my lost fortnight with covid-19, part 1
I had no intention of even talking about this, like maybe a cliff note of a tweet...'I was sick. I'm better...' or something along those lines.
But my friend Gail who I've had in my life twenty-something years was like "Tell your story!! We hear about so many people who get sick and never get better...blah.blah.blah." and her personality is one thousand times more forceful than mine sometimes so here is My Lost Fortnight with Covid-19, the unabridged version.
It started off like a regular week. Me worried about my main goals - making money, paying off my SUV, and hitting my word count.
Basically, make money and tell stories. What my life as a writer distills down to at the essence.
Those aren't my only goals, those are the Covid-19 adjusted goals I adapted part way through the year, so I didn't feel terrible about not accomplishing all that I'd envisioned for the year. Even after my recent mid-year goal review, (which looked good) I still worried.
BITN is book nine, in the Rare and Unknown series, and even though I know all the specifics.... The alpha. The mate. The where. The how. I know their love better than I know my own love, I'm feeling behind.
I'm deep into writing my next paranormal romance/epic urban fantasy novel, Bachelor In The North. shameless plug here…. (buy my books)
I can see my kanban board which is my blueprint to my books and productivity with its lists of chapters remaining to be fleshed out staring at me, and no matter what I was doing; it felt like I was just throwing words at the board and nothing was sticking.
Let me start with I have suffered headaches my whole life.
No, let me be clear, I've suffered headaches - tension, pressure, hunger, sinus, Shirley Caesar scream you name it and that headache has become me. Migraines with auras and without, menstrual migraines since age eleven, I mean the entire gamut of headaches up to a stint with cluster migraines.
Let me say it like this if the wind blows too hard outside and I haven't eaten a sandwich while doing the perfect quarter turn rotation in my chair while holding a golf pencil of the perfect length and half a Cajun roast beef and baby wheel Swiss sandwich, my head is like a foreman shutting shit down.
So this terrible headache descends, and it gets progressively worse over the course of hours not days. I know it's bad because I want to cut all my hair off. Not just the eggplant purple and white waist length braids I was rocking (because I’m magical), I mean my own hair sheared off right at the scalp in a baldy.
No matter how I held my head, my hair and braids felt like loose Velcro trying to escape my scalp. Ponytails? Hurt. Bun? Hurt. Loose. Hurt. I napped twice Day One. I napped four times Day Two.
I try all the meds I have and know and in combinations that would probably astound medical professionals. Illegal dosages of ibuprofen and acetaminophen combined with things I probably shouldn't even have.
Nothing is working.
I'm feeling cotton headed at some point, I suspect from the borderline overdose levels of OTC meds and I'm drinking water like I should be hooked up to a hydrant and have a hose inserted inside.
While all of this is happening, it’s just Day Three of The Worst Sinus Headache Ever and me being me - I'm trying to work too.
Let me explain. I work from home. I don't even want a job if I can't do it from home. I hate going in the office, I hate the politics involved, but most of all I hate daily socializing with people I've already met and yes judged. I already know I'm going to dislike many of the people there because if you've worked a lot of jobs like me you can spot the types.
Look, I'm not a hermit. I wasn't raised in a barn even though if you ask my Uncle Bubba he may tell you different, I have all the socialization skills needed to thrive in the workplace, but I hate doing them. It feels too performative, and such a waste of a good day genuflecting to the old black lady who wants you to call her Miss Whatever or Aunt Such and Such. Listening to the war stories from Mr. I've Retired Three Times but my Wife Won't Let Me Stay Home. Having to be nice to Regina George of the Office Plastics. All while escaping the ire of the Office Dragon who may also double as the Gatekeeper and Holder of Snack Fortunes. Let us not fail to mention Darth Susan or Darth Karen or Darth Bill too who maybe lowkey racist or just bored, you can never tell, and their hatred all feels like a blanket of moth balls anyway.
Just let me log in, bang out whatever technical ideas or words you need or be an automaton, plug me in and let me run for specified amount of time and then let me go. I don't derive pleasure from the process of working anymore, it does not define me, and it has never been the extant of my social circle.
Back to the Covid-19, I'm probably short tempered with people on the phone. I'm trying not to be but whatever. I'm having The Worst Sinus Headache Ever, insert hand claps and rolls of thunder between each word. I think I even tweeted that I felt like a dainty southern belle with cold compresses and a line of pile bottles. Finally, I have my daughter cut my braids to my shoulders for relief, and I am like a pit crew removing braids so fast it blurred the eyes.
I feel a thousand pounds lighter with the braids gone, but my head is still being hammered open on an anvil by a Peter Dinklage like dwarf working on Thor's new power tool of office.
Day Five and that's when it happened, it went from being The Worst Sinus Headache Ever to something more because now my underlying bronchial asthma and chronic bronchitis has been triggered. I start hitting my rescue inhaler like a crackhead on a pipe and it is insufficient.
It’s late. Before all of this, I’d be like I’m tired, but I can sleep when I’m dead and keep pushing until this post was seven thousand words and done, but now that I have been faced with my own mortality…. This is the end of Part 1, because energy levels are a thing that in my post-Covid-19 body that I have to respect.
