My Covid Story: the good, the bad, and the ugly

“Yep, the dastardly villain found its way into my corral. The dust hasn't quite settled yet, but folks tell me there’s a story to be told…”  (guitar chord emoji) 

Why the spaghetti western theme? Because, ‘least for me, that's the way it feels out here in the unhinged world of covid. Why?

• The Docs workin’ on the knowledge to rid us of it - they just aren't quite there yet. Plus the locals are sellin’ us snake oil ‘a plenty.
• And the laws of the land that are ‘sposed to keep us civil and safe, and help us figure out how to keep the villain at bay, change from territory to territory, and are made up by the local Tin Stars.

The missus’ and me, we stuck together like a team, fortified our homestead with all the defensive precautions we knew of. We wore our good guy masks everywhere, put on our gloves, went out for essentials only, then quarantined and washed anything we brought back into our home.

“And the scum suckin’ villain still found a way to slip our safeguards and make its way inside, guns a blazin’...” 

The Good: My wife, Jocelyn, has remained completely asymptomatic! 

Because we'd been together every minute of every day for the previous six weeks, taking exactly the same precautions and eating exactly the same food, our Docs figured we'd both been hit at exactly the same time. 

The Bad: Me

A couple of days of slight fatigue, then a few days of aches and pains were followed by 4 days of low grade fever then - BOOM - 5 days of high grade fever hell exploded. (Everything is on the Med scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst)

My worst day:

Fevers (10+) - Spiked to 103.8, massive tylenol and aspirin brought it down to 102.5

• 5 days of intermittent shaking in 90 degree heat
• 5 night of sweats that drench everything near you, then chill you violently because you’re wet

Muscle Aches, Headaches, Bone Pain (10+) - 4 days of an evil demon selecting random past injuries that forced me to revisit pain like I’ve never felt before

• My car accident from 35 years ago - boom - a crowbar in my neck lit up the bulging vertebrae
• My bike accident from 3 years ago - pliers slice through skin and grabbed hold of the injured nerves and twisted them off and on for 3 days

Conjunctivitis and Eye Muscle Inflammation (10+) - Suddenly I am 75% BLIND!

• The simple act of trying to focus an eye felt like ice picks were driven into my eye muscles to punish the effort of ‘trying’
• Eyes bulging so hard it looked like they might pop free from my face (PM me if you want a picture!)

Respiratory difficulty, coughing, congestion (0) - Neither of us had any respiratory difficulties whatsoever.  If I'd had the above symptoms, and was gasping for air, I would have gone to the ER in desperation.  

Three days later the extreme fever broke. Two days after that the fever was gone and no more analgesics were needed. 

Complication: As the 10+ conjunctivitis in my eyes resolved, it left behind an interior inflammation in both of my eyes, leaving me a very significant amount of vision loss. This appears to be a new phenomenon - always loved bein’ first (insert snarky smile emoji). The good news is that a very specialized Doc has me on some heavy-duty ophthalmology meds, and they seem to be working. Recovery will likely be months...but is uncertain. 

The Ugly:

Covid ugly is when the villain leaves you gut shot, in your own corral, gasping for air as your life slips away…

“Ugly” did not happen in our house (insert prayer emoji)

Why did the killer covid symptoms avoid us? 

Of course, no one knows, but I have two theories as to why our respiratory systems were left untouched. 

1. Longevity Diet - My wife is a nutrition scientist and she had been building an extraordinary anti-inflammatory, immune building diet for us for over 5 years. Learn more at Jocelyn / Pacific Nutrition Partners
2. Hatha Yoga - The breath work of Hatha is designed to open, strengthen, build and empower your lungs. I sustained my practice throughout it all. The (free) Master with whom we study is Nathan Anderson.  

Cutting to the chase

One of the people in this picture is a brave, patriotic hero. 

The other is a misguided, ill-informed, potential murderer, who is willing to put themselves, their family, and your family in a pine box.

If you, or anyone you care about, believes that somehow this whole thing is a hoax, or that the danger is over and life is ready to move on - you are very, very wrong. Be vigilant for yourself, for everyone you care about, because if the villain can get into our house, it can damn well get anywhere. The life you save may be a life that you cherish.