I’m not sure I can quantify my experience in a way that conveys all that it encompasses. Getting hit with such an intense virus is sudden, and slow. Just in case preparation, readiness, voluminous reading, constant observation, observing protocols, and weighing the gravity of it’s uninvited invasion, combined with intentional or subversive persuasive tactics published everywhere, is taxing.
I continued to feel worse and exhausted for an entire week. It wasn’t like the flu, until it was. Instead, it was similar to the time between a potentially late period and finding out you’re pregnant. Like that. If you’re a type A like me, you push yourself toward exhaustion anyway, because you don’t want to give up the organized chaos you’ve created for yourself in your own home. So, I continued to do my work-thankfully from home-while hoping that it was just a bug. Since I cannot get pregnant any longer, I knew it wasn’t a pregnancy. If anything, I was heading toward my once a month disaster anyway, so perhaps my feelings were a new version of PMS.
Making a call to a medical televisit, I was told to get a pulse ox and no further instructions on what to look for, and wait for a call from the pharmacy for a prescription. Fine. I sent my dutiful spouse to the store, and obtained the oxygen pulse detector. When I reached 86 oxygen molecules per 1,000,000, an exaggeration beyond compare, I knew that something was amiss. So, I made arrangements for my children, who had been kept at a distance outside a closed door, to have a filling supper, and then kept in the oversight of the near adult of the bunch, while my husband took me in. We didn’t pass Go and collect $200; the urgent care would have been a waste of time. Instead we drove directly to jail, er um, the hospital.
Within 5 minutes I was admitted. Apparently oxygen of 85 was not good. I had dropped a point. *I prefer straight A’s (theoretically).
While in the ER, I was given oxygen, some shots, an IV, and taken down to get a CT of my lungs. The machine couldn’t have been more than 3 feet long, but my anxiety, which excruciatingly escalated after hitting the fourth decade, vetoed the excursion, so a fractious nurse gave me some happy juice and I took the image. Later, when I saw what my lungs looked like in cross-section, they looked frighteningly full of inflammation.
I’m happy to report that, to date, I don’t have any scarring.
My stay in Hotel d’Hospitable was an excruciating five days; yes, it could have been worse. It almost was worse. However, my new besties, the all female nursing and cleaning staff, were amazing. I was surprised by how they didn’t flinch at having to care for a plagued individual. We weathered the storm together.
Arriving home with an oxygen concentrator-something that runs like a loud, obnoxious generator-I was able to move with relative ease as long as I had the 50 ft tubing as my constant companion. I was weak. I had an inhaler meant for a COPD patient. I couldn’t sleep. I had nose bleeds.
My ordeal wasn’t pleasant, and it wasn’t over. On day two home, I had a lovely rash appear across my entire chest. Not. Attractive. Being a dutiful daughter, I recall my dad using alcohol for absolutely everything. I got out my trusty stash, and applied it twice a day to my decolletage. The mystery finally disappeared. I then had some gastrointestinal issues. My stomach hurt often. The various aches and pains and enervation ran the gamut and are too voluminous to itemize here. It was lame. I don’t like to be down…
…and then I faced hair loss. Not, oh, my scalp is dry loss, nor, oh, I just had a baby so some hair is coming out. Hormone changes, you know. Nope. Clumps, lots and lots of hair. Drain clogging hair, added to the full hair brush, added to the drape I wore down my back, added to the compendium of strands scattered across my floor. LOTS. OF. HAIR. I wore a constant side braid. I thought it would end. I first didn’t notice until the daily collection could fill a gallon sized bag. I went to urgent care. “It’s a lesser common symptom of long…..” What!?! I also had folliculitis. So, I got an antibiotic. The carnage continued.
After cutting 8 inches off my hair, and delicately handling each wash and brush, the loss stymied, and I now feel it’s back in the normal range. Total casualties? 60% of my hair volume. Yes, you read that correctly.
Now I have palpitations constantly. My BP is higher than it every was previously. I know, because I kept a record on my notes app. I now take it daily and it’s annoyingly consistently higher. Boo for changes. I have an appointment for a heart monitor, called a halter monitor, to wear for a week. The effect of this long version is absolutely long. I’m almost at the 4 month mark since being hospitalized. And, I do hope this condition turns. Not a coy look over the shoulder with a smoldering look kind of turn. I want to see an ollie turn of 180 and a smooth ride back to before this beast invaded my private space. And at that time I’ll give it that smarmy librarian look of knowledge, with an edge of aggravated resolve, and gratitude that prayers, more than anything, have salvaged me from further ravages of this blindly obedient virus.
Having lived and continuing to live through this infection has been an interesting journey. I’m certain that I’ll fully recover. Until then, I nap almost daily, try to eat well, drink lots of fluids, take several supplements, and continue to read ad nauseam. I like to be informed. And as Reagan famously said, “Trust, but verify.” Things like this can happen to anyone. Literally: anyone. It happened to me, it can happen to you. And?