Omicron: my ongoing journey.

[oak]

Hi friends.

While I wait for the official results, I have many of the symptoms of omicron; including, today, the day-8 dip. I have a scratchy throat, chills, a little nausea, and a little crabbiness.

Happily I am vaccinated and boosted, wore masks, and only left the house over the holidays to get groceries (where I must have caught it!). My conscience is clear, and hopefully I minimized the viral load.

My symptoms have been mild, and my main concern the dreaded long Covid.

This experience has also taught me humility (someday I will decline and die, a salutary reminder) and gratitude (just last month I whined about having to go to work and kettlebell; how I’d enjoy either now! I was so rich!).

I respect Covid and it’s seriousness. I am off of work and focusing on plenty of fluids and rest. My O2 is is in the mid to high 90s, thankfully (I encourage everyone to buy a oximeter from Amazon: it may save your life).

I’ll post here as I recover, warily hope to avoid long Covid, and learn the lessons of humility that life is demanding of me.

[manuel_moe_g]

Your health is paramount, know we are pulling for you, Oak!

[remarks]

I'm hoping for the best for you, Oak. I've been fortunate to avoid COVID so far, but my luck may be running out. In the small office I work in, someone just across the hall tested positive today. We were told to work from home tomorrow, which is fine by me since my depression is bad this week anyway. Can't help but think it's a matter of time before I get COVID. I am vaxxed and boostered, so hopefully it won't be bad if/when it happens.

[oak]

Thanks Manuel Moe!

Remarks: While Covid always deserves wary respect, especially the possibility of the dreaded long Covid, my omicron has been Very mild indeed (so far).

To quantify, 90% of my past week, using the metric below, has been in stage 1. The other 10% of my time has been in stage 3.

[edit: I put a link here, instead Google “improved pain chart bees”]

Keep in mind that when I had OG Covid in Feb 2020, I was actively ready to welcome death.

Which is a long way of that if you get omicron (likely, frankly), you should be okay. Annoyed, certainly, but very unlikely to be all that miserable. Keep us posted.

[Beany Boo]

I like the self-reflexivity in your talk about lessons learnt; lessons about putting things in proportion, even in the shadow of potential crises. I know you’re probably buckling in the midst of grief or at least, the anticipation of it, but the way you’re talking shows remarkable strength.

Good job.

[oak]

Thank you for your encouragement, BeanyBoo.

It means an especially lot to me today: I am sad that I am still worn out ten days in. Eg, I “should” be better. While my physical symptoms are essentially done, there is the mental/moral damage and exhaustion.

I try to remind myself that even mild Covid is a serious matter that will resolve itself on its own timetable.

I am not God. I am subject to aging and sickness. And all that makes me human.

And if, someday, I can return to work and kettlebell class, I’ll be more grateful. I’m astonished at how rich I was last month.

[rivergirl]

I'm sorry to hear you've been dealing with Covid again, Oak. Physical illness makes it harder to deal with grief and other issues. I believe you'll get back to class and will feel better again. Take good care of yourself.

rg

[remarks]

I ended up getting tested today. The good news: I don't have Covid. The bad news: I don't have an excuse to stay home and be lazy.

[oak]

Friends, I don’t want to share this, so it is all the more important I do.

This evening I had a mini-meltdown, anxiety-wise. I realized I was letting my anxiety make me tired, so I challenged myself to ride the exercise bike for thirty seconds, put the library books into the cloth bag for returning, and declutter for five minutes.

This week I’ll be cleared to return to work, and since I received a negative test result almost a week ago, I’m okay morally with returning to the gym/coffee shop/society.

I’ll keep an eye out for the dreaded long Covid, heaven forbid, and try to move on from this.

One thing that has helped me is art: in addition to the delightful nonsense of Cobra Kai, one film that really helped me is the (decisive)”Spivak”: not a documentary, hardly a movie, but a delightful fable that really gave me a new perspective. So lovely.

I also did some laundry, which is a real achievement.

Covid is a strange, terrible thing.

Edit: I meant to say I could imagine said film “Spivak” to be divisive, though I suppose the autocorrect had a kernel of truth to put “decisive”: in a Freudian slip sort of way, that eventually we have to be decisive and act, so that hope triumphs over experience.