October 2020 I walked into a meeting with my 'tribe' and walked right back out again as I felt this creepy feeling of "OMG, I think I'm going to faint! " NO clue what was going on but I just had the feeling that I needed to go home and maybe get to a walk in clinic. The doctor on duty told me that basically I needed to exercise and that the feeling of fatigue that I had in my legs was from weak muscles and that at my age I need to stay active and work out. At the very least, go for walks. Anyone that knows me knows that I don't just sit around and do nothing but I guess I felt that the doctor knows best and that because I have never been this old before, I need to formally work out ( I had no intention of doing that but it sounded good ;-) ) I got sent home beating myself up because I had gone to the clinic and there was nothing wrong with me! After a week I went in again. I felt awful but was not running a high temp nor did I have a cough or runny nose. I. just. felt. miserable. Once again I got told that there was really nothing wrong with me except that I was a little dehydrated. A bag of intravenous fluids and off I went. By now I had been in and out of bed with an incredible fatigue for a week. One day Whit came home from work with a new lemon scented candle and I couldn't smell it. She rang the alarm and off I went to get tested for the big and bad covid 19. Positive... back to bed and so began my 5 week journey of bed rest and much free floating anxiety. It was an incredibly lonely and frightful stint! I can't explain the fear that would crowd into my mind and the weird and debilitating feeling of "yuck" that my body would feel. No words to define the sensation all over my body... I don't know why I felt that I couldn't call my doctor but I didn't want him to put me in the hospital. I had a scheduled appointment with him in about 3 weeks so I waited until then to see him. By the time I went in, I had been to hell and back physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I had not felt that sick EVER! Not even in the year that I went through chemo and radiation plus a double mastectomy. I have not been afraid of dying but I tell you what...I was afraid that I was dying and not ready at all to meet my maker! My faith in God has always been so strong but for some reason my brain was not functioning the way that it normally does and nothing about me felt like it was me thinking these thoughts!!! So scary! It felt like I was in a spiritual desert and God was nowhere to be found and worse yet, that HE didn't know where I was! I would force myself to get up and walk to the front door and back to bed so that I would get a little bit of exercise. Plus I forced myself to drink water so that I wouldn't get dehydrated. I didn't want anyone to come see me so that they wouldn't get sick but I soon found myself feeling very lonely. I finally asked Whitney to at least peek in on me and say hello to me when she brought Mark something to eat.
I remember feeling sorry for all of the people that have died alone in the hospital because they are quarantined and how much better they would have felt if only they had been able to at least see their family. God made us to be with loved ones. In Genesis He said "it is not good for man to be alone".
My thoughts were not my own it seemed like. I was becoming depressed and wondering if this was the end for me....I never want to visit this time in my life again.
Which brings me to the reason that I am blogging about this. My primary care doc had given me a steroid and Z pak when I finally got in to see him and it worked like magic. I began to feel better almost immediately. Still got very fatigued and I had a lingering buzzing/ringing going on in my head. So a very long story made shorter, I started to feel sick again around April and it continued until recently (this is June 10) The doc sent me to a post covid clinic and I have been through more tests and doctors than I care to think about.
I am also in a post covid therapy group and the facilitator, a psychotherapist, suggested that I blog my covid experience the way I did going through breast cancer treatment. This is totally different because the team of doctors that I had for cancer were very knowledgeable and had worked with thousands of cancer patients. This team of covid docs freely admit that they know very little about this illness and that basically we, the patients, are helping them learn about this illness.
OK. This has gone on long enough. I will add as I see fit or if Stephanie (facilitator) tells me that is my homework for the week.
Later.
