ve been thinking a lot about pharma lately Also the question of how we decide who to trust and how we treat our illnesses If you get so much as a paper cut or the hiccups, you can believe that 100,000 people will give you 240,000 pieces of advice about what to do Food, exercise, and medicine are our era’s secular religion Most people’s attitude toward research and news reportage on health matters is: “First they said eggs are bad for you, then they’re good for you again, who do you believe” Emerging research over the course of a century somehow comes across as uncertainty I don’t know about eggs (haven’t eaten one since 1997) but I do know one thing that’s bad for you, and that’s coronavirus Here’s the thing about sharing details of my illness and recovery Anything I say can be made to look different ways depending on one’s perspective There are three factors:
Say I tell everyone, I ate broccoli a lot while I was sick (true) Then the obvious responses would be
With each additional input, the case is made more intricate My personal beliefs should not influence you, because as I have said before I am not a doctor Conclusions I might make about my own case history may be false Correlation is not causation, but beyond that, I may read something completely the wrong way I’m pretty solid that taking acetaminophen was a good idea, doctor’s orders, I did not get deep muscle aches or a fever like other people who had COVID, also seems to have helped me sleep On the other hand, there are rare incidences of people who have an allergic response to this common drug, put my friend in the hospital with anaphylaxis several years ago This is why it is never okay for anyone to tell someone else “YOU SHOULD” take whatever Other examples, megadoses of vitamin C can interfere with oral birth control Likewise oral birth control can make caffeine stay in your system twice as long Without knowing the full picture of substances that someone is taking, it’s simply a terrible idea for an untrained layperson to tell other people which pills to take, could kill them I have a friend who went to a conference a few months ago, came back in the MLM wanting to sell “supplements” This comes up ALL THE TIME in my world (public speaking, fitness, entrepreneurs) and I have one of three responses I only take health advice from people who are healthier than me (sort of moot now that I have COVID, almost everyone in the galaxy is healthier than me right now) People who take a daily multivitamin have higher mortality from all causes (means they are more likely to die for *some* reason, not sure what, again moot point) “Supplements” consistently lab test to not have the ingredients that they claim on the label, also wildly inconsistent amounts Anyway, the friend who was trying to pitch me on MLM vitamins only two months ago just so happens to have been at Virus Brunch with me Lucky girl, in quarantine with a big box of these fancy special vitamins!!! She isn’t talking about them at all any more Since she’s been sick for an entire month, still has vertigo, brain fog, and headaches Did they help? Hardcore salesperson would say YES, of course they did, she lived, kept her out of the hospital right? This is called “motivated reasoning” After you have stared your own death in the face for several days, it changes your relationship with motivated reasoning Perhaps could make a sincere religious convert out of someone Or convince them to finally quit vaping In my case, it has made me much more serious about reading my health information from medical journal abstracts A lot of people have given me specific health advice while I have been sick with coronavirus Including: Drink celery juice Long list of Indian herbs Megadoses of vitamin D (please cite source, this I would consider) Lie on stomach (did this, makes lower back stiff but actually helped my lungs) Do not take ibuprofen (had heard this from news, thank you) Vitamin C supplements (literally drank some within an hour of being exposed) Drink hot tea, it will wash the virus into your stomach (and possibly IT DID, do not advise, that was a rough day, not that I plan to give up drinking tea) Not a single one of these people have any medical training, nor have they had coronavirus themselves, nor has anyone in their families What makes people so convinced that they know these “treatments” will work? How would someone know which ones to take seriously and which not? One of the hardest things about COVID-19 is that it makes it really hard to think clearly even on a good day, some of you talk about “baby brain” and it is similar, but much worse I had trouble even tracking which pill packets to open, even when something was in a totally different size and color of box with a different shape and color of pill Could be dangerous Could be fatal So here’s the deal, I had the sudden insight that the Mucinex might have been contributing to my breathing difficulties Here I had been feeling confident for two weeks that it prevented me from developing a cough, which was great, it prevents mucus from building up in the lungs, could have kept me out of the hospital But I took it on my own recommendation, not doctor’s orders, not in the news, nobody is talking about it And I did have a couple of days of serious difficulties breathing SO WHICH IS IT? Did it save my life or did it almost suffocate me? Or both, depending on which day during the illness? I didn’t take it that night Then I read an article describing the yellow creeping crud that builds up in the lungs of COVID patients, how what seems to be happening is not a pneumonia, not a respiration problem at all, but rather an oxygenation problem like carbon monoxide poisoning OHHHHH After I read the article I had totally renewed faith in the Mucinex Thought