 |
I thought I would write this as I'm late to the party getting Covid. As somebody who hadn't had it I was intrigued about what it might entail but when I asked people they would just say. I felt shit, it was worse than a cold or at the other end I didn't feel ill at all. I know that this thing is really variable both from one individual to the next and over time so I thought a diary of what I'm getting in February 2023 might be useful if you are wondering what you might expect or be on the look out for.
Day 1
I take a test when I'm going to be going on public transport or to visit places or people who are vunerable. I used to take one every time I went to a social occassion but I was using up too many tests and the chemist near us hasn't stocked them for a few months. They are like hens teeth around here. I took the last of our test this morning and it was negative. I had a very slight sore throat but I've put that down to an agressive wax burner we have been using and what else can one go on but the test. I do have a tendancy to play close attention to my health and dips in it. I would have to use several hands to count up the amount of times I've thought I was getting covid.
I was fine on the bus but as I set off to walk to an appointment every step felt hard work. Kind of achy but not quiet. I usually enjoy a new walk, an adventure but I felt the journey wondering if I should have a rest on each wall or bench. I had a choice after the appointment of a walk or bus and I'd usually choose to walk but bus was in my head. I was, for the first time in ages stupidly hungry so I went to a local supermarket. I'm not often in a supermarket but I am usually grumpy in them. My patience today was even shorter. I just had no energy to find the strange hidding place for the sandwiches or make a wise choice once I found them. So the first sign for me seems to me a weird tiredness. Tricky as this is a first sign when you are coming down with most things.
Talking with a friend there was a sort of floaty feel and real effort needed to concentrate. Back home and chatting with my Mum online and I start to sniffle and sneeze. "You are coming down with a cold." my Mum says and I agree. In the night I wake up several times with aching eyeballs, headache and a catch in my breath. I call it a catch in breath as its not a tight chest its more like when you take a glug of drink and forget to breath and then you have to do that catch up breath. I freak a bit at that as it brings back memories of my Dad passing away and my panic makes breathing even harder. I get up and watch some tele as lying in the dark in bed is scarier for me than being up watching kitchen nightmares. I remember advice online which I read frantically when this first started about controlled breathing. When the catch comes I try to take deeper concious breaths and I admit to my other half how I'm feeling. I tell him that I know that I can breath but feel like I can't. I know from Dad's passing how long breath can be held, another breath pops up and life still keeps going. Its not that easy to stop breathing but it felt that way in the middle of the night. Admitting my feelings out loud and focusing on the tele and breathing deeply helped me get back on top and back to bed. It was a broken night and I decided that if these nights were to continue I'd have a plan for the next one.
Day 2
Our friend ordered us some more tests and around mid day they arrived. I'd been watching TV downstairs, wearing a mask when others came in. The aching eyeballs were the worst of the symptoms today. In the film "Withnail and I" he says he has a "Bastard behind the eyes" and that very much summed it up. It was annoying me as I couldn't read, knit or do any drawing work. Even watching TV needed bits watched through closed eyes. I'd cancelled a meeting, unwilling to go without a test first. There was a revisiting of the sore neck which featured post vaccine and walking like a zombie, one of those slow ones I struggle to see the threat in.
The test was so positive. The line sprung into life as soon as the liquid seeped to the T. My first reaction was to feel bad for visiting people the day before, I'd tried so hard through this to be less risk to others. I retired to our bed room after negotiating that the other half should go to the spare room. Its probably unlikely that he will swerve it again but worth a try.
I read something about staying active with covid but its hard when isolating in a room where the major furniture is a bed. In bed my back starts to ache but that could be to do with other health issues I have. The main feature of day 2 is aching though. No loss of taste, smell of appetite. Raging thirst which is good as staying hydrated is another tip. I get some licorice as that has been shown in studies to help. Normally I love it but it does taste really sweet. Runny nose but my nose will run at the drop of a hat anyway.
Day 3
The headache has subsided and a lot of the aches. Just the neck and shoulder ache and a feeling that if you turn too quickly you might stick that way. Catch of breath is still there but I've got used to it and its not so bad now its not novel and its explained. I keep trying to do things but got pulled up by the limits of my energy. I only ever really get bored when I'm tired so I'm getting very bored. I opened the window and smelt burning "ummm real outside smells" I thought. Its only day 2 in this room. I looked up quarantine advice and it says 5-10 days.
Symptoms are all managable now with pain killers every so often and as with most illness it seems to get worse as the day goes on. I have night time plans. Podcasts to listen to if I can't get to sleep. Things to watch if I wake up and need the company of tiny others. Night times haven't been as bad as that first one when I wasn't sure what was occuring.
Day 4
Woke up in the night with sore throat. You know when you swallow a chip too soon and it scrapes down your throat, maybe just me as I do have a tendency to wolf my food. Like that only with every gulp. I think out of all the symptoms this far this is my least favourite. On the plus side its the kind of pain which, unlike the head and eye ball ache, is eradicated with pain killers. I wonder why some kinds of pains respond better. I must look that up. But first after playing catch up and writing up to here think my energy is used up and I'll go stare into space for a bit.
I tried to tidy some clothes but half way through ran out of steam and got a sore neck. I even commited a knitting sin and gave up knitting half way through a row. I seem to be ending the day with no real aches or pains but a spaced out feeling, itchy inner ears and a gurgling belly. I keep thinking I feel better but who knows.
