rona moved in: ilx0rs with the bug report on their progress

Saturday 28 March
During the day i started feeling that classic tingly 'emergency' feeling that accompanies pretty much any fever. i had a scheduled aperatif/hangout at 7:15 with my wife's family, about a dozen of them shouting over the top of each other for an hour. my wife also said she didn't feel good, so we PRETENDED to drink by pouring some kombucha into wine glasses. it wasn't so bad.

by the time i was ready for bed i had a proper fever - 38.3C (101F). that night was terrible. classic delirium dreams. i was one of many little bundles or hashmarks that needed to be grouped and lined up inside a large pen somewhere in westminster. it was my job to do the grouping and lining up, and i was also one of the hashmarks. i tried every combination. it never was right. i woke up maybe 4 times and always returned to this same anxiety dream. my body ached. it was hard to get back to sleep.

Sunday 29 March
toast was bitter. coffee was horrible. i started coughing. not a lot, and it never felt violent, but it was there. i ached all over. in the afternoon i slept, which was massively helpful. after that i even started to feel okay.

my wife having similar symptoms to me, but milder. little or no fever, and less aches.

i went for a walk (allowed under NHS guidelines) keeping well away from everyone and feeling like the angel of death. as i walked i could smell something. it was persistent. extremely recognisable yet very unusual. i could smell it wherever i went. once i got back home i could still smell it. i finally figured it out. burning hair. since then i haven't smelled it.

another symptom began: little pain flashes at the base of my skull lasting for no more than a second or two. right side, left side, at random. no trouble breathing. but chest feeling tight and a bit... hollowed out sort of. there is some serious shit happening in there. prefer not to know.

whole family watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol which was WAY more trash than i had remembered. still kinda fun.

i started to feel even better. by this time i'd started taking paracetemol right up to the max dosage each day (2x 500mg tablets three times a day) and kind of trying to game it so that it would take effect at the ideal time but not put me over my limit. felt better going to bed.

Monday 30 March
night absolutely awful. worst yet. woke up needing to pee and couldn't go back to sleep for maybe 2 hrs because of the aches. finally realising i was being an idiot and should just take some paracetemol. did so, got to sleep in 10 minutes. some untold time later wake up absolutely DRENCHED. hanes beefy T just wet through. changes clothes.

realise there is an eerie resemblance between how i feel in the mornings and how i might feel after an almighty speed bender. metallic taste in mouth, insides feel totally used up and squeezed out, flashes of pain in head. strong urges to pee that result in very little.

actually take a shower and change into real clothes to try to feel more normal. it kind of works! and guess what - it's a homeschool day!

somehow my wife and i manage my kids through a few online classes, set them up with some videogames and lunch, are incredibly irritable towards each other and the kids. after the kids are in bed we have a big talk and apologise to each other.

Tuesday 31 March
new night strategy: keep two paracetemol by the bed and take as soon as i wake up in the middle of the night. IT WORKS. more or less. i basically sleep through. rise at 8:30 feeling like shit but at least i slept.

the first of several grocery drop-offs arrives courtesy of a neighbourhood friend. the lovely Emma B feels significantly worse and i'm about the same. we're basically holding steady. no shortness of breath is what i'm holding onto.

it turns out one of my bosses at work had it right before we were all told to work from home and it took him 15 days to come out of it. he urged me in a text message to completely disconnect from work for at least 3-4 days and get better. that's what i'm doing.

as i'm writing this my kids are playing PS4 and my wife is in bed.

i fully intend for this to be as bad as it gets. i'm not drinking alcohol at all. i'm having like a half a cup of coffee a day (as opposed to my usual 3-4). it tastes nasty now anyway. drinking lots of water. getting to bed around 11pm.

whole family watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol which was WAY more trash than i had remembered.

(get well soon stet and tracer obv)

Seconded.