that maybe if I had taken the 1200 instead of the 600 dose I might have fared better But I CAN’T KNOW Because I am a sample size of one Anecdote I can’t even test my own blood pressure, much less blood oxygenation, lung scan, chest x-ray, no microscope, anything like that at all My personal experience could confirm either conclusion Or it could be that it didn’t even have any effect on me at all and that I got better in the same amount of time it would have taken without the pills This is why we trust research, or at least why I do In the morning, after a night of no pills, I had vertigo again, first time in a week Now, I had quit taking both the Tylenol and the Mucinex So even if I trust only my own intuition, how do I know, was it one, the other, combination of both, or random coincidence? Since I also had vertigo while on both pills two weeks ago You can see where this is going Guesswork is how people decide on their own that they’re gluten-intolerant when what they really have is an allergy to yeast, etc etc Self-diagnosis is proved wrong over and over and over and over and over again One of the silver linings that may come out of this pandemic is for people to lose patience with quackery and sketchy folk remedies and start trusting in clinically tested results again In the meantime I’m happy to report that I’ve crawled out of the hole, a week ago i would say I was at a 2/10 and now I am back up to a 6/10 Looks like I’m going to make it, and for the record, no I didn’t drink any celery juice, not even once Chris Cuomo’s story has caught my attention, even though I had never heard of him before this, because he and I got sick at the same time
His situation resonates with me, I think we are a similar type, restless, have to be working, unimaginable to quit reporting our experiences even when it should be obvious that it’s time to GET SOME REST In both of our cases, a strong argument could be made that trying to stay vertical and keep reporting may well have prolonged our battles with COVID-19 Another reason I identify with Chris Cuomo is that I understand the bloodcurdling horror of finding out you have infected your spouse, absolute worst part of this whole ordeal The only thing that would be worse would be if I got my parents sick As I’ve been watching his clips, I’ve noticed two things One, that everyone involved keeps presenting with a different set of symptoms, just like my hubby and my friends and I did, and Two, the staircase behind his head, the basement stairs Now, the thing about an idea is that it’s just AN IDEA Good ideas and bad ideas come from the same place, I’ve been saying that for 20 years, favorite joke Ideation is my superpower, well, that and the whole ‘kill people with my breath’ thing I respect my ideation skills as what they are, glorious, hilarious, potentially extremely dangerous For instance I had the bright idea to write a filk of Tom Lehrer’s classic We Will All Go Together When We Go THE NIGHT BEFORE I GOT INFECTED Thought I was pretty clever, Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball (SNL reference) Never trust what pops out of your brain, just write it down Then figure out, is it a great idea for a song lyric, epic poem, novel, short story, article, meme, actual scientific hypothesis I have no business making conjectures about the Cuomo household, I don’t know them, I’ve never been to their house Although it is clear to me based on my childhood that all three of their kids could be taking turns doing chores, cooking, and doing laundry, my stepdaughter was extremely proud to learn to do her own laundry when she was 11, privacy thing for her, but in any case, no reason to expect the 17yo to do it all, geez man Anyway, about that staircase And I don’t mean The Staircase, no spoilers but I am Owl Theory 100%, and if you disagree I accuse you of being an intuition person, not a science person There, I said it, you never know what hot takes I will put forward in my blog, I also think Lizzie Borden was guilty But then I am an historian, not a trance medium, all I can do is review records Anyway, about that staircase The story goes that Chris and Christina Cuomo have been communicating down the stairwell, she leaves him his meals, uses gloves to handle his dishes Took her 3 weeks to get sick so they were clearly doing a very good job with all that They probably think they slipped up somehow on the cleanser front, didn’t scrub something long enough or something I know how haunting it is to lie there with nothing else to do but relitigate every mistake you’ve ever made in your life, blaming yourself and listing off everything you maybe could have done differently But I have a speculation I think it’s pretty clear to everyone by now that the coronavirus is airborne I didn’t get within 10 feet of the person who infected me, more on that in a bit I think if C and C were talking to each other in that stairwell, one at the top, one at the bottom, they were probably facing each other Young and in love, bless One of the few silver linings of this illness is that it can bring out a whole new phase in a marriage, I told my hubby he has “tenure” now, I’ve never felt devotion like this to anyone else, I owe him my life Wouldn’t surprise me if the Cuomos feel the same way, miss you so much babe But that stairwell? Isn’t very long What, maybe 12-15 feet? Any carpenters in the house? All they would have to do is laugh really hard or project their voices enough, not very far for an airborne virus to travel My advice here is very simply, when you talk to someone, both face the same direction while speaking and then turn to check each other’s facial expressions, turn heads again when speaking, like sitting next to each other in the car or watching a movie We’ve been told all