Hi friends.
Sorry I'll get back to posting my mountain stuff soon but my computer is broken-ish, well the cooling fan is and it overheats pretty quick so once I get my new computer figured out, I'll get back to the normal programing. I'm locked out of microsoft because it sucks as a service/product and I just can't do the mental gymnastics required to deal with this bullshit. In the meantime, something has been weighing heavy on me and I haven't quite figured out how to address the subject.
Everywhere I turn on social media, even here on Hive, facebook just about anywhere, I see and hear how fake covid is and only dumbasses sheep believe it exist. Wow that is quite an inconsiderate mindset. Now everyone is entitled to their opinions I suppose but consider the harm you are doing and it's quite hurtful to those who have been harmed or have lost loved ones. Those who claim it is fake do so based on some youtube video and accuse everyone else of cognitive dissonance... Maybe you should look in the mirror. Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house. Who is really the sheep? The fact that you follow some rando in his mom's basement makes you a medical expert?
I'm not saying rush and get the controversial double jab, it has it's own suspicious issues and information suppression surrounding it and everyone deserves the power of choice as to what enters their body. I'm not here to advocate for/against it. Us women are no stranger to pro-choice controversies. I will admit I'm not yet vaccinated since I have immunity for a while and being prone to severe allergies, it's not yet advisable for me to get it. I'm still making up my mind and would like to see further research but one thing is for sure, I don't ever want this covid garbage again, I doubt my body can handle getting it a third time. If you want to spread conspiracy theory, at least be kind enough to claim it's manmade to create a situation for government overreach and stricter control over freedom or that they are hiding cures from the population if you will but please don't say it's all fake.
When you say it's all fake, you dismiss/invalidate an experience that much of the world share and it's pretty insensitive, you also put yourselves and others at unnecessary risk with misinformation. I'm here to tell you that IT'S REAL AND EASY TO CATCH. If you are fortunate enough not to have anyone you care about impacted directly by this virus, consider yourself one of the lucky ones and thank the stars for sparing you and your loved ones but it doesn't give you the right to dismiss those impacted. You call everyone closed minded, yet you are the one with the closed mind. You force your uninformed opinion on others and call everyone that doesn't believe you dumb sheep yet call out those who force their beliefs on you...Please tell me how that makes you a better and more evolved woke human being than the rest of us "sheep" again? Some people don't get very sick from it but others aren't so lucky.
It's a lot more complicated than the favorite excuse of Well it has a low death rate. Perhaps it has a low death rate but there can be some life long complications that stem from it that can permanently disable someone and severely impact their quality of life and ability to provide for themselves .
Instead of dismissing other's experience, be thankful that you don't know what it feels like:
The guilt of giving it to someone you love and watch them struggle to breathe while they hang on for dear life. I didn't give it to anyone but my partner gave it to me after being unaware of his exposure from a person that thought it was all bullshit and contaminated half of his workplace 2 days before we were in the eligible age to receive a vaccine. I may not understand but I can see the hurt and guilt in his face as he watches my daily struggle to recover with the thought that I may never be ok again with long-haul covid. That I have been struggling financially because of lack of work with the shutdown of the economy and now forced to be off from work for an additional 3 months with no financial support whatsoever. I have to say, I still had some uneasy feelings hoping I didn't infect anyone especially my preggo friend or my coworker with asthma that I hung out with at work, the not knowing until the 10 day incubation period was exhausting. Luckily as suspected, I caught it on my day off and I took an additional day off because I wanted to make sure my scratchy throat and sore muscles was nothing but work fatigue before going in public and my symptoms started to develop that night. Thankfully my precautions paid off and nobody was infected. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
To drown in your own lungs. Both of our covid turned into pneumonia, why we couldn't breathe. It literally felt like drowning. Coughing hurt so bad, the pressure on the heart lacking oxygen that it isn't getting to supply organs was also pretty painful too. I was coughing up flehm bigger than my thumb...just imagine what that feels like and how hard it is to pass, while you are trying to pass it, no air can get in so you are literally suffocating. Not once in a while but all day for over a month. That alone causes a great deal of lung damage and scarring.
Fearing for yours and your loved one's life. Many require hospitalization and hooked on ventilators, in hindsight we should have went to the hospital and we both think we almost died. The reasoning? First, covid affects your brain and your ability to process information/think properly. Second, we have pets at home. Who would be willing to expose themselves to such a thing to feed a couple of pets for a month? How about one of you saying it's all fake, would you have come to care for our furries while we lay in the hospital? It's all fake, you have nothing to worry about right? I felt it was unreasonable to expose someone else to this, even the insensitive and dismissive. By the way, we gave it to poor Prince Kit-Ten, he was probably a risk to pass it on to humans. He didn't get too sick as cats experience milder symptoms but he sneezed quite a bit for 2 weeks, we felt horrible for it too.
