Covid recovery update #2

 As of today, my taste and smell are up to about 90% or more, depending upon the thing I'm trying to taste or smell, so that's pretty nice. I'm also about 90% back to full muscle strength and general stability. My weight is hovering around 170, down ten pounds from my pre-covid weight, so that's good, too. I have some more weight to lose, but let's not to it via a pneumonia this time, 'kay? 

On the minus side, I've lost about 40% of my hair volume. This is not breakage, this is hair falling out by the root. Really disheartening, but according to a slew of other long-haul koofers this shall most likely stabilize and re-grow. Yay! In the meanwhile I'm taking collagen and silica and washing my hair with stuff that's supposed to stimulate growth. Baking soda "no poo" with vinegar rinse, some fancy hair growth shampoo and conditioner, etc. Once a week is plenty. My hair doesn't get greasy, especially at this time of year (cold), and I'm not swimming and getting all salty (because it's cold).

New symptom as of a week or so ago, gradually worsening: lymph node pain, left armpit, radiating out to lower rib cage and around to my back, all left side. Gets worse as the day goes on. At night I'm doing contrast hydrotherapy to flush out the nodes, which alleviates a LOT of the pain and helps me get to sleep. By morning it creeps back up to "annoying" levels, and I'm avoiding waistbands because after awhile they just hurt. I'm a sensitive flower now, for awhile. Whee. The plus side is that every day seems like a net positive gain, so there's that.

Covid Recovery update

For those who don't know me personally, my spouse and I had Covid in the first part of September. He lost three weeks of work. I ended up in the hospital with pneumonia and ventricular tachycardia. We're "recovered", but full recovery is taking a lot longer than any virus should. We've had some devastating flus before, this is different. This is dystopian sci-fi territory. This should make you think. Anyway...

This week's symptoms: 

Dull pain, bottom rib left side...which is kind of weird, since I had a dull pain bottom rib right side the month before I got the coof. Precursor? Coincidence? I was checked out and was not gallbladder issues, etc.

Hair is still coming out at approximately 60% more than usual. I've lost about 40% of my total hair volume at this point. Taking collagen, biotin, etc. should help, according to other long-haulers. We'll see. Not ready to chop off what I have left just yet.

Still having GI issues, as in everything just shoots through me. Actual diarrhea about half the time. I wouldn't mind so much if were actually losing me some weight, but, no. I'm hovering around 170. Could be worse, since I was around 180 BC (before coof).

Can't get blood O2 above 93. Gordon has been at 100% for weeks, the stinker. And that's another thing I'm noticing between our personal experience and the accounts I'm reading in the Covid Long Hauler support group on Facebook: this virus is NOT normal and natural. Read into that what you will.

Everybody has a different experience and different symptoms long-term. There are some commonalities, like diminished taste and smell, fatigue, hair loss, etc., but then it just feels like everybody else is experiencing a super specialized reality after that. Rashes, cardiac issues (mine was only at onset), swollen digits, recurring pneumonia, continuing weight loss, lack of appetite, numbness and/or tingling in extremities or an entire side of the body. The list is long. I really wish people in that support group would list their BC medical conditions and what prescriptions they're currently taking, because I think that is a huge factor in all of this. I think Gordon and I are amongst the very few of the cases who aren't obese and/or on one or more drugs.

Still happy to be in the "vaccine" control group, though. Wait this out, people. The next five years is going to be interesting, but probably not in a 100% happy way. Tell your friends and family you love them, whatever their medical choices.

Book review: The Madness of Crowds, by Louise Penny

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*****Spoilers*****


I love Penny's fictional village of Three Pines, tucked in a valley in the woods somewhere between Montreal, Quebec and the US border. I love her characters, from Chief Inspector Gamache to Ruth the irascible poet laureate to all the other denizens of Three Pines and Gamache's fellow LEOs. What I don't love is how socio-political topics are becoming more and more prominent in her stories. Although not unexpetcted, it's getting to be a bit much.

It's not like she hasn't telegraphed this tendency. Since the first novels in this series, I've been a bit dubious about her giving Gamache an aversion to firearms: a veteran LEO, who's very capable of using a weapon...but won't carry one unless he has to (how does one determine that unless you're pre-cognizant). In this installment even Jean Guy decides not to pull the trigger in the story's climax, because, per the author, of "love". He feels he'd be a terrible father if he were capable of taking a shot at a person threatening another person with a shotgun. I think a man incabable of lethally defending an innocent person is not a "good man". What if it were his child being threatened? If he can't step up, he's useless.

The most onerous facet of this novel is the fantasy "post Covid" world she has constructed. Obviously this novel was written during the worst of the "pandemic", and Penny has drunk all of the government and media Kool-Aid regarding this crime against humanity. This novel takes place a few months "after the pandemic". The vaccines have solved the crisis, there is no more Covid, and everything is back to normal. Yay! Needless to say, this story will not age well in coming months and years. Firstly, things are NOT back to "normal" anywhere. Depending on your location in the world, you may have a free and open society again, or you may be facing restricted travel and economic ruin if you don't have a "vax passport". There are people, as I write this, who are so traumatized by all the fear porn from the government and their media lackeys, that the mere sight of an unmasked person makes them flinch. Secondly, as we deal with increasing cases of vaccine injury and death, coupled with the monumental ineffectiveness of the experimental mRNA drugs (they are not vaccines), this novel, unlike her others in the series, won't be "evergreen". 

