Well, it finally happened…

I’d been reading that Covid is doing the rounds again, and had booking us in for our Covid, flu & shingles vaccines high up on my to-do list – but those vaccinations will now have to wait a while.

I thought we’d “just” got bad colds/some sort of virus/flu, and only tested because Himself seemed determined to return to work when he was clearly not well enough – but those two red lines changed that thinking.

Not for me though, as I routinely work from home, so it’s been business almost as usual. In truth, I don’t feel ghastly – at least not all the time – so long as I keep up the drug intake. Except for the breathlessness – that is an absolute swine.

My initial reaction – after being relieved it would ensure Himself wouldn’t be stubborn and drag himself off to work – was one of frustration, and to try and work out how I was going to figure out some way of progressing things on the sale of my mother’s apartment without being in-person present, as well as making some forward momentum on those items which linger on my to do list but don’t require me to engage with the outside world.

Fortunately, after a couple of days, the fact that I found myself physically struggling to do the most undemanding of chores (making the bed would you believe) gave me the wake up call I needed. So, I eased WAY back and fully engaged the self-care, only doing what it time sensitive or client critical. As a result, there’s been a lot of time in a comfy chair, cuddled up under a blanket with hot tea, with a gently undemanding, if good read.

The guilt of having given it to Himself, and potentially to my daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren, my elderly neighbour and various other random individuals before I knew I was ill has been particularly hard. Ridiculous to feel guilty – especially as I caught it from someone else first – and it’s not like I’m some sort of gad-about or bar-fly, and yet I do.

A few other things I’ve noticed are that my emotions are disturbingly close to the surface, which I could well do without, although I suspect that’s just a viral thing rather than Covid-specific – but it’s also scrambling my ability to speak a cogent sentence. I can write one, but trying to get the words together out of my mouth is quite another matter. Most odd…

Indeed, I do wonder whether it scrambled my usual thought processes. I am well-versed in self-care practices and am usually able to put aside thoughts of stuff needing to be done when I’m not at my best, but it’s like I’d morphed back to the person I was, with the thought and behaviour patterns I had 2-3 decades ago.

Finally, I had to move my car earlier (some building work going on in our car park at the moment), so I masked and gloved up and got to it. But despite normally being both confident and competent behind the wheel, I found maneuvering felt laboured and positively alien. Could Covid have messed with my spatial awareness?

As someone who’s had all the vaccines on offer, if not the current one, I thought it might be interesting to note my observations of my Covid experience, so if you’ve made it this far, I thank you ❤ I’m now testing negative again, and all these symptoms have abated – apart from the breathlessness. That seems to be sticking around, damn & blast its eyes!

Have you had it yet, or are you among the dwindling number of the population who has stayed Covid-free? Any thoughts/stories/experiences about unexpected symptoms?

© Debra Carey, 2023