Third, I have severe allergies that send me into anaphylactic shock (autoimmune type attack that causes swelling airways/brain and other organs to eventual cardiac arrest in about half an hour) commonly used in food and medicine and I couldn't speak, he is my voice and he also was pretty much comatose. We were both afraid that they would give me medicine that would kill me, there is no way my lungs/body could survive such an attack as vicious and immediately life threatening on top of covid and pneumonia.The incredible muscle pain and not being able to do anything for yourself including very basic tasks. Imagine having to go to the bathroom but barely able to get there from the pain and uncooperative muscles, our legs would collapse under our weight so we had to crawl to get to anything. Ever seen a grown tough man cry in pain? I have and it's hard to watch. @silvergingerman is my rock and superman in life and it was too much even for him. There is something about the muscle pain that makes you tear up just trying to move as a natural reaction, not even intentional. I remember crawling up the stairs to make sure he was still alive in my 5 minutes awake here and there and needing to take a break in the middle of the stairs. Him the same to check on me. This went on for at least 2 weeks while we slept over 23 hours a day. We didn't even eat during that time because we just couldn't eat along with the inability to even prepare the food. After the 2 weeks, we still slept over 20 hours a day but able to stay awake for longer than 15 minutes at a time. We both lost a lot of weight, probably 20 lbs each and we are not chunky to begin with.
The mental stress/anxiety of it all while your brain can't even function properly, sort thoughts or make reasonable decisions. So many times I crawled up the stairs crying as I watched each of his labored barely breaths wanting to call an ambulance for both of us despite our brief moments awake together trying to re-assure me not to that he will be ok, that we will be ok. And all of it for me because of the fear of me being administered medicine that would kill me and I knew that was a big part of the reason. He was most likely right too. I still felt guilty and still do today. The second reason, separation and not knowing what was going on with the other. Sometimes the not knowing is terrifying. We both should have been on ventilators. Thinking about it now, I should have made that call. I wasn't afraid to die even if they gave me medicine that would have caused anaphylaxis, I was afraid to lose him. Life is a series of fucked up decisions...Like playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun. I had hope that we would both pull thru. We still had to seek outpatient medical attention for a month following along with antibiotics to clear the pneumonia as it wasn't passing on it's own.
Isolation. So many complained about how mentally taxing the lockdowns were acting like being stuck in prison because you couldn't go to the mall, the movies, your favorite restaurant or having to wear a mask to go grocery shopping. News flash, the outside wasn't closed to the healthy and socially distanced activities was acceptable you weren't sick and could have used your imagination. Your favored daily routine was disrupted, adapt...simple really. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it was still stressful but your kid not having a birthday party isn't the end of the world. Imagine literally being unable to leave the 4 walls of your house for a month because you are an infectious mucus bomb likely with one of the more deadly variants. Imagine your family members coming to drop off supplies and you can't even open the door to greet them, just wave thru a window for fear of infecting them. Longing for that tight hug and a few reassuring pats on the back and told it will all be ok when being scared and in crisis...I felt so alone. Imagine a family member getting an important surgery and you can't be there to welcome them back when they wake up for the same infectious reason. Even messaging to check on them was a task and a half with all the brain fog. Yes texting and trying to communicate is hard when your brain doesn't work no matter how badly you want to do it. I'm sure stroke survivors can relate to that one.
Losing friends, loved ones and long time life/work mentors that succumbed to the illness and worrying about other ill peeps. Reading messages that may have been well meaning describing how their coworker just died of it when you are quasi dying of it...not exactly reassuring, maybe even damaging. I abstained from responding to those because I couldn't wrap my head around that sort of information. I lost a few peeps to covid variants, healthy peeps with no pre-existing conditions while trying to keep track/communication with many other fighting for their lives in ICU. Lost my uncle to cancer during that time, my aunt had to get surgery for something else(related to a pace-maker) , my cousin recovering from cancer, another cousin having long-haul covid. All of this becomes overwhelming when you can't properly think due to brain fog. I probably spent whatever little awake time I had crying for the first month, I was so riddled with incontrollable anxiety, some of it probably caused by the illness itself. Being forcibly isolated for so long didn't help anything.
