Bleh

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Since a couple folks have asked, I’m still the same as the other day, which is to say, tired, with a mild cough and pretty bad fatigue. I’m actually able to get some work done, though.

Also, yesterday I finally got a positive COVID test, although the T line was extremely faint. But at least now I know these tests aren’t completely worthless, even if it only told me what I already knew and well in retrospect.

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Post-COVID fatigue

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So, I was worried about having “long COVID” and/or protracted amounts of fatigue after this, and, unfortunately, that’s come to pass. I had pretty bad fatigue leading up to the respiratory symptoms, but in this week since the worst of the cough subsided, it’s been even worse. I’m constantly tired and fatigued and I have a bad headache that just won’t go away, and I’m barely able to do things that I need to do, much less the things I want to do.

This past weekend I did end up assembling the drum kit like I said I would, and that took a lot out of me. I played the kit for a few minutes and it was more than I could really handle. Then I decided to work on some other music, and I could barely press down on the strings on my bass, and had to stop after just a couple minutes. I tried playing guitar instead, and that was just as bad.

And the next day my body felt like I’d run a marathon or something.

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(Probable) COVID, one week post-symptom-onset

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It’s now been one week since the respiratory symptoms started on what I’m still about 98% certain is COVID-19, despite the lack of a positive test.

The worst of the respiratory symptoms only lasted a few days, with the cough having mostly cleared up by Wednesday. I’m still coughing somewhat, though, and I continue to be fatigued much more than usual for me.

Being vaxxed and boosted certainly helped a lot, but it wasn’t a complete preventative. Also given my fatigue levels I can’t help but worry about long COVID on top of my already deep-seated chronic issues.

I did feel well enough to go out for a little bit today, as I had a package which I had to bring to the post office to refuse (long story which will get its own blog entry eventually, maybe). I was only in the post office for maybe 30 seconds and I double-masked, of course. Afterwards I also popped into the grocery store (still double-masked) to get a snack.

Given my negative test results and my triple-vaccination status I’m apparently at very low risk of spreading it to anyone else, but given how “low risk” it was for me to get it in the first place I’m still being cautious. And of course I’m not exactly feeling up to being around people anyway. I might still make a regular grocery trip this weekend, though. As nice as getting them delivered was, I need to do things outside of the house just for my own sanity. Maybe I could do the curbside pickup thing. I dunno.

This weekend I plan on finally setting up my new drum kit, although that will also require a lot more organizing of my basement and that feels like maybe more than I can handle right now. I also want to play DDR again but that also feels impossible.

Maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow.

Illness status

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Wow, yesterday I wasn’t doing so good. So much so that I forgot to actually git push that last entry, whoops.

Anyway. I slept for about 12 hours, and woke up feeling somewhat better. My cough is mostly cleared up, and the headache and fatigue that’s been affecting me for the past week or so is mostly gone as well.

I still took it easy, and also out of an abundance of caution I took advantage of QFC’s grocery delivery service, which was a pretty decent experience. Not something I’d do normally and not a thing I intend to keep on doing, but, y'know. It was helpful in this circumstance.

My refrigerator is well-stocked, at least, although I still don’t have much of an appetite. I’ve mostly been subsisting on crackers, seltzer, and cranberry juice.

I continue to test negative on at-home rapid tests. Given the symptoms I was experiencing as well as the timeline I have a hard time believing it wasn’t COVID, though. I know the at-home rapid tests only register for a certain viral load (which is pretty high with the current variants), and I’ve heard rumblings that the primer used for PCR tests is also very outdated at this point as well.

I absolutely credit the vaccine with keeping me from getting worse, though, and if you haven’t been vaccinated at this point and are able to be, please reconsider. If I hadn’t been vaccinated this would have definitely gone much worse for me, and also, please try to stop the spread, y'know?

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Test result: negative

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Today I got a PCR test. It came back negative.

I’m still sick with something, though, and the symptoms are to the letter COVID symptoms. I wonder how trustworthy PCR tests are these days.