(Big Star's) Thirded

Sounds horrible TH, hope that’s as bad as it gets & you both get better soon.

the most amazing part, which i had completely forgotten, goes something like this:

cruise: 'you're an analyst?'

renner: 'that's right'

cruise: 'pen'

renner: 'excuse me?'

cruise, more pettily: 'give me a pen!'

renner gives cruise a ballpoint pen. cruise then starts drawing on his own palm with the pen. as he's drawing, he's talking. cruise: 'if you're such a hot shot analyst, i'm looking for a european male, mid-50s, blue eyes, looks like this' and then cruise HOLDS UP HIS PALM to show him the BALLPOINT SKETCH and renner says...

'well.. it's crude sketch, but it could be...' and pinpoints the exact dude, rattling off the guy's postdoctoral degrees

xpost lol thanks all

feel better tracer! and stet!

yes but had you any criticisms of this perfect movie or were you just going to detail its awesomeness

I didn't think I had seen this movie but now that you described the scene, I have totally seen it.

Get well!

Good luck Tracer! Judging by your post it sounds like your kids are just bowling through this without any ill-effects at all, which I guess is both a blessing and a curse right now?

Good luck & get well soon, Tracer & stet & families and any other ilxors with bugs to report!

and thanks for the symptoms diary, it's interesting to have an idea what to expect (or not)...

take care TH (and stet, and yr respective households), good to hear you've been able to function on some level during the day

Matt: bingo

tbh the thing i’m almost dreading more than contracting the ‘rona is trying to look after a 21-month-old while feeling like hammered shit for a week or more

Get well, this is riveting 'rona-blogging

from what i understand stet is much further along in this. would be interesting to see to what extent our experiences line up.

Ilxor stevie had it too iirc, but I think he's out the other side now

!!! i did not know

Get well sooon, tracer.

Very best wishes to both of you.

i hope you all get well soon xx

the most alarming symptom i’ve heard about so far tbh

― a struggle to make meat-snacking fit (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, March 31, 2020 8:17 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well loss of taste is a common symptom

roasted

lol

a+

I mention this just to cheer you up, Tracer Hand (hoping you find humour in such things): I was going to post on that first-ILX-mention thread, so I looked up "coronavirus," and, well, I'm sure you can guess the rest.

rona moved in: ilx0rs with the bug report on their progress

Huh? Wrong link.

'Professor Wickramasinghe admits there is no hard evidence for his theory; and researchers who have been working on Sars reacted with a mixture of disbelief and ridicule.
There is nothing strange about the Sars coronavirus, they said; it certainly evolved from other known viruses.

One leading expert said Professor Wickramasinghe's letter "must be a joke"; another said it is simply ridiculous.'

surely it is the Professor's name that is the joke here?!@@

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, May 23, 2003 11:59 AM (sixteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

http://www.asiantribune.com/files/images/Chandra1%20-%20Chandra%20Wickramasinghe_0.jpg

Wow!

I am ashamed of making fun of what at this remove I now consider a rather brilliant, grand and gnarly name. :/

Also if that be he, he is clearly A Dude

And he is claiming extraterrestrial origins of coronaviruses to this day.

Unfortunate joke. I was reminded of how, 25-30 years ago, when my friends and I came across someone with an unwieldy name we would exclaim "Gesundheit!" As kids this just seemed silly, but now I have to wonder if it ever came across as racist.

pigs! in! space!

Wednesday 1 April
Best night yet. I didn’t need my emergency paracetemol.

Two massive naps today. Worryingly, Paul comes down with a 103F fever and sleeps for hours as well.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation on the teevee with the kids. Goodness me what a movie. The opera scene. The ‘water torus’ scene. The car chase in Morocco. Kidnaping the Prime Minister. The final cat-and-mouse shootout / knife fight among the foggy alleyways of Tower Hill. The delicious conclusion. Best MI hands down imo.

Appetite still good (though still no sense of smell) and breathing still fine.

Thursday 2 April
Rocky night. However Paul has woken up in a great mood, and no fever.