Also "post covid" in this novel is a crackpot academic (reduntant?) who has posited that, post covid, the world's resources are limited and that forced euthanasia is the answer. What the actual heck? I have no problem with writing a character like that, but having half of Canada think she's right?! Sorry, not plausible. There is never a reasonable presentation of this character's arguments in the novel, such that a moral, reasonable human being would go along with her proposal. It's literally absurd.

Here's hoping the next novel sticks to a solid murder mystery and leaves the wacky sociopolitical fantasy out.

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Counting blessings or else go mad

Today was one of those days that started out relatively smoothly but rapidly degraded. Since I haven’t posted anything here on the blog for awhile, the backstory is that Gordon and I are recovering from Covid, which we contracted back in September. It’s a long, sordid tale, but suffice it to say that this was not the “I was sick for a few days, it was basically a bad cold” kind that folks we knew got in late 2019 or early 2020. Gordon was flattened for a couple of weeks and I ended up in the hospital for a week. Now, a month later, neither one of us is 100%. Gordon’s energy is about 95%, and he’s back to work full time. My energy can get to around 90%, but any kind of activity knocks me back down pretty quick. I’m lucky if my blood oxygen reaches 93%, I’m fumble fingered, and, thanks to the hospital giving me Remdesivir (without consent) instead of monoclonal antibodies, I’m losing my hair. People like me, with major lingering symptoms, are being labeled Covid Long Haulers, which sounds like the drudgery it is.

By early afternoon today I was reaching for the niacin because I was losing patience with myself and everything around me and working myself up to start throwing things. It didn’t help that my 84 year old father, who we’ve been trying to get to come live with us, decided today that he’s staying where he is for another year. He’s only eight miles away, but he lives alone, doesn’t like to cook, usually doesn’t answer his phone, and has increasing health issues. Add to that he fact that we’re on day six or so of nonstop dumping rain, my general lethargy and brain fog, and the current state of the economy and cultural hysteria over Covid mandates and other political nonsense, and today just kind of went downhill. 

At some point I had to get a grip and remind myself that I had a roof over my head, food and clean clothes, and nobody was shooting at me. Yeah, it was the “count your blessings” response. I’m still tired, and at the moment up way too late, but I’m dry, did some free weights his morning, have a purring cat next to me, and the coffee maker is set for the spouse in the AM. Here’s to attacking another day tomorrow.

Yearly Check-In: relocation blues

This is not going to be another "2020 was a train wreck" essay. I'm sure many other bloggers have covered that. Suffice it to say that I've had no film work in over a year, other than virtual pats on the back and editorial contributions to artwork for the last two films I worked on before everything went haywire. See sidebar (R) for Burn it All and The Stairs (currently doing well on the festival circuit).

I'm actually ok with not working right now, because until the mask mandates are lifted I just can't do it. I'm not going to breathe my own exhaust for 14 hours a day because people are afraid of a virus with a 99% survival rate. Everybody I know who's had it was sick as a dog for a few days then got on with their life. The only people I know personally who've been hospitalized have been damaged by the vaccine, not the virus itself. Take your vitamins. Get fresh air and exercise. Turn off the "news". Live your life. End of speech.

In other news, the spouse and I are finally, really really, getting in gear to sell our current domicile and re-locate farther west to the Olympic Peninsula. The market is nuts right now. We'll never get a better price for our place. The downside is that because it's such a ridiculously disproportionate seller's market, it's a TERRIBLE buyer's market. Everything is overpriced and the pickin's are super slim. The other issue is that anything that goes up for sale is gone NOW, so you have to have cash in hand if you're serious. This means pre-qualifying for the loan to bridge the gap between buying and selling. Luckily, that gap won't be long, since we have a very desirable horse property to sell.

The most daunting part of it all, besides all the grown-up paperwork and bank stuff, is just thinning out our junk and packing it all up. Luckily, my health is better than it has been in years, so I think I'm up to the task. Up until about two years ago I was lucky to have enough energy to accomplish one or two things in a day, and then took a 1-4 hour nap in the afternoon to recover. Breaking my arm last October galvanized me into getting healthy and fit, because I was barely able to take care of myself for the first few weeks. Thank goodness I had some good friends who would show up once a week and re-braid my hair (or even wash it!) and help with stuff around the house. Everything is harder with one arm. I can't imagine how awful it would have been had I been super overweight or unfit to boot. I immediately got on boron, extra C, calcium, and a bunch of other supplements I had been slacking on. 

My ortho surgeon recommended a bone scan, and I came out of it with an osteopaenia diagnosis. Whoops. I immediately started walking and doing weights. I don't drink sodas, smoke, drink, or do other things that contribute to bone loss, so I'm hoping for good results by my next scan. I still have 30 lbs I'd like to lose, but I'm building muscle in the meanwhile. 

Anyway... the hunt is on for "that perfect place" over on the peninsula. Private, not right on a busy road, a few acres to mess around on. Scarcer than hen's teeth at the moment, but the Lord works in mysterious ways. I'm actually kind of glad there's nothing at the moment so we can get our ducks in a row and not be in a panic about it.

Stay tuned!