Tag Archives: sickness

Again with the Great Plague…

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Last week, I suffered through my second round of the Great Plague. This iteration of COVID wasn’t as awful as the one that knocked me on my ass last fall, but all the same it’s still not something I’d recommend for someone looking to have a good time.

The butchers bill for this round of sickness seems to have been the loss of two weekends and lots of hacking and wheezing and generally stuffiness. I did have an easier time getting my hands on antiviral meds, which means I got to start them on day 2 of symptoms instead of day 5. I assume that has something to do with how quickly the worst of the symptoms dissipated. 

I’m still a touch congested and I certainly get played out a lot faster than I did before getting sick (again). I’m happily testing negative now and otherwise seem to be on the mend. I can’t help but reflect that these bugs were a whole lot easier to avoid when I was allowed to embrace my inner hermit and everyone was legally required to stay at least six feet away from me. In my heart of hearts, I’ll always kind of miss those halcyon days of the early pandemic before we knew what we were up against and staying home was the order of the day. 

The second week of COVID…

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It’s the second week of COVID. The good news is that I seem to have avoided hospitalization or death. That’s absolutely a win.

The bad news is that I still largely feel like chewed dick. Yes, it’s absolutely a better grade of crud than I was enjoying at this time last week, but I’m still hacking, wheezing, sneezing, and generally sounding like a plague carrier. I’m not the kind of company you’d want to come take a seat at your dinner table. 

It’s a busy week at the office and I tried to be a good remote trooper today, but by noon all I could think about was closing my eyes and having a good rest. I hung in a while longer, but don’t expect I did myself or anyone else much good after that point.

I usually manage to power through these sicknesses. There’s no time for a man cold when there’s animals that need tending and a household to run. My brush with the Great Plague though, has been a pointed reminder that sometimes you’re going to slow down whether the spirit is willing or not. 

Positive…

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After almost three years and every available vaccination and booster, it looks like the Great Plague has finally caught up with me.

Yay. I’m thrilled. 

I don’t have anything particularly witty to add here. I’m currently feeling like I’ve got a something between a mild to moderate head cold. My throat is sore and my nose is running more or less non-stop. I can sleep as long as I don’t mind doing it while sitting more or less upright. 

I dialed in to a video appointment with Hopkins “virtual care” team and got my marching orders. 

The plan for now is that I’ll be holed up here at the house for at least the next five days… in hopes that years of boosters will, in fact, be effective at “preventing the most severe outcomes from a COVID-19 infection” as or friends at the CDC so casually put it.

Fingers crossed.  

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Crud. Whatever standard issue crud I was run down by over the weekend continues to hang on grimly. I’m feeling mostly fine, but I’ve woken up every morning this week with a raw throat and very little voice. It’s not enough to really change anything I need or want to do, but it’s damned annoying. With as many shots as I’ve subjected myself to over the last three years, I feel like having one of them be the cure for the common cold really isn’t that big an ask.

2. Rumors. Having been moved away from my home town for going on 23 years, sometimes I forget how things work there. One thing that hasn’t changed is the rumor mill. Industries rise and fall, people come and go, but rumors fly as swiftly as they ever did. Here’s the thing… if you hear something that doesn’t sound quite right from a friend of a friend of a friend, maybe just pick up the phone or tap that message button and ask someone who would know. That way they can confirm, deny, or tell you to mind your own damned business. Though, I suppose that has significantly less entertainment value.

3. Still waiting. Here we are 7 weeks past the “end of max telework” and the union, such as it is, still hasn’t come through on delivering the new and improved telework agreement. So, we’re still grinding along with only two days a week like pre-COVID barbarians… as if the last 30 months didn’t prove that working from home works. All this while hearing stories of other organizations tucked in next door that are offering their people four or five day a week work from home options. Gotta love working for the sick man of the enterprise. There’s probably plenty of blame to go around, but since the updated policy for supervisors was published seven weeks ago, I’m going to continue to go ahead and put every bit of blame on Local 1904 for not getting this shit done.