Buenos Noches from a Lonely Room

One interesting thing about being diagnosed with COVID, seeing as how big it is and how many people are affected, you're given very little information or instruction.  Nothing more than go to the hospital if you're fever rises above this number or if you have trouble breathing.  Officially, maybe that's all they can say as there is not a cure but surely, there must be more.  You're on your own with this one, in more ways than one.  If you do have to take that hospital trip, you won't be joined by your loved ones.  In many way it's frightening so I approach it like I would a bear in the woods.  I'm not running, just slowly backing away and praying it doesn't stand on it's hind legs or charge me.

I'm almost two weeks following the diagnoses but unlike some folks, the virus hasn't left.  It wanders around my camp, breaking branches, making me aware of its presence.  I'm feeling better each day, but it lingers and tries new ways to attack. It came back with new strength after a short phone call just 3 days ago.  Sweats and fatigue had followed any sort of exercise, like getting out of bed and walking to the window.  Now that's been replaced with needle-like chest pains and sudden nausea, losing feelings in my hands.  Weird stuff.  It's not so bad that I need to do anything but go back and lay down but after 14 days, I will admit, it scares me.  An internist told me some folks just have a much longer recovery which was encouraging because time is what I have to give.  So I'll keep a good thought.

Cobb Salad 

Is The Better Part Over?

Not Ray's reopened and P braved the unmasked waters to get us a slice

During my strong days I float along, follow the rules of society, and generally try my hardest to keep good thoughts based on my limitations and abilities.  But once in a while I get these blockbuster, morose ideas that form like supercells inside my head.  I can't help but consider this COVID-19 could be so much worse then we ever imagined.  Opposite to the folks that think this is an overblown simple flu, I'm starting to believe instead its not only nothing we've ever seen before, which is already a known fact but that it's capable of inconceivable things. many of which are not yet known.  After reading about those poor little kids developing that related syndrome, adding yet another chapter to this bizarre bug, simply calling it a bug makes it sound too innocent.  There is nothing sweet about a virus that has the ability to warp your mental state.  Now that I have some distance from it's epicenter, I'm reading not only may there be permanent damage but some are questioning if it ever really goes away.  What if when your immune system weakens, it can come back, like genital herpes.  In Italy, weeks after supposed recovery, and no longer testing positive many are finding themselves hovering in an endless convalescence, not well enough to work.  This is where we are after 7 weeks. 

A recent article in the Times left me both relieved to see our very odd experiences are not uncommon....

But even some of the infected who have avoided pneumonia describe a maddeningly persistent and unpredictable illness, with unexpected symptoms. Bones feel broken. The senses dull. Stomachs are constantly upset. There are good days and then bad days without apparent rhyme nor reason. 

....and with chills how the article ends.

 “It leaves something inside you,” she said of the virus. “And you never go back the way you were before.”