Post-Covid crap

It was a long day at work today.  Long and busy.  May and June are the busiest months of the year for me.  A combination of getting everything (campgrounds, trails, waterlines, etc.) running in a short amount of time, plus hiring and training new and returning staff, plus monitoring budgets before the end of the fiscal year (June 30) spending as much as we have but not too much.  Throw in a couple of prescribed burns, acres and acres of invasive species control, a dozen project proposals and a potential boundary expansion and I've got a full plate.

Pasque flowers from early April.

Anyway, after work Hubby, G, B and I drove to Mankato and met O and E for supper.  After supper we took a quick trip to Fleet Farm looking for a flannel shirt and light jacket with zipper pockets for B.  After striking out at Fleet Farm for both items (seriously, no flannel shirts at Fleet Farm?) we headed back home, turning into the driveway just as the sun was setting.  

My comfortable cozy bed is calling to me, but I wanted to put together a quick post before changing into pajamas and settling down with my IPad to watch an episode of Russian Doll on Netflix.  I've got a few things to catch up on.

There was a long break in my blogging from last summer to this spring.  Like I've said before, sometimes I lose motivation to put words to screen, time goes by quickly and soon months have passed.  Truth be told nothing really remarkable happened over those months.  Perhaps the only major thing that happened was COVID hitting our household last fall.

Bloodroot from mid-April.

We think G brought it home from school (thanks NU High School for your lack of masks!) in mid-October.  He was sick for a day and a half, with the main symptoms of a headache and very dry mouth.  We didn't realize it was COVID until Hubby got sick a few days later and decided to test himself.  Hubby had only mild symptoms, as did B when he got it and I soon thereafter.  We all thought we had dodged a bullet.

However, about four weeks after that I fell ill again.  What I thought was just a cold turned into something much worse.  High fever, swollen throat, wheezing and rales, horrible sinus pressure.  I lost my voice and popped an eardrum.  My blood oxygen levels dropped and my digestive system took a holiday.  Doctors put me on albuterol nebulizers and oral prednisone.  I was bed- and couch-bound for several weeks, concentrating mainly on taking one breath after another.  It was terrible, the sickest I've ever been.  As an added bonus my blood sugar levels shot through the roof, putting me squarely in Diabetes territory where I hadn't been before.

The docs never tested me for COVID with the second sickness, so it's possible I became reinfected with the new Omicron variant in December.  It's more likely, however, that I was/am one of the many many people dealing with post-COVID complications.  I've just read that 75% of people dealing with post-COVID crap had very mild illnesses to begin with. 

Hepaticas, also from mid-April.

Fast forward four months and I'm mostly better now, but I find myself a little slower on the uptake than before.  Making more stupid mistakes in my paperwork, taking longer to think of the right word when talking, losing track of what I'm doing in the middle of doing it.  It could just be old age, early Alzheimers, or general ineptitude, or it could be the covids.  Hard to say.  

My blood sugar levels have retreated, but I'm still in the pre-Diabetes range, so the docs want me on metformin for a few more months.  I'm doing better with my diet, but comfort food is just so, well, comforting.  And I do really like the comforts, both with food and with my comfortable cozy bed, to which I'm heading shortly.  Gotta get the sleep for another long, busy day of work tomorrow.