The disheartening feelings with so many saying what you are going thru is all fake and a scam and all the senses of entitlement that comes with it while you are fighting for your life because of that "fake virus". I feel for those in long term care homes for the elderly and their families, those who were hospitalized for other reasons and couldn't have their loved ones near them when they needed them the most...after all I know that feeling! There certainly was too much government overreach, that's undeniable. I mean those that decided to go traveling for leisure and continuously complained of how unfair it was when they had to do a forced stay at one of the government isolation hotels until a negative test result and having to pay for it. You know what's unfair? Being sick or those who died because some dickhead that wanted to go to the beach brought it back with them thinking this virus is all fake, refuse to self-isolate and spread it around their community. News flash again, you chose to travel for leisure for that cheap beach vacation in Mexico or Florida, you weren't forced. YOU CHOSE that for yourself. Your lack of believing there is a pandemic or it's seriousness doesn't mean there isn't one, quit being so self-centered and entitled. Who brought it in here in the first place along with the deadlier variants? INTERNATIONAL TRAVELLERS.
Brain fog, vertigo and disappearing time. Although the disappearing time isn't that bad, it's still kind of fucked up to be asleep for one month and lacking the brain ability to link that in real life. We just have a random missing month it took a while to re-adjust. Vertigo was pretty bad, when we could stand up again, we had to hold ourselves on something like the wall or handrails because we had zero balance on our own. Took a few weeks to get passed that...Kinda dangerous trying to go up and down the stairs. Also crawling up and down was still the better option even after our legs semi-worked again to prevent a fall. The brain fog, wow that's something else entirely. I don't have words to describe it or how messed up that is. We had brain glitches that shut everything and every function down at once at random, that also meant all muscles giving out at once and falling to the ground for no reason. Talk about feeling stupid and useless! I forget what I'm doing while I'm doing it...and you feel stupid for forgetting what you got up for once you get to the other room! I still have the brain fog, writing in my second language is so hard because of it. I also forget a lot of words, sometimes my name even. So yeah, having conversations with people is still challenging and I get self conscious, frustrated and shutdown when I start to struggle to get my thoughts out verbally.
Lack of financial stability and uncertainty. Imagine loosing all of your household income at once for an extended period of time. I'm sure that's not that hard to imagine with all the economic lockdowns but not everything was closed and people had the opportunity to find other jobs if they tried. Nah-ha, not with a covid/pneumonia infection. Both of us were forced out of work for 3 month. Imagine not being able to earn an income in any way for that long because of sickness...Better have some savings! I know some can relate for other non covid related sickness, it's certainly a stressful event not being able to provide for yourself and your family due to illness or injury and it does mentally fuck with you quite a bit. Bills don't pay themselves no matter how hard we wish it so. Bills don't care if you almost died, pay up bitch! Some billionaires need to launch themselves in quasi space in a sky dick for 10 minutes of shits and giggles or buy more condos to increase profits! Priorities peeps! Pandemics and financial hardship are for plebes...ain't nobody got time for that!
A false recovery and after effects. When we catch a cold, we just need to be patient and wait it out and your just the same as before. Not covid. One in ten of survivors that were or should have been hospitalized are potentially permanently injured, perhaps it's just long term nobody knows because it hasn't been around long enough for anyone to know for certain and life may never be the same again. Even those who were infected but experienced mild to no symptoms can develop long term effects detrimental to their quality of life. A big one is the body's inability to regulate itself with temperature, pressure changes along with many other functions most of you have never given any thoughts. A couple examples would be getting up from a sitting or laying position, a condition labeled as POTS, is the body's inability to regulate blood pressure changes with changing positions so getting up too fast will cause major dizziness and you to hit the ground. Another fine example is that heat wave we got and the body's inability to regulate that. Most people sweat when it's too hot as a way for the body to cool itself, haha not after covid! The big heatwave we got with temps in the 40's celcius (over 100 if you are American), I didn't sweat much, so the body isn't cooling down causing heat stress. Not/minimal sweating in the heat is actually a real bad thing. Although there are much worse things to be considered. The inability to control inflammation in the body is another big one. Kidney issues is also common, that's a pretty important function. There are too many to list in a post but I will leave some links that go into details on the after-effects. Basically every organ struggles post-covid, the virus takes up to 6 months to shed and your body is just attacking itself during that time.