this time that six feet is the correct social distance, and we have mostly been trying very very hard to maintain that Although from photos it is clear that a lot of people think 4’ = 6’ I don’t think it’s right, maybe for standing still, sure But not if people are doing something to direct breath directly toward one another, such as talking, shouting, laughing, coughing, or sneezing Remember I am a public speaker, also a musician, I know some LOUD people, also some who tend to spray when they talk Did you see that super spreader case in the news, the poor choir in Washington State? So, so sad, I bet they sounded terrific that night, also projected very well This is not about blame in any way, we are all fighting blind, this is a *novel* virus meaning we are still getting to know the enemy The scientific method starts with observations, then guesswork Which is then rigorously tested, hopefully vetted, published, attempts to replicate then find errors or avenues for further research, discard hypothesis or zoom in, get more data For the first time in human history, we can attack a pandemic with big data and near-instantaneous communication, double-edged sword, for some reason pseudoscience travels 10x farther than the good stuff This is why I’m sharing my personal experiences, because they serve to emphasize: stay home, coronavirus is uncomfortable, getting your loved ones sick is sad, this method is called “social proof” Like if I got food poisoning and told you where I ate, you probably wouldn’t go there for lunch, this is why we have star reviews for everything COVID-19, zero stars The day I got infected, I sat at one end of the table and the person who tested positive sat at the other She and the person who flew back to Chicago spent most of the meal talking across the table to each other, distance of maybe 4’, doesn’t prove anything, we will never know whether one of them got the other sick, which one, or if they both got it elsewhere But my hypothesis is not disproved by this example My friend and I turned to each other once, when friend in middle got up to use restroom, we talked for a couple minutes until she came back “How’ve you been, I haven’t seen you in months” “Oh, things have been crazy blah blah” We had pivoted in our chairs to face each other directly, distance of 10’ Nobody will ever know, but I suspect this is the window in which I was exposed, when we were facing each other and raising our voices to be heard My advice would be as I said above, when talking to someone with no masks on, face away from each other to speak, if hearing impaired better to text, then turn back to see each other’s faces. Or both just face forward In combination with all proper social distancing and hygiene recommendations my advice can’t hurt anybody Unlike a lot of the bizarre advice I have been getting in the past several weeks, more on that later Be well my dears, I hope you find something to laugh about today, just not right up in anyone’s face I can’t taste chocolate. Jealous yet?
Over two weeks in and I know I’m in the elite, apparently everyone wants what I have, which is the inability to taste or smell basically anything that is not a vegetable. And the possibility that I might be growing my own coronavirus antibodies. Suddenly a vocal minority are demanding the right to be infected with a deadly virus, because they believe that is the way to get herd immunity The exact same herd immunity in which the anti-vaxx community has been refusing to participate And what I want to know is, are any of these... the same people? Because I’m confused Apparently it’s better to try to get exposed if it’s wild-caught rather than farmed Probably this approach confuses me because I’m a lawful good character, and we never get the joke While I am pretty sure that trying to get as much of society sick with coronavirus as possible, as fast as possible, is a chaotic evil approach Hey everyone! Let’s all get a virus so we never get it again! You know, the way it worked with Hepatitis Tuberculosis Herpes HIV Common cold Influenza Yeah! Go team, we can do it! One of the things that helped me get through the first week of COVID-19 was the beautiful fantasy that I could donate convalescent plasma and then use my antibody protection to nurse any of my family or friends who might get sick. As the delusions (and possible delirium) wore off, and I started to be able to read a little more each day, and the research started coming in, I stopped talking about this Because I realized IT MAY NEVER HAPPEN This may be like any other cold or flu in the sense that YOU CAN GET IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN And be JUST AS SICK EACH TIME In 2018, I spent much of the year sick in bed. It seemed that I got every cold and flu that went through my region. I would barely finish getting better before I’d come down with something else. Finally I started looking at it as a research project I actually got a doctor visit and a full blood panel because we thought I might have developed an autoimmune disorder, or leukemia or something It turns out that if you are very sleep deprived over a long enough period, and also working out too strenuously, too often, you can wear down your immune system A common problem with medical students completing their residencies My doctor said I would probably keep getting sick until the end of cold and flu season Turned out she was right because I got a cold at least another 5 times before summer But then I got better Had to quit my gym and quit working out entirely, and finally we had to move to a new apartment But I did get better Just like I’m finally starting to get better from COVID-19 This morning I MADE MY OWN BREAKFAST And TOOK A SHOWER On the SAME DAY I was actually feeling pretty good