almost through my COVID journey (I think)

normal Flick Filosopher service will resume on Monday

Apologies for my absence for the past two weeks. As I noted in my last post here on July 10, I suspected that I had finally caught COVID, and that did indeed turn out to be the case. Two and a half years into our ongoing pandemic, one of my housemates finally tested positive. (He’s eight years old. I honestly thought he was gonna bring the virus home long before now, the way they’re just letting it rip through UK schools. We’ve been careful, but more just plain lucky, probably.) The next day, I started feeling feverish and fatigued. Three days later, I finally tested positive.

I can’t recall the last time I was so sick; maybe never. I had a low-grade fever for a week, and was so fatigued and brain-fogged that I couldn’t do much but loll in bed all day, dozing on and off. I had little appetite, even after days of minimal eating, even when my stomach was growling with hunger. I wasn’t nauseous, and I hadn’t lost my sense of smell or taste — I just had no interest in food. It was a really weird feeling.

Reading was impossible, never mind writing. Checking emails for anything urgent would leave me exhausted, mentally and physically. Having a shower — which I did make a point of doing every day, and I think it helped keep me feeling a bit human — or making a cup of tea (also required for humanness) would require an immediate lie-down afterward. Doomscrolling Twitter and shooting off the occasional tweet I could manage. Doing the daily Wordle was possible; playing Words with Friends (I have a lot of games going!) was not. For some reason my focus returned enough in the evenings that I could get through a couple of episodes of Prime’s superhero satire The Boys, which I am now almost all the way through. (I have thoughts about this show. I may write about it.)

My fever was gone in about a week, but the fatigue lingered. Then the lightheadedness started. My appetite returned, somewhat, but with the return of eating came diarrhea. (Sorry if TMI! But I do think it’s important that we talk about our experiences with this novel virus.) In the second week, I did lose my sense of smell, though not enough to impact my sense of taste, and this lasted only a couple of days. (I noticed when my lovely smelly shower gel, which I consider a form of aromatherapy, suddenly smelled like nothing at all. This was a major bummer.)

I did not sleep well this entire time, even though I was hugely exhausted. Last night was the first night in two weeks when I had a genuinely restful and restorative sleep. Perhaps not coincidentally, today is the first day in two weeks when I did not have to have a nap in the afternoon. And I was able to manage of bit of admin work on FlickFilosopher.com today, and that did not exhaust me. Feels like major progress all around.

This was “mild” COVID. I was nowhere near needing to be hospitalized. (I bought one of those pulse-ox thingies on Amazon when my housemate tested positive. All three of us in the house never had any issues with our blood-oxygen levels. I’m glad I bought the thing; it helped with our peace of mind.) My fever was quite low, though the paracetamol (UK equivalent of Tylenol) probably helped there. And I still felt like I had been hit by a bus. I still feel like I need to take it easy for a while.

Please avoid this virus if you can. Avoid reinfections if you can. All the science we have now says that even a supposedly mild infection can lead to health problems in the aftermath, not just so-called long COVID but increased risks for cardiovascular issues (heart attacks, strokes), diabetes, and more. Reinfections increase the risk. Even for those young and healthy. I’ll be 53 years old in less than a month, and though I’m generally healthy and have had no serious health problems, I’m perimenopausal (which comes with its own issues) and a little overweight. I am going to be hypervigilant about what’s going on with my body, and I am going to be taking extra good care of myself going forward.

Anyway, I think I’m ready to get back to work. I’m certainly eager to do so. I expect normal service to resume on Monday.

Please stay well.

—MaryAnn