Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Ya got me, podnuh

 I got the 'rona.

If you've had it, I feel for your ass.

If you haven't?

Do NOT fucking get this shit.

And I'm fully vaxxed and triple-boosted AND I got on Paxlovid within a day of the symptoms showing up.

Which they did as we were cleaning up the living room walls last Sunday night.

We painted these walls, oh, maybe ten years ago. The paint was a specialty brand called "Devine" that we found at the local Miller Paint store. We loved the smooth shades and cool textures; pretty much the whole Little House is done in this Devine paint of one shade or another.

And we've been very happy with it, by and large. Except the brown color we painted the front room and the hallway.

Not that we don't like the color - we do! - but over the years the walls slowly developed this odd white discoloration. My guess, from the home improvement literature, is that this was "chalking", apparently something that happens the paint deteriorates and the pigment and binder separate.

It wasn't harmful to the paint, just ugly.

I found out purely by accident - cleaning up an area where the Little Cat had shaken her bloody ear (we still miss you, sweetie!) - that windex-type cleaner removed the white discoloration for some time - at least a year. It seemed worth a try to avoid repainting the entire room.

So we moved everything away from the walls and went to work.

It pretty much sucked as much as you'd imagine, and so I wasn't surprised that I was sore and tired when we finished. What was odd was that I was also stuffy and was developing a nasty cough from the drip in my throat.

And that was late evening.

By midnight I was perfectly miserable. Think "the worst flu I've ever had" miserable; congestion like  stone in my forehead, body aches like I'd been pounded with a hammer, sneezing, coughing...ugh. Like I said; miserable.

One of the few good things about getting old is that your immune system has pretty much seen it all. You tend to miss the colds and flus that the younger people around you contract simply because you've had it, or something enough like it, to keep you immune.

So I'd forgotten how utterly shitty it is.

So, yeah. Sunday night (and Monday morning) was a total shitshow. By the time I got out of bed (I won't say "got up" because I didn't get more than an hour or so of badly broken sleep) I was convinced that I had the Plague and, sure enough, the faint line faded in below the "T" that confirmed that, yes, finally, more than three years after it had exploded out of southeastern China the fucking coronavirus had nailed me.

Monday was a misery punctuated by trying to figure out how to avoid dosing three other people in a tiny, 1,100-square-foot house. I did a video call with my GP, who got me a course of Paxlovid that, as sucky as the drive was, I ran up to Janzen Beach to pick up.

Lemme tellya. Paxlovid? That stuff is just better than sliced white bread.

I took the first dose Monday night and had another shitty night, but by Tuesday morning I was feeling more human. By the time I' writing this - Tuesday night- I have a "head cold", no worse.

Mind you...had I not been vaccinated, not been boosted, not had the Paxlovid?

You might well not be reading this.

I've got another four days of Pax before I'm out of the woods, and apparently there's a "rebound" that this fucking Plague slaps you with once you've finished the meds. The damn thing is a genuine threat, and a wag of the middle finger towards the idiot antivaxxers and Republicans who try and pretend otherwise.

K. Well, I gotta go put some pictures back up. Catch ya later.

Update 1/25: So this Paxlovid stuff is the bomb.

Seriously. It's kicking the 'rona's ass (along with the vaccines, I'm guessing). By this morning I was up and running around - mostly getting meds for pets (the cat's flea treatment) and people (more Paxlovid for my Bride, who probably has this damn Plague, too). Still achy down my back and still with headcold gunk in my skull. But otherwise? Good to go.

I'll be around here in a bit, I've got some thought but need to get them organized.

3 comments:

Nestor said...

All the best Chief! Seems like the worst is behind you, so get well soon!

And hopefully lessons were learned: try to do some home improvement work and that's what you get, I believe the cause-effect couldn't be any more clear... that's why I avoid all home work unless it really really needs to be done, and I think you have provided one more argument to support my position vis-a-vis the family :p Seriously though, get well soon and go get those walls!

Brian Train said...

I'm glad to hear you are feeling better!

It finally got me too, back in November.
I went to the first gaming convention I've attended in three years, and I caught COVID on the ferryboat over to the event!
My COVID presented exactly like a head cold, with a lot of sinus stuff.
No fever, ever, not even a sore throat.
That started on Sunday, and because I normally come home from a convention with something like a head cold, from the hotel air-conditioned air or the usual "con crud", that's just what I thought it was.
On Thursday I got an email from the convention organizers saying that some people had tested positive for COVID, so I tested myself out of an abundance of caution... and I was positive too.
I mostly lost my sense of taste and smell the next day, which would have given me a clue even if I had not tested myself, though I understand this is not a usual symptom of Omicron (which is like 85-90% of all cases right now in my area).
Even then I might have confused it with the stuffiness of a head cold, as I was pretty blocked up.
Anyway, my wife had it too but a bit differently, and in the middle of it I had to go look after my elderly mother who caught it about the same time - who knows where she got it, I hadn't seen her in a month or two before this.

I suppose it was inevitable, I would have caught it from my mother if not from some mouth-breather on the ferry.
My sense of taste and smell took a few weeks to come back, it was certainly weird without it.
Meanwhile, I have been left with an annoying slight dry cough but my lungs don't seem to have been affected, and my brain seems to be working all right.
So I think you will be all right!

Brian

Leon said...

Get well pardnah.