and smug about things until around 7:30 pm, when I started having another sneezing fit and getting chilly, had to bundle up in two blankets again Bit of an argument over whether my case is ‘mild’ or ‘moderate,’ I believe it’s mild compared to accounts I have read, others who have been following my blog say moderate Which is validating, thank you But this is why I believe I’m in the bottom third, not the middle Let’s say ‘severe’ means you have to go to the hospital, probably be on oxygen, most likely be sedated or put in a coma and on a ventilator, some of these severe cases are in the hospital for 2-6 weeks Obviously none of that applies to me, at least so far If you read Paula Pant’s account over on Afford Anything, poor Paula, she had to do this ALONE Reading that while I was still sick almost gave me a panic attack, unimaginable, fainting, high fevers, basically unconscious for days, couldn’t get any medical advice, had to drive herself to get tested, absolute nightmare That was supposedly a moderate case None of that happened to me I never fainted, never had a fever, never threw up, never needed prescription meds, never even really developed a cough I was able to get up and walk myself to the bathroom the whole time, even with dizziness and vertigo and tremors etc This is why I say I had a mild case, and my doctor seems to have agreed since he never wrote me any prescriptions, got me a test, suggested I check myself into the hospital, etc But then, struggling to breathe changes your perspective on life It has made me very quick to get weepy, I cry about something or other most days When I think of other people with my exact symptoms, but suffering alone, I sorta lose it And of course that’s what is going to happen if we let this thing develop unchecked That’s what everyone is hoping for, that all y’all will get COVID-19 from community spread, just like I did, and have yourselves a nice mild case, just like I did So you can be too sick to bathe or make your own meals for three weeks, just like me Wish I could help, but I have no idea how long it will be until I can make it three days with no symptoms Easter Effect is how we’re referring to it here in Quarantine Towers, should be starting up any day now, and it is the most depressing thing I can think of.
So many people went to church last weekend, I hope they took good pictures because they’re going to need them I have very mixed feelings about making my experience anything other than personal, and I’ll tell you why I feel like a lot of rebels (and other questioners such as myself) take in advice and they are instantly unable to follow it Stick a fork in their own eye first People would physically rather die a fiery death than feel that their autonomy was ever in question The more passionately I say “please, save yourself, don’t let what happened to me happen to you” the more it will make some people run the exact opposite direction I can’t even tell people “you don’t want this” because it will automatically make someone think YEAH I DO, you don’t know my life And obviously anyone who uses the phrase “trust me” as in “TRUST ME, you do NOT want this” should be written off, trust kinda goes without saying To recap, this was my experience: I was exposed to COVID-19 by someone who went out with active symptoms and believed that “everyone was overreacting” because only ~300 people were infected in our state at the time That opinion has not aged very well and it has only been a month I was pretty much asymptomatic for over two weeks By the time I found out I had been exposed to someone who tested positive, the person who infected me had passed the coronavirus on to at least 7 additional people, not including me or my husband I didn’t start to get really sick until the next day Probably because I went for a run And then my husband did not start showing symptoms until the 22nd day after I was exposed His was such a mild case that he wasn’t convinced he had it And that is where the gamble comes in.
These are non-physical routes to infection Problems in the mind, what we call Thinking Errors Faulty cognition, pseudo-skepticism Our culture has a huge problem with this, part of our concept of rugged individualism I am a rugged individual, I’m beating COVID after all, I am also a marathon runner and wilderness backpacker and I train in Krav Maga, not exactly a wilting lily But my personal liberty ends right at the place between my fist and your nose And now, I have to extend that concept to the airspace around me and my greasy little fingerprints, dainty yet tainted I was reading some blowhard who said, she believes, quote, very strongly in herd immunity, unquote What, enough to enforce it ON ME? I beg your absolute PARDON I’ve thought a lot about the person who got me sick, cordial not close, radical empathy exercise What must it be like to be in her position, talking one day about how something was nothing to worry about, two days later bedridden, deathly ill How staggeringly hard it would have to be to admit that your error might kill you Then to have to do the math and realize that you had been hopping around like a happy little bunny, infecting your friends That nine other people might die or get hit with tens of thousands of dollars in hospital bills because of your opinions on current events Usually our passionate beliefs or even casual opinions are not literally matters of life and death Still, most people are going to dig in their heels and double down, truly won’t change their minds, might not even change their minds after people in their own family start to die It’s not that I would want an apology from my friend, for she is my friend, I think she is lovely and I hope that she emerges in thriving health I would, though, really love for her to