Sick again

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I seem to be sick again. I’m not quite sure what it is, but I was exposed to COVID quite a lot two weeks ago (confirmed exposure at the office, probable unreported exposure at the hotel, not to mention all the other places where people have gone totally lax with distancing and face covering because I guess everyone’s given up on everything now) and a two-week incubation time is still not unheard of. Tests come back negative but apparently the current variants have a huge false-negative rate on the at-home tests.

Basically I’ve had a persistent headache and extreme fatigue (like, way more than usual for me, which is saying a lot) for the last week or so, and now I have a painful cough and it hurts to breathe sometimes. Robitussin and albuterol are helping, and I have a stash of promethazine if it comes down to it.

(Gosh I wish the war on opioids didn’t make promethazine so hard to come by…)

Even if what I have isn’t COVID-19, so many people around me are still getting it. This pandemic is far from over and I wish people would keep taking it seriously, and I wish people had been taking it seriously to begin with. Maybe if everyone had done their part to stamp it out, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.

It sure would also be nice if Pfizer et al had actually kept their mRNA up to date like they said they would, and if the rapid tests were updated to cover new variants as they emerge. And if fucking Bill Gates hadn’t convinced the US government and WHO to not require vaccine stockpiles to be shared globally, so that maybe the breeding grounds for new variants might have not been quite so effective.

This was not a time for half measures.

Ugh re: Dextroamphetamine

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one…

Dextroamphetamine was working pretty well for me for a few days. Then last night I had some pretty bad insomnia accompanied with a major panic attack. So I think I’m going to hold off on it again and only using it 1-2 times a week, and not on adjacent days.

Why is my metabolism like this?

Probably for the best though; while on it I was getting super-productive again, and having pain flareups as a result. I need to find a good balancing point.

Fenofibrate

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Fenofibrate is affecting me the same awful way that Lipitor did, back in the day. If triglycerides are the problem underlying my pain, this medication doesn’t seem to be the answer.

Maybe I should try just eating nothing but salad for a month.

Pain, fatigue, and focus

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Two weeks since my last ketamine infusion and my anxiety is… present, again, and my chronic pain never went away at all but now I’m feeling a lot more aware of it.

I went back and tried Adderall again and it didn’t mess me up, although it also didn’t help me like it did the last time I tried it. But neither Adderall nor caffeine are messing with my blood pressure or increasing my anxiety, so I’ve reopened the conversation with my doctor regarding other meds for ADHD. In particular, I asked about Dexedrine and Desoxyn. Both of them seem promising at the dosages I’m looking at, although my insurance won’t cover Desoxyn (which is unsurprising, there was a TV series about it) so we’re trying Dexedrine first.

Regarding chronic pain, my doctor went over my chart and he noticed that we never really did anything about my high triglycerides, and then he had a thought: what if my high triglycerides are contributing to my fibro symptoms? Doing some cursory literature search found that it’s plausible, at least, so I’m also going to start on Fenofibrate to lower my triglycerides and hopefully get my body in some sort of balance there. He’s also ordered some more labwork to see if I have any gaping vitamin deficiencies.

Have I mentioned how much I cherish this doctor? Of all the doctors I’ve seen, this is the only one where I feel like he actually listens to me, doesn’t talk down to me, understands that I know my body and have done my reserach, and is willing to try things to attempt to treat these complex, deep-seated issues that have caused me problems for the past 25-odd years. It’s a lot easier to be patient as a patient when the healthcare provider treats me with respect like this.

He’s definitely a rare breed.

Sleep stuff, heart stuff, blood sugar blues

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After the first few days with the ring I was finding my sleep to be pretty awful, and I was noticing that I was waking up quite frequently. Some of it seems to be due to apnea coming and going, but last night while just lying in bed totally awake I started getting “please move” vibrations even though I was definitely breathing, and the ring said my SpO2 was a perfectly-healthy 98%.

But! My heart rate was dropping under 45, which was the configured notification for that.

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