This time I made it until 5:45 am before I woke up, something going on in the back of my throat
They call it a “tickle” but it’s more like a crawling, contaminated feeling, like the floor of a movie theater or the bottom of a duck pond I feel fortunate that it doesn’t make me cough most of the time but also I know how a garbage disposal feels at the end of the day Got back to sleep for a few hours, interrupted sleep is just a fact of life with COVID Up again, counting the minutes until I could take my pills, you can feel them wearing off which is why I chose 10 pm / 10 am, so they don’t wear off until after breakfast Lungs feeling like I sucked the tailpipe of a Greyhound bus But then I took my third dose of azithromycin Never thought a little orange bottle would become my most valued possession, the one thing I would save from a fire Started to feel better A few hours later, realized I was breathing deeper, air tasted sweet It’s working! Had a little interlude where I had to go lie down for a while, heart palpitations again But definitely feeling like I am on the upswing, two more days of antibiotics, then soon after, the test results, do I or don’t I?? Next steps, no idea In the meantime let’s tackle some more rumors People seem to think it makes sense that coronavirus came out of a lab This boggles my mind I spend a lot of time reminding myself to be grateful that I am not a medieval peasant dying of plague in a thatched hut, feel a kinship with them They did not blame the Black Death on... alchemists as far as I’m aware Although they did blame the Jews, popular historical fallacy that never stops being stupid and deadly It does seem hard for people to believe that viruses just mutate in various natural reservoirs, that they are not living creatures and that they have no agenda other than to propagate Every now and then a large bird of prey steals someone’s pet, nobody ever calls that a conspiracy, it’s just nature’s way, if something is effective for an organism then it keeps happening Viruses are good at what they do, better than we are, I could never dream of the level of competence of a virus Like ants, they never sleep, each individual is equivalent to a synapse, one colony is like one human brain, except they have zero distractions, no breaks, no vacations, all they do is ant All viruses do is virus Meanwhile we like to blame each other, blame other things, brainstorm, draw pictures, speculate, talk for hours, in other words, we human While the virus just viruses That’s why they keep winning, why bubonic plague and leprosy and Ebola and H1N1 are still here in their own ways There’s this idea that coronavirus will go away when the weather gets warm, we know better than that here because it never gets cold where we live, all the beach communities have it, Cali, Florida, Australia, what we also have is a hang loose attitude I keep reading arguments in my neighborhood Nextdoor, overwhelming attitudes are “stop tattling on people,” “stop being judgmental,” “stop being paranoid,” “open the beaches” Though you should know, they mean just for locals, people here genuinely believe that not everyone is entitled to go to the beach, just only people who can afford to pay 4x for beach real estate People truly seem to think their position (refuse social distancing) is okay ethically because it is their personal risk to negotiate Would they be okay with me taking a walk tomorrow, on the premise that I might have a pulmonary embolism, but that’s my risk to take? Never mind that I might give coronavirus to dozens of people who would not know for two weeks Is this confusion, like they really don’t know what ‘contagious’ means? Or is it a moral blindness, just unable to care about any other person, even their own family or possibly pet cat Or is it denial, probably denial “I am young and healthy, therefore I will not get sick” HAHAHAHA hubris, I might have thought that too In fact I almost made it, if I hadn’t gone on that run I might have fought it off and not realized I was ever sick Which is where I want to make a very brief mention of something very awkward and painful I keep seeing personal stories of people younger than me, one lives, one died “I don’t understand, they were young and healthy, no underlying conditions” Meanwhile clearly obese or severely obese It’s a risk factor There is no time for me but there is for the rest of you, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into but the rest of you do, you know more than I did You might have months, you might have a year or two, to prepare a little If you’re big, if you’re carrying a little extra Please take a moment and think it over I don’t blame you at all for how you might feel about body image issues, but those are human concerns Virus doesn’t care Virus doesn’t care that I planned to start training for an ultramarathon this year Virus didn’t care that I didn’t want my husband to get sick, it just jumped him Virus doesn’t care about our thoughts or opinions Virus certainly doesn’t care about the economy or our haircuts or our mortgages Can’t bribe it, insult it, threaten it Although we can certainly try to ignore it Wish I could Comments are closed.
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AuthorI've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years. I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago. This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesArchives
January 2022
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