Covid "Recovery"

 Today is day 26. Twenty-six days of dealing with this damn beast, and there are many times I wonder if I will ever return to my baseline function. That's a daunting thought when dealing with prolonged illness. And this is "just a virus." Believe me, there has been nothing "just" about this. 

I've been home from the hospital for a little less than a week now, and although that helps tremendously, the amount of fallout I'm battling related to covid is mind-boggling to me. When I first came home, and even now, I had to do some serious work on my blood sugar regulation. I'm not diabetic and my sugars hold pretty steadily around 250. But I've been known to hit the upper 300-400 range. That doesn't feel good, in case you were wondering. Because of elevated blood sugar, I am lethargic, my head hurts constantly, and I can't see more than 3 feet in front of me because my vision is so blurry. This makes balance difficult as well. When my sugar is really high, I'm pretty much incapacitated for awhile until I can get it back to a relatively normal range. While diabetics can live with sugars far outside the norm, someone who isn't used to having such fluctuations doesn't function as well. 

Aside from blood sugar, a major issue for me is chest pain. I continue to have a tightness in my chest that gets worse with exertion. I'm trying each day to push myself further because I'm SO TIRED OF BEING DOWN. But even a walk to the end of my cul de sac requires a break, and a forward leaning inversion so as to take some of the pressure off of my chest. The most disheartening part of this aspect is that from a medical standpoint, I'm "ok." My xray does not show permanent damage. I am not showing further signs of pneumonia. I'm so grateful for these facts, but I still can't breathe, and certainly not comfortably. It feels as though someone is wrapping saran wrap around my chest and pulling tighter and tighter until it is impossible for my lungs to move without the added support of leaving forward. I still lie prone on my stomach for a few hours daily just to give myself a break from the pressure/pain. 

I've recently discovered a support group of post covid individuals and it is so helpful. No one understands what we're living through unless they've been there. It's so helpful to hear that I'm not alone, and that I'm absolutely not making up these symptoms, because sometimes you just feel crazy. The group celebrates wins together and we encourage each other each day as much as possible. Today several of us celebrated taking a shower without falling over and/or needing a shower chair. There are many discussions daily about how often you are able to shower each week. It is a huge undertaking as our shortness of breath and balance issues make it an extremely difficult task. So many talk about the continued chest pain, shoulder blade pain, shortness of breath, hair loss, peripheral neuropathy, etc, for months after covid infection. Some people are going on 7 months of symptoms. Some have relief for awhile and then months later have a sort of "relapse". 

The point of this post is that this isn't over. This is a long, arduous process and for those of you out there wondering, like me, if this will ever get better, you are not alone. I'm mentally done as well. The steroids make me hungry and angry, but I can't eat freely because my sugars are terrible . I'm exhausted but want/need to have something that looks like a life. So I'll continue working and pushing my body to adapt and get better. So many out there are suffering the sequelae of this virus. Many are in far worse shape, and I'm grateful to only be afflicted in the ways that I have been. Just please know that when you say something about the "insignificance" of the death toll, or the "hoax" of this virus, you are hurting real people. We're not making up the pain, or the fear of our unknown future. Be mindful, and know that just because someone doesn't die from this virus, doesn't make us insignificant. We matter. And we're hurting.