PTSD, anxiety and other mental health issues. Now I don't think anyone has to try too hard to imagine that one, if you are middle age, you have experienced things that probably traumatized you by now, if not well kudos to you. I can't even put it all into words the ordeal we went thru along with many others with this illness and it has it's fair share of mental scars to get over. It's been hard to process or even talk about with others so everything is internalized instead. It's hard to explain to people that see you as fine and recovered on the outside while you can't even make thru a shower or making dinner even months after the fact. Learning to pace yourself is quite a task but if you don't, you crash and burn before you can accomplish all your required daily tasks of taking care of yourself and it's hard on the ego to ask for help...especially when everyone around you thinks it's a fake virus that only exist on the news meant to scare people into submission. I like me a good conspiracy theory like the next person but some things are just too much...this is one of them up there with the flat earth...Maybe we can ask Bozo...hum sorry...Bezos...darn covid brain acting up again! lol
Long term loss or altered sense of taste and smell. Doesn't sound like much at first glance but it's daunting nonetheless. Nothing taste or smell right anymore, I also experience ghost smells (smelling things that aren't there). Most of my food tasting has turned into simply textures in my mouth instead. I can imagine what things used to smell/taste like but it's not the same! Also makes food preparation interesting and challenging. One the flip side if stuff taste bad, as long as the texture is right, I can't really tell! Although that is slowly coming back...so ever slowly.
Optical illusions, distorted depth perception. Obviously eyesight is very reliant on the brain and since it no longer works properly...well you do the math. No I don't see dragons and shit (I wish) but I have to do a lot of double takes and give my brain more time to give me back the image and sometimes things get distorted. I see weird stuff from the corner of my eye like light distortions or flashes, it's really annoying. Bright and/or blinking lights are a bitch. So is reading and writing. This doesn't seem to be getting any better, I suppose as a welder...that might suck a little. Extreme fatigue makes that way worse, my eyes will also get cloudy when I'm too tired (no not cataracts, it just feels like it...it's a brain issue not the eyes).
A term coined as long-haulers or long covid has various impacts on survivors in those who became critically ill. Here is the cold harsh truth, good chance you will not fully recover and be stuck with challenges doing things you used to do, remember, 1 in 10, that's some bad odds. I recently joined a support group with over 40 000 members all suffering from the same long term effects I have been dealing with. Both helpful and scary all at the same time. Some of them have been dealing with after effects for 16 months already and have been unable to work for that long. None of this is reassuring at all.
The good thing is we have all developed tricks to cope with a lot of literature from doctors and peer reviewed papers, ongoing clinical studies from the select few trying to understand what we are going thru and help the world, god bless their souls... For realzies! Our symptoms have autoimmune tones to it along with chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, neuropathy and many others. These ongoing studies may be able to help many non covid related illnesses along the way in the future. The cells responsible have been isolated/identified and now they are looking for ways to restore them back to health and proper functioning. For now, most of us are in limbo hoping for answers and solutions to a barely understood problem. Most doctors can't help at this stage even if they wanted to.
As for me, I will attempt at returning to work in a little over a week from now. I don't know how I'm going to handle it but I will never know until I try. Cross my fingers I will adapt to my new reality but I also have to keep in mind I may need to consider a change of career. I don't know what tho. It's still all overwhelming for me. I'm hoping things will improve over time as I continue to challenge myself like my mountain bootcamp did.
The main point of this was finally processing and putting into words what I went thru and continue to go thru along with millions of other survivors. Many have died already and many more will continue to die so please stop saying it's all fake, I assure you it's very real. It's insulting to many that were deeply impacted and you are minimizing it's effects and others may unnecessarily put themselves and their loved ones or unsuspecting members of society in a harmful situation based on the false information being spread around. Remember all of this I went/continue to live with because someone thought it was a big joke and was asymptomatic and brought it to his workplace. @silvergingerman caught it trying to take care of us and earning a living and we both got sick plus one of the cats. Other than that, we had been so careful only going to work and the supermarket and outside. All you need is to spend over 15 minutes in close proximity with someone infected. That easy.
That being said also why the virus knows not to hangout at Walmart or superstore, you just don't spend enough time there hanging out with people for it to spread mad but church, theaters and other activities are restricted as you spend more than 15 minutes in close proximity to crowds and many others. There are many misconceptions on how the virus actually spreads perpetuated by self proclaimed "freedom fighters". Being none-the-wiser, too many people follow the bad information or continue spreading it. I still get people arguing with me that it doesn't exist. WTF really?
Government overreach stems from people spreading false information and more people than needs to getting infected, you really are not helping the freedom cause as much as you seem to think...you are actually making it worse forcing/giving the opportunity for governments to overreact on health measures. All because of false information messages being promoted also not helping the social media censorship cause.
Do you have your own recovery story or witnessed a loved one's illness? Did you lose any loved ones to this virus? Please feel free to share in the comments. The rest of you, STAY AWAY FROM THE RONAS MKAY! RONAS ARE BAD.