Went for a longish walk today with the lovaly Emma B. Made avologmeno for lunch and was then attacked by a headache the ferocity of which I have probably never felt before in my life. It wasn’t all-encompassing like a migraine but it somehow felt worse - it was sudden, implacable, vice-like, a heavy boot holding me down. Utterly defenseless. Slept three hours in the afternoon and the boot was still there when I woke up.

Managed to rouse myself for dinner, read to the kids before bed.

In some ways this is maybe the worst day so far. Just flattened. Currently watching Pitch Perfect, which is exactly my speed. Head still throbbing. I’ve heard that people can really take a nose-dive in the second week and I hope this isn’t the beginning of that.

fingers crosse tracer, i hadnt seen migraine as a common symptom but i have where possible just been avoiding too much of that reporting tbh

heartened that yr MI taste is back, that is indeed the best of them

Sorry you’re going through this!

Thanks for keeping everyone informed, I'm sure it's a struggle.

best wishes to you both

Best wishes to you both.

<3 <3 <3 <3

<<<<3333

Damn Tracer, hang in there.

,

fuck, tracer. get well soon. and thanks for keeping us updated here - this sort of thing really helpful (and dare i say it interesting)

Get well soon. Hope it does mean you can't get it again at least.

<3 Tracer all the best to you and family. thanks for posting your updates. what fizzles just said.

Hold tight Tracer. Honestly this sounds like a real motherfucker, something especially cruel about the way it seems to trick everyone into thinking they're improving for a bit before finding new and more horrific ways to brutalise them.

following, and wishing both of you the best

what's the source for that quote about cognitive impairment?

looks like it's from a novelist's substack? unless they were just reposting.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35701598/

"Selective visuoconstructional impairment following mild COVID-19 with inflammatory and neuroimaging correlation findings"

an MD friend of mine just posted about this a couple days ago so I had that link at hand

xxxpost and a previous article that i found helpful, also from Katelyn Jetelina, on research from last year: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/covid-19-research-roundup-jan-11?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

big eye-openers were:

*transmission taking longer than previously thought
*highest viral load at days 3-4 of infection rather than pre-symptoms (which is why the 5 day arbitrary quarantine time without a negative test is ridiculous - you basically return to life while you still might be at your most infectious).

thanks sleeve!

np

i would be more outraged and upset about this if i hadn’t been smoking weed for the last 30 years

my wife's mom passed away after a 15 year battle w/dementia back in 2021, so she has fears of getting covid due to that, just knowing about the compounding effects. she wants to kick that down the road as long as possible, knowing it might be very difficult to avoid it forever, but if that's the case simply wanting to get as few infections as possible.

thanks for all the links

Sorry, meant to get the Lancet link in there. Failed; blame covid

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00013-0/fulltext

Was gonna say, that "selective visuoconstructional" study is from ... 2022? 2023? The one you just posted is obviously more recent, though the methodology is not really clear/convincing to me, admittedly a cognitively impaired dummy. Just 194 participants?

i would be more outraged and upset about this if i hadn’t been smoking weed for the last 30 years

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, January 30, 2024 3:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
^^^
Ironically, I just had covid (2nd time) over the holidays and have been feeling sharper and more focused at work this month than at any time in the last 22 years, albeit I have a big project forcing me to focus.

SO I got the rona first the first time about a month ago.

a couple of weeks later I felt like I was getting round 2 but 3 neg tests proved otherwise. However, the symptoms were all the same and over the past two weeks ive had shallow breathing, severe fatigue, sore legs, back and arms, sore chest and a dry cough. Its basically been awful just being.

I finally have a drs appt this afternoon and Im scared hes going to act like Im making it all up or act like its nothing. Its been so hard just getting through the work day. Im basically putting most of my work on my team, who have been very helpful and sympathetic but obviously this cant go on.

Anyway, im scaaaaaaared.

ugh sorry to hear it, hugs!

Are you up to date with vaxes?

