I started feeling unwell a few days ago.
I started a fever 8 days ago.
I tested positive for Covid-19, 6 days ago.
I’m still testing positive today
It’s back.
It’s fully symptomatic
It’s not just a cold
It’s back-to-back with my Long Covid almost-recovery
I'm still on a mental tightrope
I still plan to fight it.
I will win.
Yesterday, The Husband came back from work and immediately isolated himself. He had a running nose, and felt terrible. He took the covid test twice, and was positive. He'd had his 4th jab in November, just as the booster programme started.
After the Great Disaster of November 2021, when we isolated as a family after Tara got Covid, and I almost ended up dead, and suffered the ravages of post covid complications thereafter, we had agreed that next time we would isolate independently. So The Husband is in a room with a bathroom, while I'm sharing the rest of the home with Tara…while providing room service. I don’t resent doing it. To me, the act of voluntarily isolating oneself to prevent harm to others is very rare in these times. Last year (when I was at my most vulnerable) was an eye-opener. No one - my own parents, siblings and other family members - adjusted their lifestyles to accommodate me, even a tiny fraction. I felt vulnerable and irrelevant, and was even judged for my choices of distancing and masking.
I realised in that moment…this was not my herd .
It had taken me a lot of courage, and suffering to make the journey to see my family after some of my post-Covid conditions subsided. I assumed they would be happy and grateful to see me alive, maybe fuss over me, just a little. But no, none of that. In an instant, my lifelong attempts at getting affection from them vanished. Just like that. Sometimes it takes decades to arrive at the realisation that people are the way they are. You cannot work your way into their lives. No matter what you do. This time it was different when I left them. I spoke my mind, clearly and calmly for the first time in my life, and left feeling light and liberated. Their herd can think what they like, and say what they like. I’ve walked, and the view ahead is brighter than the shadows I left behind.
No matter how much or how little solitude we like as people, we all eventually belong to a herd. Not necessarily a biological herd. The person who says hello to you at the library, the young lad who makes your morning coffee on the way to work, your partner, your children, your pet dog/cat/ferret, your friend who you only meet to go on a walk with, the un-named parents at the school gate, your yoga teacher, the regular robin/magpie who visits your garden. They all are the herd we develop over a lifetime.
Much as we annoy each other, The Husband, Tara and I are a herd.
So I'm preparing a tray of hot food and drink for him, even as I’m recovering from a nasty vomiting bug from a week ago. I assumed it had cleared up, but it’s not gone fully. Luckily the crushing abdominal pains that had me writhing in agony for 2 days, disappeared after a day of vomiting. Now it’s just a confusing low grade state where I know Im not fine, but I am functional.
In all this Tara is unimpressed and uninvolved. I will say this emphatically. Upbringing is not only about telling a child what is right and wrong, or telling them what they should do - their rights and responsibilities. There is a very large part of any child that is inherent and inborn. We, as parents cannot beat ourselves up over it. What we can do is continue telling them about the rights and wrongs, but more importantly showing them through our actions what love, caring and sharing looks like in a herd. That is all we can do.
When an unyielding sense of responsibility meets a grandiose sense of entitlement, is abuse inevitable?
Random low grade fever
Intense Fatigue
Burning eyes
Banging headaches on a different level of pain
Chills and cold patches on the back and chest
POTS
Tachycardia
Bradycardia
Severe Breathing difficulty
Sharp, burning pain inside chest. Crushing weight on chest.
Memory loss
Slurred speech and inability to find words.
Losing train of thought mid sentence.
Repeating sentences.
Tinnitus-Double layer. First layer is constant, second layer is sporadic
Pulsatile Tinnitus
Blood blisters inside mouth and inner cheeks
Rash
Fizzing body
Lightheadedness
Severe joint pain, hips, knees, shoulders, feet. Also neck pain
Problems swallowing and choking while drinking
Disruption to period
Bladder problems
Digestive disorder
An ominous sinking feeling of foreboding and dread that comes on suddenly.
Inability to walk more than 2-3 steps
Extraordinary extreme nightmares on some days
It was ALL of them, ALL at once.
This was me. This might be familiar to some people; others may have more or less. I will only say this. The very least we as humans can have for one another is compassion. You don’t have to walk in someone’s shoes to show compassion. The same suffering is dealt with differently, by different people. Some people may have no option to rest and figure it out. They may have to go to work and look after others while going through this impossible suffering. What they don’t need is judgement, scepticism and over-simplistic advice, even if is well meaning.
"Long Covid?” sufferers have invisible suffering. They are usually so shell-shocked by the assault that they won’t say much to you. It took me a lot of courage to face writing this. Ive never been able to verbalise and explain to someone who casually asks me, what was wrong with me. There is trauma attached to this experience. If possible just hold them, be there, ask how you can help, believe and accommodate your friends and loved ones.
I am writing this from a place of gratitude. I understand that recovery from "Long Covid?” is very random. I have worked very hard with conventional and unconventional methods. (I will write about what I did, and how I faced each one of the above). I understand that there is a massive element that you can call Luck, or Miracle. Most of all I understand that there are people out there who are probably working much harder than me, and for a much longer time. They haven’t improved. YET.
From a very humble place, I share this with you. This is not medical advice. This is an account of what I did. Consult your medical practitioner and your specific health dos and donts before you set out on your journey.
Give yourself a timeframe-1 year at a time, extendable indefinitely.
Make yourself a hero.
Expect a recovery every day. Go to sleep in anticipation of a recovery tomorrow.
Put in the work.
Avoid those who don’t believe and don’t support you. Cut out negativity.
Have a plan of action and paper printouts stuck on your wall. ( I’ll put mine together and post here soon).
As soon as possible, start drinking water throughout the day.
Add a bit of extra salt to your diet. I hated it, but did it as I had no issues or medications disallowing it and it was supposed to help with POTS.
Have a pulse oximeter attached to your finger at all times. (Much later when I improved, I got a smart watch) I also realised much later that I should take photographs/videos of the readings every few days or weekly. this shows progress, or lack of it. Most importantly in my case, I was so precarious initially that I changed my movements immediately depending on the reading. Again, I’ll write about this in detail later.
Believe…Believe…Believe…Do…Do…Do.
It might have been coincidence, or just another random virus . I ran the same low grade fever for several days, as I did last year when I contracted the condition my doctor called " Long Covid? "
Just like last year, I couldn’t shake the fever for several days. This was followed by a few days of banging headache, again similar to last year. Then after the fever and headache went, I got pulsatile tinnitus, which I'm pleased to report has disappeared after three days. Today I have pretty bad pain and a sore spot on top of my shoulder joint.
I've had a very busy couple of weeks, but I made myself have a lie down yesterday. Maybe that’s all I needed. I’m back to write about “Long Covid?”
Yes I realise I add the question mark after the name, but that’s what the doctor put on my paperwork. I don’t even have the dignity of a conclusive diagnosis or have a have a solid name for what afflicted me.
That’s the indignity of Long Covid. Only the sufferers know what it is, no one…and I mean no one else really gets it.
