Soon, this insanely lonnnnng covid will be a thing of the past

This past Saturday, I woke up feeling pretty okay—an hour later, a “spray” of pain washed across my face, stayed there for around 2 hours before going away.

But as the day wore on and it didn’t return, I began to feel elated and wrote that goofy post about my 30 year old vacuum cleaner.  Things were looking up, it seemed.

Sunday morning, I awoke and the left side of my head felt like it had been crushed by a giant’s boot.  I got up, paced for an hour or so and waited for it to fade away.  It didn’t and traveled into my face instead, and I spent a beautiful Sunday afternoon indoors, laying on my bed feeling angry and depressed.

Monday I awoke, and other than a very sore face felt pretty good.  I did my laundry, went for a walk, and later that night I spent a couple hours on the phone chatting with my friend Diana, and for the first time in weeks this post covid crap never came up once.

(Instead we talked about Diana’s upcoming trip to Utah to attend her son’s wedding, and her plans of organizing our high school class’ 45th year reunion.  I applaud her efforts, but have little desire to attend.  But that’s another story.)

Tuesday was a very bad day and I spent the day laying on my back on my bed again.  This seems to be becoming an “every other day” thing, but I hope that’s a sign I’ll soon have more good days than not and finally get to leave this long covid beast in the past where it belongs.

This was my face last May, and here it is last month; it’s gotten better, but still looks like the second photo in the mornings when I get out of bed. 

When I leave my apartment before noon—to get my mail, take out the trash or do my laundry and other residents see me, I always hear “What happened to you?  Were you in an accident?  Did you get beat up?”  I just tell ‘em it’s allergies.

    

Recently, I watched a couple of videos from the Center for Post-Covid Care at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, where they have around 500 long covid patients both remote & in-house (and a couple thousand on a waiting list) and the doctor leading the efforts said a couple things that really stood out to me: 

• The more often you contract covid, the greater your chances you’ll get long covid (this past December was my third time getting the virus since 2020)
• Even though studies say long covid cases last on average 4-6 months, the center hasn’t seen anyone fully recover before 6 months
• They’ve also never seen a patient “spontaneously recover”; recovery is very, very slow

Well, I got covid the first week of December and these post-covid symptoms began emerging the first of January, so I’ve now been living with this 4 months.  (As of May 1, I’m in my 5th month.)  Why does it seem so much longer?   Anyway, I am seeing some improvements here and there, even if they’re small. 

I’ve said it before, but I don’t know how I would’ve made it through these past few months without my friend Diana, who has been on the receiving end of some pretty long phone calls.  I can’t believe what a patient, caring person she’s been.  I’m very fortunate to have such a friend.

Also, this blog where you kind people have hung in there while I pound out my 10th post about this.  Thanks as always for letting me share.