I preface this post with this…I know that it can be worse and I know many were not as fortunate as I. But I feel like hot garbage. The kind that’s been rummaged through by rabid raccoons on a hot August day. For the second time in this pandemic, I have COVID. The first round was last spring and mainly I just had a bad stomachache then. But this go around? Well, let’s just say I feel like I’m allergic to air.
It all started with non-stop sneezing which then went into swollen, watery eyes. Then when I wasn’t sneezing, the pain in my forehead made me wish I was. You know the feeling. That pain that comes right before you sneeze your teeth out. And if it wasn’t the sneezing, the heart palpitations made me almost pass out twice. I felt the world circling the drain and everything was spinning around the room. I was on the not-so-merry go round.
I started some anti-viral medication that I took last year, too. It leaves a taste so bitter you’d swear you’d been chewing bitter weed like you may have done as a kid. And, I may have forgotten that the medicine makes me itch. I have broken out in hives from my scalp to my toes. Everything itches. But the medicine must be working because I haven’t had the non stop sneezing for a while. I think I sneezed so much I bruised my ribs.
Feeling like hot garbage, I haven’t felt much like getting in the shower. I took a sponge bath and prayed no one would be around to smell me. But the weather looked hairy this afternoon and I worried that if a tornado hit, I would be pulled from the aftermath smelling like greasy hair and cough drops. I mustered every bit of strength I had and took a shower. I scrubbed so quick I even made it out of the shower before one song could finish on my playlist. I didn’t want to get struck by lightning, either, and heaven forbid I get zapped while I don’t have on any clothes. Add that to the list of ways I don’t want to die.
I haven’t slept in my bed in two nights. I slept sitting up because the pressure on my head when I laid down felt like my head would pop off. But tonight, I’ve tried to lay down in my bed. I’m writing this post between scratching my belly and sneezing. Even though I’ve done hardly anything, I feel like I’ve just gotten off an 18 hour shift at the Waffle House on prom night. Being sick, and getting better, is hard work. I’ve resisted the urge to log into work but mainly because I sometimes have to fight to hold my eyes open. Taking time for ourselves is hard sometimes. I feel like I have so much going on at work that I just don’t have time to be sick. But sickness doesn’t really care. It flops in your life like your great Aunt Gertrude who wore out her welcome in 1987 but still comes to visit once every now and then, drunk and yelling at the cat.
Luckily, I am not in the hospital. Not on a ventilator. I’m one of the real lucky ones. Even if I’m itching in places I’d rather not scratch. Even if it’s slowed me down and I have to just close my eyes for a while. Even if I’m using a big Kroger bag for my Kleenex collection container. I am on this side of COVID. This side of COVID is where there is hope that my bout will be short lived with very minor symptoms. Even if I do feel like hot garbage. And the raccoons are now having a food fight. I am lucky. And thankful.
Messpot Diaries 