What's going on with me and this long covid

Hi Everyone.  It’s only been a month or so since my last post, but it feels a lot longer.  Since then, I’ve gotten emails asking how I am, several cards in the mail (thanks for the stickers Bobi) and my friend Diana sent me some (very pricey) herbal supplements to help with things like anxiety and inflammation.  Thanks very much everyone, your kindness and well wishes have meant a lot to me.

When I last wrote on here, it was the fourth week of May and after 5 months of living with long covid, thought I was finally on the road to recovery.  I returned to the senior center a couple times, and went on that wonderful lunch outing at Red Lobster.  The day after that lunch, I spoke to my friend Diana on the phone (who was in Utah, attending her son’s wedding) and it was our first conversation in months that didn’t include long covid.

A couple days later, the weekend arrived along with a pretty serious relapse, and I’ve pretty much been in hiding since the first of June.   Lots of cranial pressure and burning sensation in my head and face, aching in my neck and jawline, cloudy thinking and difficulty concentrating, tremors in my hands, constant fatigue.

I try to get outside daily for a 10-15 minute walk around the block, but always return with the left side of my face inflamed and a desperate need to lie down for a couple hours.  (Sunlight and neurological long covid do NOT mix.)

Aside from those walks, I haven’t gone anywhere, seen anyone, done anything.  I talk to my friend Diana several nights a week on the telephone and that’s it.  She has been a wonderful friend and I’ll be forever grateful, but to say I’m still down about things would be an understatement.  Last year I had a wonderful summer, attending museum and restaurant outings with new friends I’d made at the senior center, visits back home with my sister Shawn and her husband Jim and my niece Sophia, a couple of fun weekend outings in West Virginia with Diana. 

I was hoping for more of the same this year and that’s clearly not happening.  I love and miss everyone.

I’ve been reading and watching everything I can find about long covid, and feel like I’ve learned so much.  A couple nights ago I watched a long interview with Emma Samms, a British actress who wrestles with the condition and talked about one of her lesser symptoms, “always whiffing diesel fuel”.   That knocked me for a loop, I’ve been telling Diana for months how I’m always smelling oil or a type of fuel.

But lately I’ve been trying to focus on recovery stories, and recently came across one man who considers himself 90% recovered and how he believes this condition works.  He says you have to break it down into 3 phases:  the first phase lasts 8-10 months, a roller coaster of anxiety, pain and relapses.  You think it will never end.

(I guess I’m still in the first phase.  I’m in my 7th month, and hopeless is how I often feel.)

He says Phase 2 is next, lasting 5-6 months and there are still relapses, but they’re infrequent and you will begin feeling real hope again.   Phase 3 is almost a full recovery.

He’s very popular on youtube, comes across as highly intelligent and his 3 phases timeline make a lot of sense to me.  I also read a recent study by the NHS, who compiled statistics for 750 people with neurological long covid like myself, and said the average duration was 321 days.  That’s a little over 10 months time.

Right now I have no choice but to hope and believe that old saying “Time heals all wounds” to be true.   Thanks for letting me share all this, and thanks again for the well wishes.  It may be awhile before I blog again, I want to make a real recovery and get some of my old life back again.   Take care.

A tasty outing at Red Lobster, and a surprise or two along the way

A couple days ago, the Senior Center had a lunch outing planned for Red Lobster.  I had a couple good reasons for going, no matter how my noggin was handling the long covid:

1. I haven’t seen Elaine, Claire, Rose or Margie (they don’t frequent the center, only go on restaurant outings) since my last outing on February 9.

2. I’ve never been to Red Lobster, and with their recent bankruptcy, I may not get another chance!

That’s Rose in the yellow & blue striped nautical sweater, more on this special person shortly

After we piled into the Access shuttle, I began feeling that familiar pressure building up in my head & sinuses. 

I muttered “Do whatever you want, I’m still going” and Margie turned around in her seat and said “Are you behaving back there?  I hear you talking to yourself!”   It was funny, but when you’ve been living like a hermit for 4 months and only talking to 1-2 persons on the phone, you tend to get a little eccentric.

Anyway, this was one of my favorite lunch outings ever.  The restaurant seated us at a humongous round table, so I got to enjoy the company of everyone, with Evvie by my side.  The food was delicious (they kept bringing out baskets of hot Cheddar Bay biscuits) and no lie, I ordered a Pepsi (my first one in years) and it tasted like the best one I’ve ever had.

I was a little surprised at all the drinking—Dennis and Paul polished off 6 Alabama Slammers and red wines, Rose had a draft beer in a glass that was 12” high and Evvie had a pretty potent Seven Seas margarita; these people don’t mess around!

I only managed to get a couple usable photos, my Motorola smartphone doesn’t do too well in the dark (but a new phone and camera are coming soon).

Dennis (left) and Paul.  Dennis (a 3 pack a day smoker for 45 years) lost his voice in February so he recently quit smoking and has gone one week without a cigarette.  I’m really impressed!

My Sailors Platter:  shrimp in a garlic butter wine sauce, breaded shrimp, crispy curled flounder and baked potato.  I usually eat half my lunch and take the other half home for dinner, but I scarfed this whole thing down!

My friend Evvie’s platter, similar to mine but with grilled shrimp instead.  I thought her cocktail looked refreshing.

After our meal, while we waited outside for our ride home, I complimented Rose (in the yellow and navy striped sweater at the top) on her pretty necklace.  It had an open heart pendant displaying a small color portrait of a handsome man.

