That’s all I have for a title today.
Things have been rather uneventful around here. I’m just trying to keep my head above water, both literally and metaphorically. I’ve developed a Covid recovery strategy, and it seems to work fine although every morning I still feel like I was waterboarded all night.
I think I forgot to mention my air conditioner. I have a new one! None of the condos in my complex have any ducting because they were built in 1979 and back then, the climate here in northwest Oregon was more temperate. As a result, we’re on our own here as far as heating and cooling. We all have wood-burning fireplaces, although those provide more ambiance than heat. Some units have baseboard heating, and some have Cadet wall heaters. I have the Cadet wall heaters and just replaced all of them back in December. Cooling isn’t too much of an issue in my unit because I have no east-west facing windows. I’m also under trees and have units on either side of me, so I’m well insulated– at least downstairs. I do have a one-story unit next to my west side, so upstairs gets toasty, especially in the guest room. The guest room is front-facing, so per HOA rules, I can’t have a window unit in there. Most residents here have portable AC units for those front-facing rooms and that’s what my son and his girlfriend had, but they bought theirs and took it with them when they moved out. The guest room doesn’t really get used anyway, so it’s not a big deal for now. My bedroom, which is also upstairs but faces the back of the building, is the one room that has an air conditioner installed. It’s a window unit, but it’s installed into the wall next to the window. Because the whole setup is upstairs and has trim and caulking around it, replacing it isn’t easy (and they weigh 81 pounds). So I called Mr. Handyman and they agreed to replace it. All I had to do was order one and have it delivered. Now, $837 later, I have a brand new AC unit in my bedroom. It’s been really nice since I’ve been stuck at home due to Covid.
Work has been great. Despite my string of illnesses and being sick for most of this month, I have only missed two days. They allow me to work from home while sick and my boss has been very supportive and responsive. We also got $500 bonuses about a month ago, so that offset most of the cost of my new AC. I had my annual performance review and it was even better than the last. I’ve been with the company for nine years now, and I got an 8.4% pay raise! That puts me at a nice even $30/hour. (Side note: Yes, I know I could make almost twice that at a tech company. However, I love my job and the company I work for, love my team and the respect I get, and I get good benefits and it’s 1.5 miles away from home. In IT it’s also hard to find permanent, full time employment. Because I am single and have a mortgage to pay, I need that kind of security.) Since I’ve been doing the same job with one system for 7.5 years and the other (in-house) system has changed so much, I need to re-learn most things for the in-house system. I’ve been doing some cross-training with my boss and doing some updates in that system. I’ll also be doing some cross-training soon with another team member so that I have some help testing and backup in case I need it for PTO or illness. I take a lot of pride in my work and I know I’m a valuable employee. Aside from being a hard worker with a fantastic work ethic– I’m a fast learner, good at troubleshooting, testing, and my entire job in general. Something I’ve also done that I think often gets overlooked, is having fostered a great working relationship with the companies I work with in other states– one of which is a major multinational corporation.
Our swimming pool here is finally open again. We had some expensive water leaks and after much investigation, had several repairs done. First there was a plumbing repair. Then they tore out the liner and resurfaced the bottom of the pit, put in a new liner, a new pump, and a new skimmer. Altogether I think it cost about $12,000 and took several months. It just opened back up a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been out there a couple of times this week. Since I’m done with isolation but still have to mask, I make sure to only go out when there’s no one else there. It’s been wonderful. It feels so good to be in the water. I think the water level is too high, though, so I’ll have to mention that to the Board and see what they think should be done, if anything.
I have a Covid coping strategy I’ve developed. My symptoms are clearly going to linger for a while. I mean, the obvious, of course, is to be fully vaccinated and boosted and test often enough to catch it in time to get Paxlovid. It’s been rough enough to make me wonder how bad off I’d be if I weren’t vaccinated.
I’m pretty sure I have BA.5. It’s not as easy on the lungs as the other Omicron variants and turns you into a snot factory. I think the origin of lung congestion is post-nasal drip, so here’s my coping strategy because I am so susceptible to sinus infections:
- First thing in the morning — Stage 2 Neti and Flonase. Take 400mg ibuprofen and a dose of Dayquil. The ibuprofen calms down the inflammation in my sinuses and throat and the Flonase is a steroid, so it helps open up my sinus passages.
- Mid-morning — Productive coughing and blowing my nose like a motherfucker because I just opened everything up and the gunk had built up in my lungs overnight.
- Noon — Feeling pretty normal, but my appetite is still weak so I have to force myself to eat. I’ve lost 8 pounds in 12 days.
- Mid-afternoon — Stage 2 Neti again. Take 400mg ibuprofen if needed for the throat pain. Cough drops as needed.
- Early evening — Feeling pretty normal, but still forcing myself to eat dinner.
- Bedtime — Stage 2 Neti because without it, I either can’t sleep because I’m choking on the post-nasal drip, or I wake myself up snoring because it’s gurgling in the back of my throat. Yeah… it’s that bad. Also 600mg ibuprofen so my throat will let me sleep through the night. Bonus dose of Nyquil to calm the cough.