Day 5
For those who like things explained in metaphors.
I woke up last night and concluded that Covid is like a piece of classical music. You press play and as it starts so quietly you wonder if you have pressed play at all. Maybe you turn it up to test your equipment. Push things wondering what is up. And then a certain refrain sets off, a set of strangely arranged notes which alerts you to the fact that something has disturbed the airwaves. At first its unfamiliar. Maybe you get some help from the program and its tells you what its called and what you might expect. You feel more at ease with the information and relax now that it at least has a name. And on it goes, sometimes, so silent it seems it might have ended, then a set of new notes followed by a come back from old refrains. It is sometimes unpredictable, sometimes leaves one anticipating, sometimes has one humming along to a familiar bit.
And where is my control in all this I thought in the middle of the night?
Like the conductor. To the untrained eye just waving her arms but to those in the know slowing things down, speeding up a little, holding the whole piece together whilst each instrument gets on with their bit. Deciding when to intercede and when to just let things roll on. One might think that the orchestra pay no attention but perhaps they do look up and finding a calm conductor might give them assurances.
Day 6
Yesterday was a good day in terms of symptoms but a bad one in terms of frustration. No pain killers required because all the aches had left. All that remained was a sore stomach, but I'm used to that, and an annoying throat tickle when talking. With a new burst of energy came a cooped up feeling. Wanting to walk and move about but with no enough space to do it. My usual guilt I get when I don't do much. I made myself a little dinning room/studio corner so that I don't need to lie down all the time. I tried some drawing but the neck ache returned. I tried pretending to be a ninja in the bathroom but that can only be sustained for so long. Test was still positive so I felt stuck. Today I've woken feeling tired out and with a tight chest. Turns out I was right with the music metaphor. Yesterday was an almost silent lull, today I think its back in the acendent. Thus far I've slept less than I usually do, awake at night more and I find it hard to sleep in the day. Maybe today will be a sleep day.
Day 7
I placed a photo further up by an artist we saw when we visited "The Foundation Of Doubt" an amazing place in France featuring the work of Fluxus artists. I can't find which artist this particular work is by to credit them but it still serves as an illustration to my thoughts from last night.
Yesterday wasn't a sleep day. I've never been much good at sleeping in the day. Even when my son was a baby and would have me awake all night I'd still struggle to take midwifes advice and sleep when he did. Another day, stuck in, trying to protect the other half and others from this, been brought my meals which I'm grateful for but without the human comfort which illness usually brings, a hug, a held hand a mopped brow. I didn't feel that ill just out of sorts. I'm not sure if it was the situation, the covid or both which was jangling my mental well being. I tried to do some art as usually I have enough imagination and tenacity to create through even the dullest of times but the muse has well and truly left the building. Part practical in that the neck ache returns if you look down but also a real grump with the process.
So last night I was brought to the thought. "If I can't be productive, connected to people or creative I'd rather not exist". I wondered if everybody felt like that or just me and what it was which made me feel this way, a deep sense on anxiety if I wasn't making an impression on something or somebody.
Maybe Its a shame to still feel this way as I've been working on the idea that my purpose as a living being is just to exist and experience life. That this alone is enough and anything else is a bonus. But I do find it tricky to consume without creating even for a week or so. The amount of times I've gone on holiday leaving my art materials behind and then half way through found an art shop and bought things to create with. The times we have gone to visit the beach and I've made sand sculptures or formed gloupy mud into elf heads. This impulse to create is a pleasure but I have a low tolerance to rest and just consuming other peoples creative output in the form of TV box sets, books or just watching the clouds. The lurgy, wherever it is lurcking was zapping energy still and making just sitting and exisiting the only real option. I guess better day sleepers just sleep through it, If I wasn't isolating I might just try to do activity through it. Now I'd like a switch so that I could be turned off and rebooted when I'm full of beans again. As that isn't actually possible I'm stuck dealing with my disgruntled chimp self (as noted in the wor of Dr Steve Peters). If anybody has similar temprement and any advice do give me a shout.
Day 8
This is now so boring.
Day 9
Just a slowly forming faint line on the test today and so it is with my sense of it in me today. Its on its way out. I drew and painted for much of the day my concentration back. My only real issues are stomach related. Covid, hernia, cysts or a combination? I'm not sure. Tomorrow or maybe the next day I may be free to roam once more. Life before this week hasn't been that full, curtailed as it is by family circumstances. I'm not sure I want to get wrapped up in a social whirl when I get out but I do think I want to see more things, be outside more. Not travel just for the sake of it. New things might not be far flung, they could be just on the doorstep. I also want to give the other half a big hug. Its been to protect him that I've stayed in my room in the house. I've always thought that I can conect more through minds than
physically, not considering myself a prolific hugger but my mind has
been half powered this week and his sits under a veil. He is a man of few words these days and now I've come to realise how those little hugs and tiny points of physical contact bind us more than words.
I'm glad I wrote this as my memory of the symptoms seems hazy now. Perhaps fogetting illness is a kindness the mind serves us. Maybe its not defense which stops us wanting to talk about it beyond the point but an inability to remember it clearly enough to recount.