I had a flu over Christmas that very similar to covid. It's possible you just got unlucky and got covid then flu, they are both definitely getting about. Either way, both times (although it wasn't as severe as it sounds for you) it took me about six weeks to feel relatively back to normal. Whatever happens, hope you feel better soon!

The cognitive impairment thing sounds plausible but I'm not sure that long panicky Substacky is the best means to understanding and using that information. One study is not enough to get ALL CAPS PANIC about something, although obviously it doesn't hurt to be more mindful of risks.

I learned more from the story that Neanderthal re-posted tbh

anecdotal info so take with grain of salt, but a few of my friends had what felt like a covid relapse a few weeks after they got it (it turned out to not be long covid in every case, thankfully)

Thanks, all. Im not up to date on my vaxxes. It has crossed my it might be the flu They did a test at the urgent care I went to about a week ago but they shoved something up my nose that didnt even touch the sides. It took about.oooooo1 seconds so I dont really trust it.

I just hope its not my 3rd bout of pneumonia. The back stabbies are making me wonder though.

When we had covid over the holidays, my wife took Paxlovid and got rebound a week after feeling better. I did not take it and had maybe a worse case of covid but no rebound (does not mean I wouldn't take Paxlovid, I just didn't think about it in time).

Hope you are feeling better soon, sunny!

“While traffic accidents are up all across the board by 16%, they are up even more among the unvaccinated. And while you might not have a lot of empathy for adults who don't vaccinate, the vast majority of unvaccinated globally are either adults who have no access (including in the US now that we've ended pandemic supports) and CHILDREN.”

Those kids shouldn’t have been driving sito

people are definitely driving worse, i wouldn't always ascribe it to the effects of covid, society in decline and an emphasis on how people need to drive a car that owns the road (whatever their chosen make and model may be), everyone else outta the way, etc.

but i also would be surprised if covid didn't have cognitive effects on people, some very obvious but some more widespread and much less so. kinda like in the NFL, players might be obviously concussed and stuck in protocol, but others get little dings every game and it all adds up to a cost being paid later. obviously some guys play the game and take the hits and wind up find but idk.

those kids def shouldn't be driving obv

It’s funny, to the best of my knowledge I’ve never had the rona, and I continue to take more than average precautions to not get the rona, but I am very much not the person I was a couple of years ago cognitively speaking. My executive functioning sucks, I react slowly to things, at my job I struggle with stuff I used to have in my back pocket.

The most likely explanation would be this is a new feature of my chronic depression (celebrating 35 years in 2024 woooo) but then I also think back to how my wife and I both had something nasty and viral right at the end of Dec 2019/beginning of Jan 2020.

it was my third bout of pneumonia.

doc said covid + sinus infection (which i didnt know i even had except for blocked ears) often results in pneumonia. so thats something to look for, i guess.

took mom to doctor's because she likely has a sinus infection (got worse and worse as the week went on, negative for flu, COVID, on several occasions). we were masked. two Geico cavepeople then walked in the door and the mom immediately starts telling the lady behind the counter that her son is really really sick, has had a 103 fever, been vomiting (basically TEXTBOOK Influenza B symptoms), and neither are masked, and dude comes into the area I'm sitting, so I somewaht dramatically got up and moved.

like....fuck, it was an expectation BEFORE COVID that you were supposed to mask at the doctor if you thought you had the flu. I remember CVS Minute Clinic having signage in the store back in 2014 that you were required to put one on if you had suspected flu symptoms before entering.

literally just avoided an exposure to Influenza A, not looking to get the much worse flu right now (I did get my flu shot). thankfully mom was inside the doctor's office the whole time.

Mom has COVID. And bronchitis and a sinus infection!

Yay.

Weirdly doc didn't give Paxlovid. He thought it might be false positive but it's not. Second test at home confirmed. She has antibiotics for the other stuff

I'm negative but we'll see if it lasts.

