Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Covid

Introducing fear

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Before my medical crisis, I had no idea what pneumonia felt like. Now that I do, any time I feel anything close to it, I worry. But also, it was such a unique feeling, anything compared to it is lesser. Which is both good and bad. “It’s not walking non-Covid-related pneumonia” is a pretty easy bar to clear, but that doesn’t mean that what I have is not something to worry about.

I feel like I did when I got the Covid shot. Not quite as bad, but the same symptoms. Chills and sweat, alternating. Fatigue and body aches. None of the more classic ones such as cough, runny nose, etc. I am sniffing more than normal, but no runny nose.

It could just be the crud. I am going to pick up a Covid test to see if it’s that. I will be both peeved and annoyed if it is Covid. Peeved because I just got the booster. Relieved because then I would at least know what it was.

I just took the test. It’s snowing out. That makes me happy, but it’s not going to stick around long, I have a feeling. But it’s certainly pretty and makes me feel very wintery, which I appreciate.

The test is fairly easy. It’s just swab the inside of the nose and then test it. Wait fifteen minutes and you get results. But you can mess up each step along the way if you don’t do it pproperly. And it’s fairly easy to fuck it up. I bought two in case I messed one up and also so I can test in a few days even if I’m negative with the first one. The only thing I had forgotten from the first time was that the ‘test tube holder’ was the package itself. Which I ripped open. Fortunately, I could craft it into a stand so it was no big deal.

I have taken a test before and tested negative. I know that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily negative as false negatives ar ea thing. This test is negative as well. Not even a whiff of a pink line for the test line. I will try again in a few days, but for now, will assume I don’t have it.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have something. Yes, Covid is a big worry, but there are other things, too. I don’t think it’s the flu given that from what I heard, it hits really hard. Maybe a bad cold? But it doesn’t feel like cold symptoms. That’s why I think it might be menoapause. I asked K about her symptoms when she had it, and she said it was exactly as I described. Body aches, fatigue, chills, and sweats. If I don’t feel better by Monday, I’ll see my doc.


Continue Reading

It’s COVID, baby

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I woke up feeling like shit.

Of course, my first thought was that it was COVID, which is not something I  want to deal with. I know that most people who are triple vaxxed don’t react badly to having COVID, but
I have a shitty immune system. More to the point, I just went through a major health scare that started with walking non-COVID-related pneumonia.

That’s always in the back of my mind, obviously. I was feeling exhausted and skipped my Taiji class that day. I emailed my Taiji teacher to let her know that I had to skip class. That wasn’t that unusual for me, sadly, because of my shitty immune system. When we were in person, I missed classes once every three or four months, but that went way down once we went online.

During the pandemic, I may have missed one or two Zoom classes, but nothing like I did when I went to classes in person. That’s one reason I appreciated online classes–I rarely got sick. Maybe once every six months or so.

So, now that I’m feeling punk, I’m nervous. Yes, it may be an overreaction, but this was now my base. I am extremely tired–am I going to die? That was legit my first thought when I woke up this morning.

I bought and took the CRT. It’s negative. I will check again tomorrow. I’m glad. I will have to check it again tomorrow just in case, but it seems I’m negative. So it’s just something else.

I’m done for today. I hope I feel better soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Get the hell out of here 2021

Posted on by • 0 Comments

The end (of the year) is nigh and I could not be happier. This was a shit year in so many ways and I cannot wait to see the back end of it. I am really hoping that 2022 kicks 2021’s ass up, down, and all around.

I know I’m going to sound like a broken record, but let me recap the biggest event of the year for me–possibly my whole life. That may be recency bias, but it’s also an experience that literally changed my life. And it didn’t change my life at the same time. I’m sitting on my couch, looking out the window at a barren land. We’re suppose to get 2-4 inches of snow today. I’m sipping pumpkin-flavored coffee as my cat, Shadow, is snuggled down on my legs. I’m eating Limon Lays, which are faaaaantastic. I also have strawberry-pineapple flavored Mio water, which is fantastic. I’m rewatching the gingerbread house episode of Without A Recipe by the Try Guys, easily my favorite video from them in a long time, and I’m just feeling grateful to be alive. This could have happened on any day in the last year or two, minus the feeling grateful to be alive part.

