I took some days off from reporting, as I was too tired. It is day 9 (Sunday). If I had no symptoms, I would have been allowed to leave the house today. I woke up knowing that I feel distinctively different. My voice does sound normal, and my nose was not blocked. Though, a little bit into the day, I realize that I am still coughing and that my nose is still a bit runny and blocked. I need 24 hours without symptoms…
The other days I have not felt too bad. I was mostly extremely tired and exhausted. On Friday I enjoyed John Wick chapters 1 and 2 with some ginger tea and popcorn. Nothing helps to return life juices better than John Wick. And the anticipation of chapter 4 and some other hopefully awesome movies that I am looking forward to watching. To mention another symptom, I have to write about my period. I got it too early, and it is way too strong. I have heard about this as a side-effect of the vaccine. Though, it seems that the virus itself causes that too. I would say that it is normal that an illness messes with the hormones. Though, losing quite some blood for a couple of days in a row when you are already fatigued is not helping…
I have managed to cook two times by now. Obviously, I prepare bigger portions to have some for the following day. I can eat more or less normal amounts again, just cooking is a bit exhausting. I try to eat oranges and I ordered salad from the supermarket to provide my body with all the good stuff. On Saturday I had a long, nice zoom call with a friend. After this call, I had to sleep for a while to recover. Since I have gotten better, I woke up every day in expectation to finally have recovered fully. But that did not yet happen. I try to be patient. The other days I did not at all care about being in quarantine, because I was anyway not strong enough to go anywhere. But now I am getting better, and I am dreaming of life after quarantine. I have to state that I am very impatient when it comes to being ill. This is only a bit more than one week of my life so far. But I want it to be over already. Well, I try to be patient.
I am incredibly happy that life has returned to normal again. When I have recovered, I can go climbing, bouldering, I can go to work, etc. No more being locked in. I imagined how it would be if that wasn’t the case. Not a nice imagination. Why healing if there is nothing to look out for. Sure, in lockdowns I have greatly enjoyed the beauty of nature. Though, as I have written in the first blog of this series, isolation has reached a threshold. I was so happy to see that the boulder gym I regularly go to checked up on me. They know I am ill, as I informed them about my infection. This is how I learn that there are super nice Dutch people! For sure I have made good experiences! Like one day as I forgot some of my vegs at the supermarket check-out and the salesperson followed me up to my bike to bring me what I had forgotten. I was overwhelmed by the kindness.
Corona will be or is already endemic. Thus, likely I will get it again. I do not know how we will handle it in the future. Though, I think we need to change our approach drastically. If there is one thing that we have learned from Corona then it is if you are ill stay at home. I admit I am guilty of not following this rule myself. We live in this performance-driven society, so we go to work no matter what. With Corona, we are forced to stay home if we are positive. Frankly, I would have not been able to work much in the last week.
On Sunday I dared to leave the house, the weather was bad, so I thought I would anyway not meet anyone on the street. I left the house to bring some waste to the garbage bin. Out in the storm and rain, I decided to take a walk around the block. I have hardly moved my body for more than a week. I wanted to test if I can do this. Admittedly, I had some anxiety regarding my recovery and long-covid. I managed to walk around the block. Though, being back in my flat I got a headache. It must have been too exhausting. A little later I was skyping with my family in Austria. My headache got stronger. I did not want to take a pain killer as I had my period, and I was already bleeding a lot. As I should find out just a little later, this was a mistake.
That evening I had the intention to start working again on Monday. When I went to bed my headache had developed into a heavy migraine, and I knew without a pain killer it will not disappear. I took one, but it was too late. I haven’t had such a strong migraine in years. It was a flashback to my childhood. In between the waves of heavy pain, I was wondering how I was able to handle this as a kid. The pain resulted in nausea, and it culminated in vomiting several times. At least I knew once all has left my body, the pain will be manageable. Shivering from the exhaustion that vomiting caused I went to bed again. The migraine had turned into a headache, and I could finally sleep.
