#went to work today but I’m still getting over Covid. on meds. new contacts prescription so my head kind of hurts

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

Going to explode

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covid diaries aka memoirs of the plague

trying to keep my thoughts organized and coherent has been a bitch recently, so i’m going to try to put them down more or less in order here and see where we end up. this is going to be heavy on personal covid content and might get long, so please skip if either distresses you.

so last tues, the uh... 24th i guess, i started feeling ill. mostly like allergies plus a bad headache. i had a feeling i was getting sick but didn’t want to alarm my spouse or housemate/best friend, so stuck with ‘could very well be allergies and dehydration.’ also it very well could have been, and it was very reassuring for us all to tell each other that. my company had already moved the majority of employees to work-from-home, including me, so i already wasn’t going to come into contact with anyone outside my home.

symptoms got worse over the next few days, congestion, headache, feeling feverish, cough started up. we didn’t own a thermometer, and my spouse and housemate tried every wal-mart, wal-greens, target, etc to find one. housemate said at one place they laughed at her when she asked if they had any. i tried ordering one on amazon with no luck. either they were $90+, out of stock, or not shipping until may. i settled on ordering on for shipment in may. the seller messaged me the next day and said they couldn’t fulfill the order and asked to cancel it.

from our last costco trip we had already (unintentionally) gotten stocked up on toilet paper, snacks, and some dry goods. at some point before I got sick, spouse and I bought a bag of rice and bag of potatoes, because I intermittently try to do mealprepping and seemed being stuck at home would be a good time to try again, what with national and state-wide states of emergency being declared. also seemed good to have them in supply. and we were still stocked up on cold and flu medecine from when i got bronchitis mid-dec to mid-jan. so we were/are pretty well-stocked on essentials? that was reassuring, as i was obviously, noticeably sick by last friday.

i was hoping i would get better over the weekend but i did not. still couldn’t find a thermometer anywhere. governor had issued the state-wide stay-at-home order on uh...thurs? weds? but already being sick, and already working from home, and not going out, it didn’t really affect me much?

i feel like i should mention at this point that since the state of emergency was declared and we started to transition to working from home, i’d been trying to ration my social media (tumblr/twitter/insta) time for my sanity. but also not having information makes me feel helpless, so i had the CDC covid page up and checked every day. and then the colorado state covid page too. seeing the numbers of confirmed cases double, and triple, from week to week was... hm.

also one of my younger siblings moved from colorado to arizona at the start of march, and presumably lost their phone because i haven’t heard from them since despite poking. that hasn’t been concerning during a global pandemic. not at all. they’re probably not dead. i mean, you’d think a bitch could call their older sibling to let them know they’re not dead, but whatever. i’m sure they’re fine. probably. anyway.

where was i. so by the weekend i was Not Feeling Well At All Actually. my cough had become “scary.” my housemate did all the dishes in the kitchen despite not being responsible for most of them. i felt, and sounded, disgusting.

i checked the covid testing requirements again, and basically found that in colorado you had to be dying to be tested for covid. cool.

monday rolled around, still not better. i ended up having work computer issues (their end, not mine) where i basically ended up laying on the couch in my office while IT did IT things. a blessing. i slogged through the rest of the day. just felt like i wasn’t tracking well, couldn’t focus on shit. that evening while watching shows with husbeast & housemate, i had a truly uncontrollable coughing spasm/fit that seemed to just go on. could barely talk without coughing. i coughed all night. i basically didn’t sleep.

tuesday morning i woke up, and started coughing again. i could hear a crackle echo up my throat when i breathed if i was in the right position. i sat up to try and get my breath. i think it was like 6 am. spouse creature (already awake from my coughing) gently rubbed my back. i started crying. i just wanted to sleep, and i couldn’t sleep, and i couldn’t stop coughing, and i felt like i could barely breathe, and things just hurt, and i couldn’t think straight. i felt so... defeated. i think it freaked out the spouse creature. i usually only cry during children’s movies.

i took the day off of work. i hadn’t taken a day yet because i was already working from home, and it was the end of the month which is the busiest for my team, and my boss had said last week that if i felt i could work, they needed me. by tuesday morning i was out of energy and also fucks. i got in the queue for a teladoc appointment. per the CDC and colorado covid websites, telehealth visits are to be the first option in order to help prevent the spread, etc. also i would have done teladoc anyway bc i don’t have a PCP.