just say, “yes, I was wrong” Not cook me meals, since I’m still ill, or pay for my medicine, which I have just had to reorder, or help me with the chores that I am still too sick to do, nothing like that Just to say, I made a mistake But that is the 800 billion dollar phrase, the one thing that people cannot do, their heads would explode first Personally I learned to apologize freely, widely and often when I worked in customer service It doesn’t even sting Admitting you made mistakes or that you were wrong is the foundation of adulthood, impossible to be a serious person if you can’t do it I have no idea how my friend would feel about this, I have no intention of bringing it up with her, from what I have heard she has been very sick indeed And that is punishment enough, for those who are into the whole punishment thing, which I am not Karma is not my responsibility, thank goodness, too tired for that I do have a survivor’s guilt problem since I got sick, even though it is a matter of debate whether I have officially “survived” yet It has occurred to me, if only I were a better writer, maybe more people would be convinced by my story and they would stay home, avoid feeling like a bag of wet trash at least, much less not kill their friends and family But then I remember, the more someone gets all “preachy” or whatever the more other people have to double down and do the opposite, prove a point, point being “I can’t be told” Using my personal experience, count out 15 days from Easter Sunday and that is when anyone like me would finally get in bed, then for some weird reason tack on an additional 7 days for their partner It’s gonna be a while The true consequences of the Easter Effect may not be seen for three or four weeks It’s always a bad idea to make predictions but I will stake my reputation on that, I will cry when the numbers come in as I usually do, nobody should have to go through this I think it will take until the third wave before everyone is finally ready to pay attention Until then we pay in other ways Best reason not to gamble is that the odds are not in our favor And it’s not numbers we’re talking about, let’s not lose sight of that when we look at the statistics I’m so unproductive I don’t even have a productive cough
Not sure whether that is bad or good, actually Now that I’m probably not going to die, the story of my case of coronavirus has no doubt started to get pretty boring And if you’re bored, imagine how I feel Actually that’s exactly what I want people to do Imagine that you have spent the past month, not just trapped in self-isolation, but generally too tired and out of sorts to do any of the things you like to do Even the sitting down stuff Can’t exercise - check that, brushing your teeth now gets your heart rate up to what an hour on the elliptical used to do Can’t read for more than maybe 10 minutes at a stretch Can’t even focus on TV or movies, sometimes have to ask hubby to pause and explain what that one-minute bit of dialogue was about Can’t cook, you think the chef in Sweeney Todd was scary, well that doesn’t even scale compared to what I could do (But that’s not the real reason, the real reason is that I’m too tired to even get out a pan) Can’t even do chores, I literally had to lie down for 20 minutes after putting my bowl in the dishwasher after dinner People are pretty nice when they find out you have coronavirus, in fact almost unbelievably nice, when the people on the condo board of our building found out there was a unit under quarantine they weren’t even mad, just asked if we needed anything So they will certainly let you off the hook on stuff like turning in reports or replying to emails Which is the part I dread, that when I start to feel better I will have 900 emails and some of them will legitimately deserve a response, but which ones?? But even then, there are certain things you wind up having to do Like email your doctor (or call, but only if you can still talk) And if you want someone else to do it for you, you still have to look up your login and password ADVICE: If you’re still well but anxious about getting ill, make a page of logins and passwords for your significant other, list out your bank info etc I have parts of the day when I feel not-terrible, unpredictable what time of day though, seems only somewhat related to when I eat Playing Words With Friends against my brother, lost our last game, right now I’m 9 points ahead but I have the feeling he’s going to smoke me again, this is the one thing I can do when I have a good 5 minute window The biggest thing I have managed to do this week, besides breathe and occasionally bathe, was to order more Mucinex and acetaminophen on Amazon, out of stock on both for weeks but I guess it was good that we got in line Had the thought that I could start on a to-do list for when I feel better But then I thought THAT IS SO EXACTLY LIKE ME Why am I like this?? Today I had a disturbing thought No, not the one about what if the coronavirus gets into the feral cat population and creates a natural reservoir Or the one about people forging antibody documents so they can go back to work I thought, what if this thing is like mono and I just feel this cruddy FOR A YEAR Look, obviously I know that a hundred thousand people have died of this already, and thousands of people are in the hospital, and I am extremely fortunate to be ill at home Breathing under my own power Just want to express that a “mild case” is nothing to scoff at Once the drama is over it is the most incredibly boring thing in the world Pretty much hope it stays this way, though, because the not-boring parts are interesting in all the wrong ways Looking forward to another week of “don’t know if I can taste mustard yet because we ran out” and “... literally have no other interesting examples from my week Will try for more jokes next time I can kill people with my breath, pretty sure this makes me a supervillain, my new name is Dragon Lady