To recap. Late September 2nd/early September 3rd, I was having a hard time breathing. I called 9-1-1, walked to my front door to unlock it (probably at the behest of the operator) and promptly fainted. Down I went and I remember none of this. The cops came and oxygen bagged me until the EMTs came. I had a cardiac arrest. The EMTs shocked my heart back to life. I had another cardiac arrest. They shocked my heart again. They also jabbed me with an Epi pen one of these times. Oh and I had an ischemic stroke at some point as well. The stroke is always an afterthought for whatever reason. It shouldn’t be because it’s still serious, but it’s not as deadly as a cardiac arrest. Mortality rate for an ischemic stroke after a month is roughly 28%. That’s in comparison to a sudden cardiac arrest mortality rate of 90%. I don’t think it’s cumulative, though, because if that were the case, I’d be dead twice over. Then again, I did die twice. I just happened to be resurrected twice as well.

I remained unconscious throughout this, I think? At any rate, I arrived unconscious. I can’t stop thinking of all the things that had to line up exactly right for me to survive, even to this point. My brother told me had I waited even a minute, I probably would not have been able to make the call. I’m lucky in that the cops of my city don’t really have that much to do and were able to get to me so quickly. And that they knew to bag me. I’m lucky that the EMTs were so damn good at their jobs. And I’m lucky that my heart responded to the defibs and the Epi pen.

More luck: I was taken to Regions Hospital, which has one of the best heart centers in the state. Award winning, in fact. Hell, not just the state, but the country, maybe. My brother has a friend who had a heart attack/cardiac arrest a month or so before my own medical experience. He was taken to Regions, but they didn’t have a bed, so he was taken somewhere else. He died at the other hospital.


Continue Reading

Compassion fatigue is setting in

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Many years ago, I did a performance piece about my bowl of compassion being empty and I feel the same way now. I was watching a news clip about a family in–I want to say Alabama, but it could have been Tennessee. Or Arkansas–somewhere south. They had a family get-together of something like ten people. None of them vaxxed. All got Covid. The pregnant 19-year-old daughter ended up in the hospital (the rest recovered). CNN interviewed the mother and she said, “We let down our guard. Like everyone in the world, we thought this pandemic wasn’t that big a deal. It hadn’t touched our family yet.” I’m paraphrasing, but that was pretty much what she said as her daughter was on a ventilator. They managed to induce the baby (who I assume is fine, but maybe not?) and the doc teared up as he was talking to CNN.

First of all, who’s “everyone”, lady? Most people know that this is a big deal, especially with the Delta variant. You didn’t let down your guard; you were being fucking idiots. There was a Dear Prudence letter early in the pandemic by someone who was upset with their brother’s family for being pro-Covid is a hoax, not taking any steps to social distance, jeering at them for being cautious–and, of course, got Covid. The letter writer was infuriated that they set up a Go Fund Me and did not want to contribute. Danny (Prudence) said that no one deserved Covid, especially given how confusing the government response was to it.

Now. I will say that sixteen months ago, yes, we were in a state of confusion. But, after the first month, most of us realized that what was happening wasn’t normal or going away any time soon. More to the point, it’s a matter of degrees. At that time, anyone who had qualms and was struggling to understand things, I can sympathize with that. It’s the declaring everyone else sheeples and loudly announcing their idiotic behavior that is annoying as fuck. Did they deserve Covid? That’s not the right way to look at it. The right mindset is that Covid is the natural consequence to their behavior.

Fast-forward to this family. I felt bad for the young woman as I would for anybody in that situation, but my immediate thought was impatience. Like, what the fuck did you expect to happen and you’re damn lucky it was only one of the people who had to be hospitalized. It wasn’t that you let down your guard–it was that you have a faulty belief in the first place. I hope the young woman pulls through, but this is the natural consequence of their actions. I don’t expect people to know the ins and outs of the coronavirus, but for the love of god! We’ve been at this for sixteen months. If you don’t know the basics by now–it’s highly contagious, especially the Delta variant–then I can’t help you.


Continue Reading

The truth, the whole truth, and shades of the truth

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I have been thinking of truth-telling recently because of the coronavirus. I’ve talked in the past about how I want the truth, even if it was uncomfortable. I made sure to tell people how I reacted to the second jab because I had seen too many people blithely dismiss it as oh you might feel a bit achy and tired for a day or two, but that’s it! And, for many people, that was it. I’m not disputing that! It’s just that there are some of us where that isn’t true and we shouldn’t be made to feel that we can’t talk about it. And, no, I did not reveal my difficulties with the second shot to garner sympathy as was said to me on Twitter. (Still bitter about that, btw.) My motivation was to let people know that here’s something that can happen and to be prepared for it. I said then and I’ll reiterate now that because I knew it might happen, I was able to prep for it.

