This past week, it feels like I’m living in the Twilight Zone

This has been a strange week.  I shared my feelings with my friend Diana over the phone last night, she made some polite sounds and I thought “Doug you need to keep your weird stuff to yourself” and now here I am, ready to share it on here.

I don’t believe I’m in a particularly normal state of mind right now, so if this becomes too weird or tiresome for you, I won’t blame you for moving on.

Today is “Day 35” of this strange bloated thing going on with my belly.  It’s not too painful, just tender and uncomfortable.  I get up in the morning, my stomach is bulging on the right side.  As the day wears on and I have a cup of coffee, an egg, a sandwich, some soup or pasta, a cookie… by 7pm I’m looking 7 months pregnant.

I don’t feel constipated, my belly just gets bigger and bigger as the day goes on.  I’m trying to move around more, I hope things return to normal soon.

This past Tuesday, I went to the Lutheran Center for lunch, asked a couple friends there (Mary, Deb) if they’d been summoned for jury duty recently.  Mary said no but you can opt out of serving in Allegheny County if you’re 70 or over.  She asked why I wanted to know, did I receive a jury summons.  I said no, I was just wondering for some reason.

When I returned home, I got on my computer and was going thru my email, and there was a new message from my friend & old classmate Pen.  She asked how I was doing and said she’d spent the previous day at her local courthouse after being summoned for jury duty.  I immediately wrote back and told her what had just happened at the center and one of us must be psychic.  A couple hours later, I began smelling “burning oatmeal” and got a bad feeling that stayed with me until I went to bed.

I woke up Wednesday morning with my face & head burning with long-covid pain.  A really serious relapse, and I worried I was back in it for the long haul.  I sat here most of the day in shock & depression.

The very next day (Thursday) I woke up—still a distended, sore belly—but no head or face inflammation.  It was completely gone.  Relieved, I cleaned up and headed to the center and had one of the nicest afternoons ever, just hanging out and talking to my friends Evvie & Geri.  A couple people offered me a ride home when the center was closing, I said it was such a beautiful day I was just going to walk.  I passed my friend Dennis on the street and he asked me if I was ready to see his place above the bakery, and I told him not yet.  I was headed to Kuhn’s Market to buy stuff to make soup for an upcoming blog.  Life was feeling pretty good.

When I got up yesterday (Friday) morning, my head and face were flushed and burning with pain again.  And here I am a day later, still the same, I can’t even turn or tilt my head without lots of “crackling”.  It’s that long covid inflammation, back at work.  

After weeks of it being mostly gone, why did it return?  At my last trip to the center 2 days ago, I was showing Evvie & Geri my “sore bulge” (that sounds a bit sketchy, doesn’t it) and Cussin’ Connie walked past and said “YOU’RE A DAMN HYPOCHONDRIAC!”

I love her dearly and that made me laugh.  And I’m not going to argue she’s wrong, I just want my old normal back—whatever that was. If you made it this far, thanks for listening.

And Happy Mother’s Day tomorrow to you moms out there.