Cape but no mask of course I have been sick with the novel coronavirus for two weeks now. I was exposed 29 days ago. I am definitely still ill and contagious and it’s been a month. A friend asked what I did to avoid getting my husband sick, and the answer is: Nothing. He did get sick. Please take a moment to imagine the feeling of knowing you have infected your very favorite person in this world Who is it, for the record? Your child? One of your parents? Your spiritual leader? Best friend? That person. It’s one thing to risk death; some of us can shrug off that kind of risk. It’s another to know you might be desperately ill for three weeks, maybe go broke on hospital bills In my opinion, knowing you might survive while the person you exposed dies is the absolute worst, no idea how I would cope for the next 40 years carrying that weight This is how it happened. We thought we were already exposed on March 1. Person with extremely bad cough came off cruise ship and visited us. Since he had previously had pneumonia and had a respiratory condition we thought we were okay, but then my husband started coughing He stayed home and missed the week he would have been exposed, three of his colleagues wound up testing positive, but we didn’t know that yet By 3/15, we had been home self-isolating for two weeks, cruise ship our friend was on had no cases, thought we dodged a bullet! We were reading the news obsessively, already prepped with weeks of groceries, cleansers, and TP I had a brunch invite We debated back and forth, small group, we knew we were clear, decided I would go and then cancel anything else that came up for the next few weeks to be safe Seven people in a large high-ceilinged room, huge refectory table bigger than my balcony None of us touched each other, we put on hand sanitizer at the table and drank vitamin C packets Little did I know that 2/7 guests ALREADY HAD SORE THROATS They were both talking across the table about how everyone was overreacting I sat at the opposite end of the table 10 feet away, at least one person between us Five of the seven wound up sick, infected additional five people that I know of One tested positive, none of the other nine could get tests, do the math One of the sick people got on a flight the next day from LAX to O’Hare Do the math No contact tracing was done I didn’t find out I had been exposed for two weeks Did anyone else at the restaurant get infected, no idea, either airport, don’t know, they also rode the Metro around LA While symptomatic They didn’t take it seriously I didn’t realize I had symptoms until I looked back at the calendar because I had a similar problem, thought I was being paranoid On the 5th day after I was exposed we rode our bikes to Whole Foods (Sorry) When we got home my heart started pounding in an alarming way Got upstairs, lay on the floor face down for 20 minutes with my helmet still on “I’m resting” Thought I was just out of shape All I did for two weeks, when I wasn’t on calls, was sit around on the couch, thought I was just depressed and stressed out, my team was working long hours to deal with the pandemic transition At one point I didn’t even change my pajamas for two days, “didn’t feel like it” On the morning of the 13th day I woke up feeling sick, “Babe I think I’ve got something” We looked at the calendar, haven’t been anywhere in 2 weeks, we’ve been isolating and social distancing Decided it had to be “just allergies” because the symptoms were wrong I felt sick but I was sneezing and had itchy eyes, NO FEVER, NO COUGH, NO VOMITING OR DIARRHEA never did, I have barely coughed 5x the whole time I’ve had coronavirus Felt totally fine the next day, went on grocery run (Sorry) Was telling myself for weeks, Quit feeling sorry for yourself, so lazy, you’re just out of shape On the 15th day after I was exposed I WENT FOR A RUN Previous night, I had night terrors, had the most awful nightmare that COVID-19 was being air dropped over all our electronics, when it finished DLing in the dream I threw myself out of bed, woke up on the floor because my husband finally got my attention Felt so out of sorts I decided I needed to do some cardio There were at least 5x more people out walking, jogging, or riding bikes in my neighborhood than there were cars on the road, looked like a city fun run, I ran in the street when I needed to avoid people Only took a few minutes before I started feeling very very bad, stitches in sides, felt like my sports bra was made of iron (“new bra, quit complaining”), wow I’m really out of shape, but I was committed to 20 minutes to calibrate my fitness tracker Turned around and walked last half mile back to apartment Had to sit on floor, heart palpitations, weeks later I checked and my heart rate apparently hit 186 bpm at 12:48 mile pace Hard for me to believe this looking back, but according to my text threads I found out THAT SAME MORNING that I had been exposed. Word was my friend had been very sick, that confirmed it in my mind, it’s been two weeks, check me out in my Lycra I’m obviously fine!!! Three hours after my run (and three phone meetings) I found out not just one friend but 7 other people had gotten sick It wasn’t until the next night that I started feeling ill I believe I was mostly asymptomatic until I went on that run and the exertion was too much for my system, have read hints that others had more intense symptoms after workout I never did get the fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, or digestive problems that were being reported as the most common symptoms at the time But the “shortness of