I said “May I ask who the gentleman is?  Your husband?”  Rose said “Yes, a wonderful man.”  I said “Is he no longer with us?”  She said “He died was 60.”  I said “So he passed at age 60?  That’s very young.”  She said “No, he died in 1960.”

What?  That honestly startled me.  I know Rose has two children who talked her into moving back to Pennsylvania from Florida some years back.  But she was married, had a family and lost her husband, all before I was even born?  

She must’ve sensed my puzzlement, she said “I’m 93, you know.”  No I didn’t know that—but I just watched this woman eat a hearty sesame-soy salmon bowl and drink an entire foot tall draft.  I would’ve guessed her age at 75, tops. 

We were the last two riders on the Access shuttle and had a friendly chat. 

I don’t know what I’m trying to say here, I was just amazed at her energy and vitality.  I don’t have a death wish, but in the last 6-7 years I’ve dealt with so many medical issues I’ve sometimes wondered if I’m going to make it to 70, let alone 20 plus years after that.  Rose manages to make it look both doable and something to enjoy while you’re at it.  Thanks Rose.

Happy Memorial Day, Everyone

Revisiting the past with Evvie and Mary, and Andy & Don too

Last week I emailed the Senior Center and said I’d been doing better with this long covid stuff, and could they put me down for lunch the following Monday and for the next restaurant outing too?  Courtney (the director of the center) couldn’t have been nicer, responded and said she was so glad, and they had just been talking about me, and were looking forward to seeing me on the 20th.

I then forwarded the email exchange to my sister Shawn, to let her know I was on the up & up.  She replied she was relieved and glad, thanks for letting her know.

The very next day, I awoke with the left side of my face swollen and burning.  It stayed that way too, for 4 consecutive days.  This long covid is a persistent, stubborn critter.  When someone asks “Hey, feeling better?”  I nod and say I think so, and I do believe it, but the setbacks (or flare ups as my friend Erin calls them) keep a-comin’.

Anyway, I DID make it back to the center for lunch this Monday, as pictured above, my first lunch there since February.  That sandwich was a tasty pulled pork, by the way.  And I snuck a cake lollipop on my tray when no one was looking.  I was able to hang out for a couple hours before things got too much (for some reason, I get a lot of cranial inflammation when I’m talking to more than one person) but I was still glad to get out of the house and see my friends. 

Even if Cranky Connie did grumble “He’s a Chatty Cathy” to someone at her table, and I was just answering Geri’s questions!

As for the restaurant outing I’m scheduled to go on, right now I’m not sure if I’ll be up for that, just have to wait and see.  Fingers crossed.

The other day, I was skimming thru my personal library of e-books on my tablet for something new to read, and was surprised to see this: 

Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show.  Why did I buy this?  I’ve never considered myself a big Andy Griffith fan, I bet I’ve only seen a couple seasons worth of The Andy Griffith Show which ran for 8 years (and I’ve never seen a single episode of his legal drama Matlock, which ran for 9).  

I looked up some reviews of this book, all were positively glowing—4.5 out of 5 stars.  I also learned I got it on Black Friday in 2020 for only $2.99.  Ah, okay!

Listen—this book DOES NOT DISAPPOINT.  It’s a huge, terrific read.  It was difficult for me to put down after I started.  I wound up rationing myself to 30 pages daily, I only do that with books I want to make last.

It covers both Andy Griffith & Don Knott’s lives, from their childhoods to the day both died.  Andy grew up a pampered child with an overprotective mother in Mt. Airy, North Carolina.  Don was born in a poor, abusive home in Morgantown West Virginia, 30 minutes from where I grew up.

They first worked together in a hit Broadway play “No Time for Sergeants” and quickly became friends as both admired the other’s talents and Southern roots.  In 1959, when Andy was offered a television pilot as a “good ol’ country boy sheriff” as a spinoff of The Danny Thomas Show, he was eager for work and accepted—but lamented to his wife it was a two dimensional character and doomed to failure.  When Don learned of the upcoming series in the trades, he was desperate for work as well and called Andy and said “Doesn’t a sheriff need a deputy?”  and soon, magic was born.

This book goes into elaborate detail, even pointing out various episodes in the first season where you can see Andy laughing in the background at Don’s theatrics.  Normally such scenes would get reshot, but the producers saw how much Andy adored Don and trusted the viewers at home would pick up on that—they were right, we did.

I could go on & on here about a thousand things, some of which weren’t exactly rosy.  Both drank to excess, and married 3 times.  Andy smoked 4 packs of cigarettes a day.  He also had a terrible temper and admitted as much to reporters and magazines like TV Guide.

He also did not forgive or forget being slighted, ever.  Remember Elinor Donahue from Father Knows Best, who played the new druggist in Mayberry?  She asked to be released from her 3 year contract after that first season.  When she saw Andy at a celebrity function in 2005, 45 years later, she apologized and explained why she left, but Andy curtly told her she hadn’t been right for the show anyway and walked away.

But after The Andy Griffith Show ended, whenever Andy was interviewed about current or upcoming projects, he always spoke of missing his days with Don, and how very much he hoped they would work together again.  He told everyone until his own dying day Don was his best friend.

When Don Knotts died in 2006, Andy (knowing Don wasn’t a religious man like himself) pleaded with his own pastor for confirmation he’d see Don in the afterlife; then Andy delivered a eulogy at his best friend’s funeral declaring he’d be seeing Don again in Paradise.

I sure would like to think they’re together again.