it took a few hours to get connected with a doctor. i think i started coughing while he did his intro thing. he basically said, well i think i know what you’re calling about, but why don’t you tell me. i told him. and coughed some more. he said my symptoms are consistent with covid, and in a perfect world they’d be able to get me in for rapid testing, but they couldn’t. that basically people are only getting tested at this point who are getting admitted to the hospital. some people were able to access testing through their PCPs but even that was drying up. he advised me to self-isolate (already on it lol) and for my household to self-quarantine for at least two weeks from when i started showing symptoms. and i could un-self-isolate once the majority of my symptoms calmed down AND when i didn’t have a fever for three days straight with no meds. he prescribed me an inhaler and a cough suppressant pill, though he said the cough suppressant might not do much since it didn’t seem to be working for anyone else with similar.

husbeast had run out to get some more supplies by the time i got on the vidcall with the doc, mostly liquids and electrolytes. he went back out once i gave him the rundown, to fill my prescription and get me the good costco chicken soup once they were open. he also, miracle of miracles, managed to find and buy a temporal thermometer at costco for like $45 i think. a true champion. my temp seemed to be fine in the afternoon, a touch above normal but fine. i’m not actually sure what my personal base temperature is. i should also say that i’d been consistently taking dayquil and sudafed since the previous weds.

that evening my temp started to go up. and up. or at least i think it was tuesday night. maybe it was weds? freaked out spouse, i got up to 102 F even with sudafed and additional acetaminophen. i basically had a fever from tues through this morning (friday), while taking pills like clockwork. always seemed to get worse in the afternoon/evening and be better in the morning. today at least it’s stayed below 100F, even mostly below 99F.

the cough and difficulty breathing has been the worst part. i have delicate baby lungs to begin with, and i have allergies and a history of childhood asthma. so i’m already paranoid about my breathing even with a normal cold. but to hear that i would have to immediately proceed to emergency services should my symptoms progress to: can only get a few words out, can’t stand up or walk across the room, can’t maintain conciousness, to hear that was... something. because then it’s basically like, okay, if I get pneumonia and my lungs are filling up, then i can go see a doctor in person. cool. and i know it says on the websites that there’s no approved treatment for coronavirus, that treatment for less severe cases will be the same at home as it would be in person, but shit. i woke up so many times last night feeling like i was fighting for air, waking up because i was coughing so hard i had to sit up all the way to breathe, and i kept thinking, what if i just stop breathing in my sleep? not like i would notice, right?

it’s been scary. i’ve been trying not to freak out my people with more crying and whatnot, but i’ve already got anxiety and this shit aint helping. i’m trying to stay relatively calm and not make them deal with me losing my shit on top of already taking care of me and bringing me soup and water and pills and asking what they can do for me. i’m tired of being sick. i want a new pair of lungs. i want to not feel like i’ve been hit by a truck. my ribs hurt from coughing so much. my chest hurts. my whole body aches. the headache keeps coming and going. i can’t stop fucking coughing. i don’t want to die, i just want to maybe go into a coma and wake up when this is all over. once the line of dump trucks has stopped running me over.

and i’m just so mad at the lack of preparedness in the US. i’m so pissed that i can’t even get tested, i can’t know for sure what the fuck is happening to me. i’m so mad that the cheeto is president during this. i hate this fucking timeline. i hate that we don’t even have clear numbers on cases because of mismanagement. i hate that i keep feeling like i’m about to throw up because i’m coughing so fucking hard. real fucking reassuring to know that the symptoms i’ve been told to watch for, to know that i need to go to the hospital, are the same ones that constitute an emergency and would mean that i would basically have to be rushed there. wearing a facemask if we can find one.

ugh. the other worst part is that i haven’t even been really coherent enough to write. and i’ve only been able to settle on a few things to read and watch. being sick makes me picky and like, impossible to please. so i’m spoiled for choice with 4+ streaming services, but nothing sounds good. and my people are working from home, but they’re still working. they can’t spend all their time with me. i’m bored, and everything is garbage, and there are only so many times i can rewatch the princess bride. i have been napping quite a lot, but even that doesn’t take all day.

maybe i’ll write some crackfic. then it doesn’t have to be coherent. and it would be in the spirit of covid to write some real absurd shit i think.

anyway. i might delete this later. i feel better for getting events put down and venting.  also i apologize, i have no idea how to do a readmore cut on tumblr anymore.