Long Covid update Day 16
Update time: I posted here on Day 2 of the new Long Covid, today is Day 16, I posted the below on Facebook on Day 9. I'll make this public for a week so I have something to share on short form social media, then make it friends only.
Since the FB post last week not a lot has changed, no trajectory of improvement, largely managing to not make it horribly worse but I am having to spend a lot of time on bed rest. I've bought a wheelchair (£200 from Argos, lovely smooth thing) and been out for a short trip with Toby, me walking 2-3 minutes then pushed for a while. It's useful to be able to get out and walk a bit. Friend C is dealing with prescriptions. Mum is visiting tomorrow to chop loads of veg for batch cook (but at 80 she's retired from wheelchair pushing). I've booked in the gardener for early-mid Oct to put the garden to bed. I've cut 8" off my hair so now it's "just" shoulder length.
I have days where the heart rate feels precarious, where anything could set it leaping; and days when it feels more solid, and I can plod a bit at washing up and things, and some of those days it stays solid and others it only realises what I did a couple of hours later and soars then while I'm resting.
Stop adding things Bridget and go and lie down.
The FB post as posted:
Hello Facebook, I don't post here often (bugshaw on Bluesky or Dreamwidth usually) but it's a good way to reach a lot of people at once to say...
I'm having a big big Long Covid relapse.
Like the old days five years ago, sometimes can't prepare food or fetch drinks, barely use stairs (where the bath and study and books and papers are), felt a bit better on Friday and sat for 30 minutes at big computer for admin, crashed badly on Saturday Sunday so I'm still getting the delayed effect after apparently overdoing things but not feeling like it at the time. I can't see myself getting out of the house in September, hopefully eventually being able to do occasional things within 10 minutes walk e.g. Co-op, Light cinema, and visiting Toby in his house of many stairs (it's like a zig zag front and back).
Had three great months in the summer, garden parties, painting the garden fence, day trips to London, 3 mile walks with Toby. Was looking forward to doing more, hatching out of the last five years to a more functional life, doing more visits.
But got Covid in late August. Just my second time, the illness was noticeable but mild (that brief sore throat like I'd swallowed sandpaper), this time I'd had all the vaccines and boosters and been on Metformin for a couple of years which has a protective effect against LC. I knew to be careful, return to activity very gently. 10 min gentle gentle walk one day was fine. 20 min the next day was fine. 25 min the next morning was fine. After lunch, BOF! puppet with strings cut energy, heart pounding, oh dear I recognise this. Got myself settled downstairs with a quick bag of essentials from the upstairs where it happened. Couple of very bad days, few slightly better days so I did tiny things and got bad again.
I have rather lost track of where I am, doing long text on a small phone.
... Argh, FB cuts it off here so I'll put the rest in comments. NOT HELPFUL FB.
Part 2
But yes, probably housebound for a month except essential appointments, no London trips till at least February. Any thoughts of returning to work are right off the radar. My plan for a September full of craft and sewing projects for Christmas is off. I don't know when I'll be up to it again. This is only Day 8 of the relapse but it feels precarious and there's nothing that looks like an improvement trajectory. Ask me again in 3 months.
Good things: I know what's happening and how to manage it. Still no treatment I'm aware of but I'll let the GP know. Almost everything important is on the ground floor - bedroom, loo, basin, washer and dryer, kitchen. I've got plenty of healthy food in store. I'm ok for cash flow with the two lodgers, who also help with small things. Supportive friends and family. It's the time of year where the garden stops being desperately needy. Lots of music, podcasts, streaming video, ebooks, physical books according to energy levels. I just need to wait it out again. Sometimes I'm patient, sometimes I'm frustrated and miserable.
But that's where I am at the moment.
Part 3.
Oh you poor thing! Is there anything I can do to help?
Well actually I have given that some thought! Friends could help me:
Accompany in taxi to appointments eg GP, blood test.
Drive to appointments.
Help me buy an entry level manual folding wheelchair for occasional use (Cambridge Mobility in Sawston?) and tiny displacement rearrange furniture to store it.
Collect prescriptions from Mill Road.
Batch cook for freezer.
Veg prep for salad grab nibbles.
Visit for brief socialising.
Take masses of fresh growing basil before the season turns, there's loads and loads in the garden trough.
Check if garden needs watering.
Tiny grocery shop if delivery services let me down.
Take a ukulele - bought it last year thinking I'd learn. Not going to happen.
Bring your clippers and give me a 1-2" haircut - I've got two months of root growth and not going to get to a hairdresser for a more sensitive and gradual dyed black to natural grey transition. Bit nervous about this one but it will take away the difficult task of hair washing for months and months, gives me back a day per week it's so strenuous. I think I'd prefer a friend to a professional mobile hairdresser I don't already know, as I have very little energy for the getting to know you, discussing prettiness objectives, no I don't also want it washed etc etc. It seems like it might exhaust me before it's begun. I might be wrong. That got long. Like my hair.
Part 4 the last part.
Lodgers are fully on top of the bins and regularly refilling my 2 litre water bottles.
I know a cleaning company if I need it, and a gardener who made it a lot lower maintenance and nicer who I hope will put the garden to bed for the winter.
Best contact is email, WhatsApp, signal, text, phone. FB is very difficult on my phone and messaging is unreliable, don't know why, I have the app, it prefers the big upstairs computer.