I may make mom get the Paxlovid tho

I'll be isolating of course. Just hoping mom feels better. She seems beat but oxygen and blood pressure fine.

mom still not doing well, but only on second full day of antibiotics for bronchitis and sinus infection. she was sick all the way back to last Tuesday with minor symptoms and wasn't testing positive then, so we think possibly she got sinus infection -> bronchitis first, then COVID.

still testing negative here. once last week, three times across two days this week. i've stayed at home and mostly kept my distance and masking in house. they didn't prescribe mom Paxlovid and I asked her if she wanted me to fill out the Walgreens form to get it yesterday and she seemed reluctant, thinking she's too far along in her infection, and also dreading the metallic aftertaste. I think we're still in the window to get it so I may persuade her again.

definitely not a false positive for her, it popped bright red immediately today for her

Good luck, man!

Damn Neando, that's a lot! Sending good vibes and hopes that it's all mild for her.

hoping so too. she had a coughing fit that freaked me out a little in the night, but then I remembered that's what bronchitis essentially does.

if antibiotics don't do anything and it doesn't improve, I might suggest an ER visit just to get looked at.

bummer is dad's birthday is Sunday and we had a dinner planned, mom, my brother, and I, to celebrate his memory - which we'll probably have to postpone now now. but as I pointed out - we can celebrate him on that day no matter where we're at, and do something more formal when we're all healthy.

She's really lucky to have you in her life Neando, that's for sure.

A lot of people underestimate how long it takes lung stuff to heal. Coughs, even regular coughs, can linger for weeks. If antibiotics don't take it out, might be worth checking for pneumonia.

I don't know why, but I've heard lots of stories (or at least, more than one) of doctors not prescribing Paxlovid even when the patient is right in the bullseye: covid, older, more at risk, etc. Granted, the medicine supposedly works best very early on in the diagnosis, and also interferes with a few medications that many older people often take (blood pressure?), but other than that, I'm not sure there are any real downsides. When I had covid in July, my primary doc didn't prescribe it, so I just immediately contacted a Teledoc right after and she prescribed it with no hesitation.

dreading the metallic aftertaste.

This I don't get. Yeah, it wasn't the best taste, but it wasn't terrible, no medicine tastes good, and it's only temporary. I can see dreading a colonoscopy or dreading getting a filling, but medicine that tastes weird for a couple of days? That's not worthy of dread, imo. You can tell your mom I said so.

Here's more fun long covid stuff

https://wapo.st/3UDglOd

Gift link

xpost yeah and it's easy enough to get at Walgreens so I might just tell her 'come on, what's one more pill'

tbf, it's a lot of pills!

oh she has like 12-15 already lol

mom improving. me, still nothing, no symptoms, no positive test.

and now i've been isolating, whereas before we knew we had basically been sharing a lot of the same air.

may get lucky.

isolating from mom that is in my own room. and a KN95

Good thoughts, that's a lot. Hope improvement continues.

the big improvement is in her cough, thankfully. suggests that the bronchitis might indeed be separate bacterial infection and that antibiotics are working.

mom has essentially beaten the bronchitis and sinus infection and just has residual gunk from the bronchitis.

still testing positive, but line has gotten fainter finally.

I continue to test negative and feel absolutely fine, and if mom is negative soon, I might completely luck out again. especially since we're basically in separate rooms and masking when in the same room.

https://scontent-hou1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/435678587_10163219403263709_6542223938633004152_n.jpg?stp=cp6_dst-jpg_p526x296&_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=AuNwQ2OVFZcAb7E-ic6&_nc_ht=scontent-hou1-1.xx&oh=00_AfCocMRCAEi-acf4yXqKjmso_CA7Z6wfkht4QGAokz3Stg&oe=66204022

this lollipop sucks, who comes up with these flavors

Get well! How do you feel?

Not too bad, actually. A little achy, sinuses swole but not runny, feels like I have a slight fever but my thermometer says no. I caught it from my wife, who got it from her cousin last Sunday on an eclipse-watching trip. She had one very uncomfortable day but is on the upswing.