Flattened

As I mentioned in the last blog entry I returned from Roatan not feeling great.  My energy was low, I felt tired but still functional.  There have been multiple times during the last month between the New York trip and this one where I felt off for a short period of time but was able to feel better by the next day.  With as widespread as covid is now and me injecting myself repeatedly into crowded situations I felt a little surprised that I was able to escape it.  So on Friday after dropping Gladys off I returned home and still felt off but good enough to mow the grass.  However by the time Friday evening came around things had taken a turn for the worse.

I went to bed with the shivers, feeling cold enough that I pulled the blanket up to my neck.  I woke up a couple hours later sweating, pulling all covers off me.  My nose was running, my body was feeling depleted but then the finishing shot was the diarrhea which kept me from sleeping more than an hour at a time the rest of the night.  I felt like absolute death Saturday morning.  I had no energy, even the simplest of tasks seemed like they would require too much effort.  I was barely able to do the chicken chores, I left out the extended cleaning I normally do on a Saturday, I just had nothing in my tank. Weeding? Forget it, they can grow.  Once I went back inside I laid on the couch and did not move for quite awhile.  All signs pointed to me having covid.

So I was not very well stocked for illness treatment at the house.  I had no cold medicine, no decongestant, no cough medicine, and not even a thermometer.  Getting myself off the couch and into the truck to drive to CVS required a stupid amount of mental pushing.  My body just did not want to do ANYTHING. I finally got my ass in the truck and made the 3 mile drive.  I masked up to go into the store, not wanting to share this misery with anyone else.  I grabbed NyQuil/Dayquil, the thermometer, Imodium, and a covid test.  Shortly after getting home I did the test and got a no doubt about it positive result.  I also took my temperature several times, the highest I read was 99.5 so it was not dangerously high.

The first person I told was Gladys since she had spent face to face time with me for the past week.  She was not feeling badly but did a home test anyway which came up negative which I was happy to hear.  I also let Alison and Torrin know.  Ali had covid a month or two ago and was pretty hammered by it.  My sister and her entire family had it as well recently.  The universal advice I got is to rest which I had absolutely no choice but to obey.  My body was done.  I spent the rest of the day alternating between sleeping and watching tv, although at times watching tv felt like too much work.  It’s crazy.

I started dosing with DayQuil and then took a NyQuil before bed (although I never really left bed)  My sleep last night was better than Friday for sure, I think I only got out of bed once.  I awoke this morning in better condition than Saturday, albeit still feeling like shit.  The combo of diarrhea and not eating much had me down to 175lbs on the scale last night.  Gladys has been concerned about me and reached out a number of times which was sweet.  She said her sister, who is a nurse, suggested I take some pills and an anti-viral shot she has used on others with covid.  It has had good results in shortening the time you are down.  I was open to anything to make getting back to normal come sooner rather than later so I stopped at Gladys’s place while I was out to get basic groceries.  Her sister gave me the shot.  Even though the needle was really long I didn’t feel all that much.  It was weird being around everyone with masks on but necessary.  I’m thankful for the support Gladys’s family has shown me, they are special people.

I masked up again to grab the handful of groceries I needed.  I was literally the only person in Publix wearing a mask that I saw.  I know that the approach to covid is now basically a shoulder shrug but I still would not want to wish this last 24 hours on anyone.  It’s been a very long time since I have been flattened by illness to this level.

So there are going to be some additional side effects from testing positive with covid.  First I can’t go back to work without a negative test.  I plan to work from home tomorrow and retest then to see if I am still generating the virus.  Second I plan to cancel the hernia surgery that I had scheduled for Friday.  I am pretty sure you aren’t allowed to even have surgery if you had recent covid infection but even if that wasn’t the case I would cancel anyway.  The hernia is not significant right now and my life has felt in upheaval enough recently, throwing a surgery into the mix is not something I want or need right now.  There are a lot of ducks that need to be lined up in my world.