The Return

Hello, world!

Yes, it has been some time.  Even Lost in Translation fell by the wayside.  The reason?  I caught COVID-19, confirmed with a test.  Best reckoning is that I caught the virus second week of January.  I felt run down, then as the virus wreaked havoc in me, I called in sick to work.  I tried to get in, but when you wake up tired and run down, it makes a full day difficult, even when that day is normally slow.  When I realized that I may have to keep calling in, I called the COVID hotline for Quebec to make an appointment for testing.

The test was easy enough, but the nurse administering it noticed something else.  I was having problems breathing.  She could hear it.  She gave me another number to call, but that will be later.  After the test, I came back home and, after catching my breath, I went to bed to nap.  I really don't remember much of the last two weeks of January, seeing I was in bed for most of it.  I will say that being in bed napping is far better than being in the hospital hooked up to oxygen.

The day after the test, almost 24 hours after, I got the results.  I tested positive and was ordered to quarantine.  Easy enough, I didn't have the energy to go anywhere.  I called into work afterwards to keep them in the loop, then napped yet again.  Quarantine ended at the end of day of January 31.  I still didn't go out.  The closest to going out was to get a package that had been delivered to my front door.

Another problem came up after the diagnosis.  I lost my appetite.  The last thing I ate for the duration of the worst of it was a grilled chicken salad from Harvey's.  I tried a second one later in the week and was able to finish the chicken but not the entire salad.  Breaded chicken didn't work; the breading made me nauseous.  Bread made me nauseous.  Toast, though, didn't.  I made it through the last week of January on toast.  I also had to work to stay hydrated.  I just couldn't drink that much water.  February, though, I started drinking tea again, and that helped.  I then started eating more solid foods and drinking two litres of water/liquid per day.  I lost a good percentage of the weight I picked up since lockdown last March, but I do not recommend this method.

Feeling more energetic at the end of the first week of February, I went back to work.  The Friday, I wound up leaving a couple of hours early having tired myself.  Saturday, though, was quiet even for a Saturday and make through the full day.  The next week, I'm back to regular hours, plus some changes in work duties in the works.

My breathing, though, wasn't so great.  I also had a heavy, persistant cough that would wake me up at night.  Having asthma, I have an inhaler, though I hadn't been using it in the latter half of January.  I get back on it, and the cough lessens but still persisted.  Remember the number the testing nurse gave me?  I did, and called it to make an appointment.  I get one, go in, and get the prognosis - pneumonia.  I left the doctor's appointment with a prescription for a heavy-duty, hospital grade antibiotic.  They worked.  After three days, I was able to sleep through the night without waking up due to coughing.  I'm breathing better, though I need to get a lung specialist again.

The doctor at the clinic also ordered x-rays for me.  I figured it was to just confirm where the infection and its detritus was.  Which it did, but it also revealed something else.  I have a pneumothorax.  There is a small air bubble between my left lung, the one that the pneumonia hit, and my chest wall.  The good news is that it's a small bubble, not worth the intervention, which would involve surgery.

One thing I will say - pneumonia is not as bad as COVID-19.  While not being able to breathe isn't a good thing, it only left me winded.  COVID laid me out, tired, unable to focus.  Lost in Translation fell to the wayside with half a review written.  Hard to write when focus doesn't exist.  Even my routine of working on scenes for stories while falling asleep failed; I either kept repeating a short part of the start of the scene, like a skipping record, or had other problems in life intrude.  Not fun.

So that's been the past five weeks or so.  I'm still getting into the swing of things again.  Something should appear here in the next couple of weeks, but I have no idea what.  Thanks for your patience if you're a regular and thanks if you read through all this.

Today, over at Psycho Drive-In, X-Men the Anime.

Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, taking the week off.  Still getting myself put back together.  I am working on the next review.