All of that seems to be making this at least tolerable and avoiding another full-on sinus infection. The cough is deep and sounds awful. The throat pain is still moderate. Sinus congestion is mild, but I still don’t completely have my voice back at 100%. It’s as if the throat issue is what’s preventing that. I sometimes wake up with a headache, but the ibuprofen helps that. I’ve still never had a fever or body aches. No brain fog, either. I don’t have the tachycardia that so many people have reported with Covid; in fact, my resting heart rate has declined to an all-time low of 44 bpm. My blood pressure is normal and my oxygen levels, though they dip down to 95-96% in the morning before I clear out my lungs, are good otherwise (97-98%). Blood sugar is good. I do have a thermometer, pulse oximeter, blood glucose monitor, and blood pressure cuff so I can check all of these things whenever I want to. Fatigue has been an issue. After making my bed and cleaning the litter box in the morning I’ve had to either wait until lunch to shower, or lie down and rest for about 10 minutes before doing so. I am easily winded. I had a conversation with a neighbor outside on Thursday and I was getting winded just talking to them. I have been able to do some household chores, but I limit them to one per day so as not to overdo it just because I’m feeling fine from the copious amounts of OTC medications.
So I think the lingering symptoms of this are going to be all throat, lungs, and some fatigue. I don’t foresee anything drastic or even long Covid as long as I take it easy for a while after symptoms subside. It has been pretty rough. I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I avoided it until after vaccinations and antivirals were available. Maybe also lucky in a way that if I did get BA.5, I will now have antibodies for the variant that evades antibodies. Other variants will pop up, so I’m still afraid of this thing.
Because so many people are testing at home and not reporting it, case counts are artificially low and I think this variant is more serious than people realize. I don’t like wearing masks or social distancing any more than anyone else, but this… is awful. I wish mask mandates would come back.
My hypothesis, which my doctor also thinks is true– is that I caught something on July 4th that wasn’t Covid. He says it might have been a cold that turned into a sinus infection, like they always do for me. I still think it was strep because colds don’t cause hellish sore throats that last for 11 days and only go away with antibiotics. So I think I had strep + sinus infection July 7-21, and that weakened my immune system. Then the week of July 17-23 (probably the 19th when I went to the grocery store), I caught Covid and it kicked me when I was already down. A relapse of symptoms began and I tested positive on July 22. I’ve been so incredibly fucked this entire month, health-wise.
On another subject– I’ve been too tired to do much aside from symptom mitigation and sleep, but I really want to get back into the ukulele and guitar. I do also want to write that memoir. I was supposed to have had the outline done by 7/24, but I got too sick. I’ve extended the arbitrary deadline to 8/14. I do have something that resembles an outline that I drafted a long time ago. It’s more of a list of things I don’t want to forget to include. I just need to transform that into an official outline.
Another thing I’ve considered doing is getting into mushroom picking. I was supposed to have been learning about that with a new friend, but that person has ceased all contact with me (they were the one who got me sick in the first place, so maybe it’s just as well). I joined the Oregon Mycological Society. I’ve also considered looking into the Portland Audubon Society or at the very least, finding a bird watching Meetup group.
Right now, though, I need to get some food and water. I’m not even hungry, but I need to eat. Covid has killed my appetite and I suppose as an overweight person I should be happy about that, but it’s not healthy. I haven’t been able to exercise, so my muscles are beginning to atrophy. It’s also dehydrated me.
Oh, one more thing– I texted someone I had been talking to from OkCupid for a few weeks back in April. He was the one who kept saying he wanted to meet but had an excuse not to every week, then ghosted after I told him I didn’t want a pen pal. I didn’t think he was going to respond, but four days later he did respond and apologized. He said he “kind of still wants to meet me” but that he “opens up slowly and got a bit overwhelmed.” I am not going to take that to heart or get my hopes up, but it was nice of him to apologize. I texted him back and said I still want to meet him as well. Nothing back yet, and I don’t think I’ll ever hear from him again. Maybe he simply wanted to apologize to make himself feel better about the whole thing. Who knows. Life goes on.
I’ve been listening to a lot of music lately; some low-key stuff from the 90s and 2000s as well as some Post Malone. It’s been making me a tad emotional, but that’s a good thing. I don’t like not feeling anything. I think the reason I keep going back to OkCupid and dating is because although most men on there are broken and shitty as fuck, I enjoy the banter and the occasional feelings. There’s nothing worse than feeling nothing at all, and I’d rather feel hurt than nothing. There’s a reason “The Nothing” was such a bad thing in The Neverending Story, you know. Because nothing is the worst thing. Even the James Webb Space Telescope found something in a space that looked like nothing to the naked eye. It was a cluster of galaxies billions of years old.
Life really is meaningless. It’s also too short to squander on not feeling anything.
I’m still not dating at the moment, though. I need to recover from these illnesses and get back to me.