Soapbox

Covid is such a mind-fuck.

I have had covid living in my brain since March. I mean it has moved in and taken over half the closet! I think about it a hundred times a day. I and millions of other Americans (the ones who take it seriously) self-monitor constantly… do I have it now? No? Ok good.  What about now?

That’s one of the worst parts: noticing and examining and fretting over every headache and cough and scratchy throat. Because these days it seems like almost any symptom you can have could be a symptom. I’m becoming a hypocondriac! But the alternative is to be reckless, and to risk spreading it to other people because I didn’t take the early symptoms seriously.

The worst part, though, is feeling fine today and not really being able to relax and enjoy it because its entirely possible that I already have it and just haven’t started feeling sick yet. Or could get it on my next trip to the grocery store. Or the one after that.

Yesterday was the 4th in a series of very stressful days for Ted. He had 3 high-pressure days at work (board meetings for which he had to co-ordinate and run the tech) culminated by what he thought would be a simply plumbing repair of a leaky shower head that turned into an emergency evening call to a plumber, who needed a part (they always do) so we had to go all night with the water shut off to the whole house.
So when he woke up Thursday feeling “wrong” and asked if he felt hot to me, even if he had, I wouldn’t have gone to red alert. Stress sometimes makes his Epstein Barr flare up and aches, low fever and general malaise are typical symptoms.
He didn’t seem to have a fever and after I made him eat lunch (he was too upset about the plumbing to eat dinner the day before and barely touched breakfast) he felt better.

Then Steve asked me late in the afternoon if he felt hot.
He didn’t have an elevated temp, but he had those fever eyes people sometimes get; slightly glassy and slightly red. He said he had muscle aches and a nasty headache, which were exactly the symptoms Ted had complained of all morning. Danger, Will Robinson! Since his temp was normal I brought him tylenol, reminded him to push fluids and tried to push it aside.
At 11:45 PM he came to me with the mercury thermometer in his mouth because he couldn’t figure out how to read it (the cheap digital one was giving ridiculous readings like 96.8 so I roll old school now when there’s reason to suspect a fever). He was 99.6  Technically doctors don’t even consider that a fever: its still within the body’s normal temp fluxuation range. But he had taken Tylenol 6 1/2 hours earlier, so was there still residual fever suppression from that?

He actually looked a little better than he had before dinner, and was enjoying an on-line game of Dungeons and Dragons. I told him to wait about half an hour, take it again and see if it was higher.

Then I went to bed and stared at the ceiling. It’s not normal to worry abot a perfectly healthy 33 year old man having a temp of 99.6 but that’s what covid does. It turns everything into a possible crisis!

He took his temp again a little after midnight: still mid 99’s. So he emailed his boss that he wasn’t coming in, played a little more D&D, took a shower, gathered up his things and quietly crept down to isolate himself in the basement “Bug Out” room, just in case.

This morning the trusty mercury thermometer said he was 98.4. I took it twice because he wasn’t sure how long it had been since he’d had a drink of water, and that will cool the mouth down. He took the vitamins and black elderberry I brought him and devoured a short stack of pancakes. No cough. No loss of smell or sore throat. Still… I told him to take it again after lunch and if it’s normal then, it was just one of those things, and to let his boss know that he’s ok to come in. And I can completely unclench.
For now.

Just about every symptom known to man, including digestional symptoms, have been reported by somebody to be associated with Covid 19. So in a person my age, a lot of symptoms that we have, off and on, all the time, could be an early sign.
Or not.
Which I assume is why people are so darn bipolar about it: either we say “To hell with this BS!” and ignore it (deadly stupidity) or we guard and worry and fret just a little all the time, and let it live in our minds, if not in our bloodstreams.

Plus, unless/until they come up with a vaccine, we are probably ALL gonna get this bitch sooner or later.

See? Total mind fuck.