breath” made me think I was going to die a few times Lost my sense of taste for two weeks, couldn’t even taste taco sauce or mouthwash Still can’t smell almost anything, including baking bread, bleach, black pepper My symptoms included extreme vertigo, dizziness, hand tremors, headache, heart palpitations, chest tightness, chills, THE RIGORS lord help me, one day of stomach ache, and the few times I did cough felt like I was choking on spiders When I talked to my doctor he didn’t believe I had COVID-19 because it had “been too long” since I was exposed, a week later I sent him a list of my symptoms and he apologized I took Mucinex DM and acetaminophen twice a day, made huge effort to sit upright 14 hours a day, started doing 20 minutes or so prone every day, that feels good My husband had three days of mild cough and some digestive issues BTW I’m 44, he is 52 People in at least 20 cities were praying for us, thank you all, we are still here Also still in quarantine Next questions, how long will we be contagious? Will we be immune? Can we be reinfected or pick up a different strain? Can we donate convalescent plasma? No idea on any of these counts I genuinely thought I would die. If my husband had gotten sicker we probably both would have. Neither of us has any underlying conditions so we are fortunate. Still feel like a sack of wet garbage, might still have another week to go before I feel better, still a mortal danger to others I went out ONE TIME four days before our stay-at-home order. They’re discussing gradual re-entry and I’m still too ill and tired to make a sandwich for myself. I sure hope they know what they’re doing Be well my friends Keep praying 13 days, still here, in other news
MAGIC IS REAL The homemade yeast worked, 10 points for Gryffindor My husband made groceries out of thin air, how about that? If you want to know how to do it you have to ask him, i can’t type that much yet, trying to get him to do some kind of Instagram story or whatever Decided to rethink the metaphors I am using while I try to shake this coronavirus. Heart rate still spiking every time I get off the couch, resting heart rate 80+, can now tell the difference between 70, 80, and 90 bpm by how my chest feels, is a fitness tracker a blessing or a curse? Only way I am going to live to see my 45th birthday this summer is if I figure out how to stop reacting to stress, or I guess another way to put that is I have to find a way to respond to events that is not a stressful way The fighting metaphor does not work for me, visualizing any kind of fight distresses me, like this We were watching a children’s movie the other night, scene of a small animal getting injured, thought I would stroke out. Scene of a storm with distressed bird, started crying PG rated! I am now perfect choice for role of Disney G-rating censor, if it upsets me then CUT Reframing things is something I am good at, ENTP in action, watch me spin What else? Healing Comedy Inventions Dark comedy (not same) Dance Corporate doublespeak Told my hubby this morning, I’ve decided to let go of the fighting metaphor, not working for me Oh? I’ve decided to HIRE IT COVID works for me now, admitted the on-boarding process for my organization was a bit rushed, we circled back and clarified some elements of the contract, temporary consulting gig, help my factory ramp up, teach us how to make antibodies up to spec I realized I can’t “fight” something if I need to permanently incorporate it into my being. I can’t ask it to leave, that’s not actually what I want. What I WANT is immunity and to keep on living, must do this peacefully My new role model is The Dude from the Big Lebowski Healing modality My white blood cells are not “fighting” they are a FLASH MOB winning a dance competition I am peaceful, serene, and forever silly So may we all be Still an optimist, still seeing the positives
Hubby is well, my worst nightmare of giving him coronavirus is so far turning out okay, wishes granted, we can all be grateful for that Is the glass half empty or half full, trick question The glass is always 100% full, half water, half air, even when it is 100% full of air it still has potential to be filled, art object, paint a still life, use it to roll out a pie crust Pessimists are right more often but optimists live longer So far I am on day 12, still here! No fever, no coughing, no gastric issues, vertigo and dizziness are gone, hands not shaking, no more rigors, can breathe, all these things are good signs Only thing i am worried about now is that my heart rate keeps spiking to 90 bpm, sometimes for no reason but usually when I get up Even then there are reasons to look on the bright side I know my doctor will return my calls quickly We have health insurance & still an income As far as I know everyone else in my family is safe and healthy I’m in QT with the cutest boy in the world Not just everybody gets to be married to a legit Emergency Medical Responder He is doing a science project, growing his own yeast from just flour and raisins, seems to be working, first test loaf tomorrow! Btw he also won first place in speaking contest today, made me cry, such a good speech Realized 2 things, my iPad may be broken but i have a recent backup on iCloud, maybe download onto new one when this is over Also I found my old full-size travel phone keyboard, missing two keys but it means I can type on the couch again! New job is to practice lowering my heart rate, no stress, this is a symptom I can try to manage with rest and visualization. Definite chief aim! Visualizing how happy everyone will be when we can all start scheduling haircuts etc again, my advice, call your stylist & pre-pay for your next appointment, get dibs in line Have a nice day everyone 85Setback today, average it out to 4/10?
