Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (81)
December 20, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 274: I’m a shambling mess today. Wait that implies an ability to move. Scratch that. Just a mess, then. The combo of the cold and then the booster trying to teach my immune system to do a thing has produced an internal storm of fatigue, full body aches, nausea chills and hot flashes that may be fever except I’m too beat to check to see. I took the day off because I couldn’t sit up and alternately shivered and sweated it out while PiC held down the fort. Absolutely misery. He’s a champ considering he also didn’t feel well at all and still he kept all the kids alive, fed, safe and warm when I couldn’t lift a finger to save myself. He should be the standard for partners, not the exception.
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It looks like my official CFS diagnosis is recorded after all. I wasn’t sure but the doc confirmed today that I fit all the parameters. She suggested a number of mitigation strategies that mainly add up to “work with the little you have instead of wishing for more or acting like you can power through because that’ll make it worse.”
And ok that makes sense but also I hate it.
Sigh.
So I have to consider getting a wearable to teach my heart rate to see if that helps inform my daily activity choices. Often CFS folks will see their heart rate spike when they’re overdoing it. I have to think about whether I want to try an off label medication that seems to help about 25% of patients with both pain and fatigue. But mostly I have to accept working within my limitations so that I don’t always run on empty which will make the CFS worse.
Year 2, Day 275: I’m … Less terrible today. I’m at this kitten’s level of strength.
Luckily PiCs been chugging along doing his AND my share of chores: cooking all meals, cleaning, picking and dropping off JB at school, walking, minding Smol in between naps. We’d be doomed if not for him.
But I can tell the rest is helping, slowly but surely. I’m still miserable but it’s not as bad as it was yesterday and maybe won’t be as bad tomorrow. I hope our fresh boosters mean we have really solid protection against omicron. I just have to play a firm defense for Smol Acrobat since they have zero protections.
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Oh good news: JB is fully vaxxed!! Yay protection for one kid!
Come on vaccines for the under 5 and under 2 groups!!
Year 2, Day 276: I had a huge disappointment with a work project today and I had to rant about it a bit. It’s going to have a big impact on me and my team and I am just too tired to rally right now. So I’m going to schedule in a break before I tackle it again.
Year 2, Day 277: Had an absolutely awful physical and mental health day today. They fed into each other and I found my brain chasing its tail down the well worn corridors of: you’re physically useless so you’re just a burden (the number of times I heard that word from a relative…), I fight every day to do my best and my best still isn’t good enough so why should I keep fighting. I found myself in that unbelievably angry and bitter place in short order, set off by the smallest of remarks. It was rough.
I managed to remind myself that when I hurt the most physically, I feel the most vulnerable emotionally, and that’s when I feel like I must go on the attack against myself so that others can’t hurt me again. If I tear myself down first, no one else can hurt me the same way.
It’s familiar but it’s not healthy and it took some hours to work through.
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Hello, wall of planning paralysis. I’d normally be much more ready for the holidays by this time in the month but I lost so much time to illness and fatigue that my spirit has given up on trying to get to the normal level of readiness. I skipped designing, ordering, and mailing holiday cards entirely, that cut out one huge swath of time sink but the remaining tasks are Herculean. For all the niblings I won’t be seeing this year, I should have gotten their cards in the mail two weeks ago. I haven’t even put them in envelopes today!
Year 2, Day 278: I’ve been working from bed all week to conserve energy and my butt is ten kinds of numb. I really need a better pillow support system / set up. Something that supports my back and neck when I’m sitting more straight up and allows support to move with me when I have to slide down.
JB gets out of school REALLY early today and thankfully PiC has arranged his schedule to mostly be off so that he can cover the children and let me work and get caught up on my ridiculous backlog of work that built up over the past 3 weeks of me being totally off my game.
I went from intense working mode into full holiday prep mode and by 8 pm, right about when I had intended to go back to work and clear up some more work, it hit me that I am so very very tired.
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I thought I’d read this elsewhere but happened across it on AITA again recently and had to laugh how spot on this is: the narcissist’s prayer.
“That didn’t happen! And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. And if it was, that’s not a big deal. And if it is, it wasn’t my fault. And if it was, I didn’t mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.”
I’m sorry that you have to keep pushing through your medical symptoms. It pains me to read about your struggles as I can relate so very much to them. I wish I had a magical pill that would fix it all for you.
Thank you. It’s most definitely motivation to get us to a place financially where I can stop having to juggle prioritizing myself vs my work.