My COVID week: Twice vaxxed, twice boosted, but still got really sick

 

COVID-19

COVID knocked me on my backside a week ago. I write this while propped up on the futon in my living room, It's where I've spent most of the daylight hours this past week. 

I got slammed hard--despite being twice vaxxed, twice boosted and one of the people still avoiding indoor gatherings, and masking at necessary indoor places, like the grocery store. 

Over Labor Day weekend, I visited my mom, age 88, and other family near Roseburg in southern Oregon. I came home with COVID. In fact, four of us in the family got COVID this week. Including Mom.

I took my first-ever at-home COVID test, and it was positive. Darn!

I missed out on my first full week back at my great job at Clark College. Thank goodness for an understanding supervisor, Chandra Chase, who stepped in and interviewed a student in my place! I'm grateful also for the paid sick leave I'd accumulated. 

I missed out on getting together with my daughter, Kate. We often get together on the weekends to hang out or have an adventure. Not this week.

I missed the opportunity to hear my author friend, Jane Kirkpatrick, talk about her new book, Beneath the Bending Skies at Powell's Books in Beaverton. 

I missed out on after-work walks on the trail with Clare as well as another hike in the Columbia River Gorge. 

I missed out on countless solo walks and bike rides along the trail and through the woods to pick the last blackberries, watch the herons.

I missed out on paddling my kayaks. 

I missed out on getting together for dinner and a game of Boggle or Scrabble with Holly and Charlie.

I missed sharing a picnic dinner with housemates Kathleen and Michael.

I missed a bike ride on the trail with Kathleen.

I missed attending the annual Vancouver Peace and Justice Fair in Esther Short Park.

I had to postpone my sisters' trip to Boston and Cape Cod.

Instead of participating in all of these wonderful things, I slept. Normally, I never sleep during the day and have difficulty sleeping at night. Not this week.

I also listened to an interesting novel via audiobook, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, courtesy of Fort Vancouver Regional Library.

I started watching a quirky, interesting South Korean TV show called Little Women, loosely based on Louisa May Alcott's novel by the same name. Strong female leads in a contemporary setting.  

I have so many dear ones looking after me. Kathleen brought me fresh-picked raspberries and Michael's bean soup. Clare, Holly and Charlie and my sis, Becky dropped off groceries on my front porch.

Slowly, I've improved.

Chills and fever are gone.

Body aches are gone.

Sneezing is gone, and I'm not coughing as much.

I still can't taste or smell food. (But did that stop me from eating a bar of excellent chocolate dipped into the peanut butter jar? No!)

I still have a headache, but it's no longer throbbing, just more like my constant background music.

I'm still very tired--but not thoroughly exhausted as I was. 

One friend asked me if I'd been able to write this week. Up until now, no. This blog post written on Sunday night is the first time I've had the band width to write. And this blog post is not great writing. Simply needed to get it down. I'm learning to say: "Good enough." 

I am slowly emerging from a foggy COVID brain. 

Mom and my other family members also have improved. We're on the mend. 

I'm grateful that if I had to get COVID, it was this more mild version, not the strain that was filling up hospital morgues in New York in June 2020. 

Today I accomplished these tasks:

1. Finished listening to my audiobook

2. Took a shower and washed my hair

3. Washed my dishes (I don't have a dishwasher, so it's a little more effort)

4. Checked in with Mom, my daughter, my siblings

5. I hadn't been outside in a week, so I spread a blanket in the yard and laid down for awhile. (yes, it's smoky, but I can't smell anything right now, so it was OK).

Tomorrow, it's back to work for me. (I'm still working remotely, so that's great!) Hoping I have the bandwidth to process info and write.

Eventually, after I've tested negative and feel well enough, I'm looking forward to rejoining life. 

This blog post is done. No more to say, except, do take care of yourself, dear ones. COVID is real. If you get COVID, self-isolate and don't spread it. Be kind to others.

I hope to be well enough to paddle my kayak soon!

When life gives you lemons...

Usually when life gives me lemons, I make lemonade. I'm generally an optimistic glass-half-full kind of woman.

This week I've had my share of lemons, but I didn't have the fortitude to make lemonade. Instead, I puckered at the sourness.

I'm glad today is over. I'm relieved that tomorrow is Friday. One more day of work--and the possibility of more lemons. 

Every morning for several weeks I've been waking up with a stiff, painful left wrist and hand. I've developed arthritis as a result of breaking my wrists in a four-wheeler accident last fall. Stiffness and pain are my new normal. Guess I'd better learn to deal with that recurring lemon.

After soothing my wrist with heat, I drove to work. As I was walking across the street to enter our building, a car barreled up the street, and instead of slowing down when she saw me, the driver just kept going and narrowly missed hitting me. Apparently, I'd irked her. She screeched to a halt, rolled down her window, shouted obscenities and shook her fist at me.

At work I received a voicemail from a confused woman who asked me about an unspecified story published on an uncertain date. When I returned her call, she went on and on about this story (which it turns out, I didn't write). I asked her when the story was published. She said, "I can't get to it right now. I'm on the toilet." Ew! Why did she answer her phone when she was on the toilet? I said I'd call back later and hung up.

Every afternoon at work lately, I've developed a serious headache. It's tough to write stories under deadline pressure when my head is throbbing and my eyeballs feel as if they'll pop out of the sockets. One night this week, I had to cover an evening event and had a short timeline to write a story for the next day's newspaper. My head throbbed so badly I thought I'd throw up. Somehow, I finished my story, moved it into edit, and went to lie down on the couch in the women's lounge while my editor read my story.

My headache has returned today. No painkiller seems to work. But I'm tucked into bed and am applying heat to my stiff wrist.

Thankfully, tomorrow is a new day. I'll try harder to make lemonade from the lemons. I'll write in my gratitude journal and look for the silver lining. 

But sometimes, when life is sour, you just have to pucker.