Side Note: The last time I got the flu shot, I had a very bad reaction. Like, three days exhausted, shivering, aching response. I don’t get the flu shot (but will from now on), but decided to do so that one year. This was several years ago and I can still remember how terrible I felt when I got it. A few years ago, my medical practitioner and I talked about the flu shot and I said I hadn’t gotten it because of the reaction I had gotten that one time. She snapped back that it was better than being dead. (Note to the side note: I really liked her and only stopped going to her because she took a job elsewhere.) Well, yes. This is true. But that didn’t mean it was a fun thing and we can acknowledge that.

If I hadn’t known that I could have a severe reaction to the jabs, I would NOT have been happy about the aftermath. By the way, I also had a more-than-usual reaction to the first jab, but that doesn’t even register because that’s par the course for me. I had a bump from the first shot that lasted until I got the second shot. That’s three weeks and one day. I also had swelling around the bump and tenderness for several days. I had tiredness for two or three days and that was it. Again, that was not noticeable for me because I always react to shots. I have to get my blood drawn once a year (used to be once a month) and I always have a big and visible bruise when I’m done. Doesn’t matter how easy it went (which, back in the day, varied wildly because I have terrible veins. These days, I tell them to use a butterfly needle in the back of my hand and it’s all good).


Continue Reading

NaNo Rebelled it out…and eggs

Posted on by • 0 Comments

There are two more days in November as I am writing this and I have been hard at work for NaNo Rebel. I have a cycle when I’m writing or when I’m trying to hit a goal that is a tale as old as time. In the beginning, I’m fresh and excited, eager to tackle the new project. A few weeks later, I’m in the middle of it, just slogging away. I have my head down, ignoring the junk along the way. Near the end, I suddenly rebel, kicking and screaming. I hit 91,000 words and suddenly just did not want to do it any longer. In the Before Times, 100,000 words in a month would have been fairly comfortable for me to do. I’m not saying it would have been easy, but I wouldn’t have stressed out about it too much.

During the pandemic when my state is exploding with new cases–let’s talk about that for a second. I live in Minnesota. We went from being 30-something in terms of cases in the beginning of the pandemic (not great, but not terrible) to being in the top ten–and not in a good way. It’s because Iowa and South Dakota are 1 and 2 in testing positive (over 10%), and North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin are 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively for most cases of COVID per 100,000. Guess which state is surrounded by those states? That would be Minnesota.

Anyway, all that is to say that I’ve been understandably distracted a bit by *waves hand around self* Writing these days is very fractured. I’m not happy about it, but I’ve accepted it. Ten minutes, then surf the net. Ten minutes, then grab a smoke. Ten minutes, then have a snack. When I hit 91,000 words with four days to go, I suddenly didn’t want to do it any longer. I wanted to quit and be done with it, which is sadly how I operate in general when it comes to projects. I lose interest at the end for one of two reasons or both. One, I have my next project set up and am raring to go on that. Two, I hate the end of things. I always have and it’s the reason I still haven’t watched the last Prime Suspect episode even though I loved the series.


Continue Reading

My empathy bowl is empty

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Was reading my stories (AAM being the main) and there was a question about what to do when your boss was wearing his mask wrong (under the nose). I ran into this when I went to the gas station. An employee was wearing her mask under her nose. I just stayed away and got out as quickly as possible. I know I could have told her to pull it up, but it’s a young woman working a low-paying job. I had my mask on and I was only in there for five minutes. I wasn’t going to add to her already shitty day. However.

If I were in an office where I didn’t need to be and my boss did this? Yeah, no. That would be all kinds of no. There were stories in the comments about people knowing Covid deniers (some of them coworkers) who then got Covid and they (the commenter) having a hard time having any compassion for the person. It reminded me of a question to Dear Prudence from someone whose relatives, want to say brother and sister-in-law, who were avid Covid deniers, spread misinformation, and wouldn’t social distance or wear masks. The LW (letter writer) was pissed because her brother had set up a GoFundMe when he, his wife, and all their children got Covid. He wanted LW to donate and send it around. She was furious and unloaded some righteous anger in her letter to Danny. LW said not only did she not want to give her brother money or send around his request, she had no compassion for him for getting Covid. I don’t even remember her question–probably something about should she do it, anyway? That doesn’t matter because it’s the response I want to focus on.

Danny, rightly so, took the LW to task for being vindictive in her response. He said that it wasn’t the fault of the population that the government has fucked this up so badly and people were confused. This was a few months ago, I hasten to clarify, when information about what to do wasn’t quite as obvious as it is now. Danny also said that wanting someone to pay with their life was cruel no matter the person’s behavior beforehand. He said no one deserved to get Covid for their beliefs/behaviors.


Continue Reading