Thought I was feeling basically normal, so I went nuts and… made my own bowl of instant oatmeal in the microwave. Two hours later I discovered I had triggered a flareup, three hours of constant tickle in my throat followed by three hours of fighting to breathe again, another hour just to sit quietly with my eyes closed. When you tell people “You have to fight” be clear about how it sounds to ill people and their families. It implies that people who succumb or decline or die were too lazy to try hard I already know of people who have died of COVID, 2 degrees of separation, parents of young kids, a doctor in one case. To say these people had less motivation to fight than I do would be… It would be grotesque, is what it would be. A breathtaking insult And I have a whole new understanding of ‘breathtaking’ right now That being said, I am a person of determination and fortitude, grit is one of the few traits where I believe I beat most people When I ran my marathon, first I blew out my ankle and then I worked my hip flexor to failure. I had to literally drag my left leg for 8 MILES to make it to the finish line. A lot of it uphill. Didn’t even consider that a grit workout, not even self-discipline level, just focus. I paid $200 and my family were waiting, that’s my ride, no wallet on me, just keep jogging along I did need grit to get through my first Krav Maga promotion, bonked so hard at the end that I could barely walk, ran out of snacks, hands shaking so hard I could barely tie my shoes But I slapped myself in the face and after about the 6th try I tied them, need food The day I ask someone else to tie my shoes for me, not happening Didn’t cry though Last time I cried on expedition was when we got caught in a blizzard, hiked 15 miles to camp including 3700 ft elevation gain, set up camp at 11 pm, only to find that my sleeping bag was sopping wet Kept it together until I realized I had finally dragged off all my wet clothes and put on dry clothes… over soggy underwear… had to start over, then I lost it a little Today, I’ll tell the truth, I lost it a little Tomorrow is an event my team put together in my absence, no guidance or support from me, I feel guilty as trash right now. Thought I would try to surprise everyone and pop on to wave hi, maybe not talk, now I don’t think I could even handle tying my hair back The fight I am fighting is a physical fight TO SIT UP I know the battle is to keep fluid out of my lungs, if I wind up on a ventilator I only have a 20% chance of ever coming home again, BELIEVE I AM MOTIVATED Forcing myself to sit propped up on the couch for 14 hours a day and do breathing exercises is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life I AM FIGHTING If you ever take one message away from anything I ever wrote, let it be this, never tell an ill person they have to fight, it can’t even be described as rude, it’s more like character assassination Just avoid giving advice in general, even holding the phone to read it is exhausting I am feeling a little better by writing this. Writing has always been the way I process my thoughts and emotions, most effective way to distract myself from tough problems But now sitting and typing IS the tough problem Metaphorically I am punching my way out of my own coffin (Kill Bill 2) and I have punched plenty of things as a martial artist, taken punches to the mouth, to the nose, to the eye, to the gut, elbow strikes to the face, thrown on the ground, pinned, all that It’s not my sparring partners telling me to fight, it’s people who never put on the gloves Don’t mean to scorch anyone, I know everyone on the planet has as much anxiety as I do right now, I know people genuinely want to see me get up and wobble down the hall, out of quarantine Right now I’m about… eh… 85% convinced I will make it, which is good, it’s good Just please don’t think I’ve quit because I’ve been quite ill for 11 days, I probably still have two weeks to go “it’s a marathon not a sprint” no kidding, I’d ask my hubby to get my marathon medal out for me to wear but it honestly seems a little grim, also too heavy to put on my chest right now The good news is, he’s doing totally fine, maybe 2-3 days of barely noticeable symptoms, he might have gotten out of this with no idea he was exposed. Even more excited than I am by the prospect of becoming an antibody vending machine. This is what people do when they find out you’re sick, they want to check with you right away IS IT TRUE?? Don’t ask the sick person, ask someone two degrees out from their circle, example, everyone in my family & my hubby are all still working full time, I know other people must be in the same situation There’s no etiquette book for this, actually there might be?? We’re all trying to figure out how to love each other and get through this together. I picture you doing something cool, reading a book, watching a movie, chatting with friends - things I’m too tired to do myself right now - and it cheers me right up. There’s a young male finch that sings outside my window, looking for a mate, Noelie chirped back to him, did you know she speaks Finch? Some things are still going well, a couple months ago some wild parrots flew by squawking and she picked up her little foot and waved at them. Like I’m waving to you now, Hello, from a safe distance. |
AuthorI've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years. I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago. This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesArchives
January 2022
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