TL;DR Bridget can't come out to play till spring, she's got to bed.
Bridget Ken from the Barbie movie: My job is bed!
Since the FB post last week not a lot has changed, no trajectory of improvement, largely managing to not make it horribly worse but I am having to spend a lot of time on bed rest. I've bought a wheelchair (£200 from Argos, lovely smooth thing) and been out for a short trip with Toby, me walking 2-3 minutes then pushed for a while. It's useful to be able to get out and walk a bit. Friend C is dealing with prescriptions. Mum is visiting tomorrow to chop loads of veg for batch cook (but at 80 she's retired from wheelchair pushing). I've booked in the gardener for early-mid Oct to put the garden to bed. I've cut 8" off my hair so now it's "just" shoulder length.
I have days where the heart rate feels precarious, where anything could set it leaping; and days when it feels more solid, and I can plod a bit at washing up and things, and some of those days it stays solid and others it only realises what I did a couple of hours later and soars then while I'm resting.
Stop adding things Bridget and go and lie down.
The FB post as posted:
Hello Facebook, I don't post here often (bugshaw on Bluesky or Dreamwidth usually) but it's a good way to reach a lot of people at once to say...
I'm having a big big Long Covid relapse.
Like the old days five years ago, sometimes can't prepare food or fetch drinks, barely use stairs (where the bath and study and books and papers are), felt a bit better on Friday and sat for 30 minutes at big computer for admin, crashed badly on Saturday Sunday so I'm still getting the delayed effect after apparently overdoing things but not feeling like it at the time. I can't see myself getting out of the house in September, hopefully eventually being able to do occasional things within 10 minutes walk e.g. Co-op, Light cinema, and visiting Toby in his house of many stairs (it's like a zig zag front and back).
Had three great months in the summer, garden parties, painting the garden fence, day trips to London, 3 mile walks with Toby. Was looking forward to doing more, hatching out of the last five years to a more functional life, doing more visits.
But got Covid in late August. Just my second time, the illness was noticeable but mild (that brief sore throat like I'd swallowed sandpaper), this time I'd had all the vaccines and boosters and been on Metformin for a couple of years which has a protective effect against LC. I knew to be careful, return to activity very gently. 10 min gentle gentle walk one day was fine. 20 min the next day was fine. 25 min the next morning was fine. After lunch, BOF! puppet with strings cut energy, heart pounding, oh dear I recognise this. Got myself settled downstairs with a quick bag of essentials from the upstairs where it happened. Couple of very bad days, few slightly better days so I did tiny things and got bad again.
I have rather lost track of where I am, doing long text on a small phone.
... Argh, FB cuts it off here so I'll put the rest in comments. NOT HELPFUL FB.
Part 2
But yes, probably housebound for a month except essential appointments, no London trips till at least February. Any thoughts of returning to work are right off the radar. My plan for a September full of craft and sewing projects for Christmas is off. I don't know when I'll be up to it again. This is only Day 8 of the relapse but it feels precarious and there's nothing that looks like an improvement trajectory. Ask me again in 3 months.
Good things: I know what's happening and how to manage it. Still no treatment I'm aware of but I'll let the GP know. Almost everything important is on the ground floor - bedroom, loo, basin, washer and dryer, kitchen. I've got plenty of healthy food in store. I'm ok for cash flow with the two lodgers, who also help with small things. Supportive friends and family. It's the time of year where the garden stops being desperately needy. Lots of music, podcasts, streaming video, ebooks, physical books according to energy levels. I just need to wait it out again. Sometimes I'm patient, sometimes I'm frustrated and miserable.
But that's where I am at the moment.
Part 3.
Oh you poor thing! Is there anything I can do to help?
Well actually I have given that some thought! Friends could help me:
Accompany in taxi to appointments eg GP, blood test.
Drive to appointments.
Help me buy an entry level manual folding wheelchair for occasional use (Cambridge Mobility in Sawston?) and tiny displacement rearrange furniture to store it.
Collect prescriptions from Mill Road.
Batch cook for freezer.
Veg prep for salad grab nibbles.
Visit for brief socialising.
Take masses of fresh growing basil before the season turns, there's loads and loads in the garden trough.
Check if garden needs watering.
Tiny grocery shop if delivery services let me down.
Take a ukulele - bought it last year thinking I'd learn. Not going to happen.
Bring your clippers and give me a 1-2" haircut - I've got two months of root growth and not going to get to a hairdresser for a more sensitive and gradual dyed black to natural grey transition. Bit nervous about this one but it will take away the difficult task of hair washing for months and months, gives me back a day per week it's so strenuous. I think I'd prefer a friend to a professional mobile hairdresser I don't already know, as I have very little energy for the getting to know you, discussing prettiness objectives, no I don't also want it washed etc etc. It seems like it might exhaust me before it's begun. I might be wrong. That got long. Like my hair.
Part 4 the last part.
Lodgers are fully on top of the bins and regularly refilling my 2 litre water bottles.
I know a cleaning company if I need it, and a gardener who made it a lot lower maintenance and nicer who I hope will put the garden to bed for the winter.
Best contact is email, WhatsApp, signal, text, phone. FB is very difficult on my phone and messaging is unreliable, don't know why, I have the app, it prefers the big upstairs computer.
TL;DR Bridget can't come out to play till spring, she's got to bed.
Bridget Ken from the Barbie movie: My job is bed!
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