December 17, 2024
I had another visitor today, the second in as many weeks. It was the same sort, a 45-minute conversation in the living room. That seems to be a good stopping point for me.
Most of my friends live miles from me, just worked out that way. A lot are in the south Sound, while I'm in the north. A round trip, just to visit with me, can be 3-4 hours at times for them, so it's not an easy drop-by. I just have to figure this out. It does wonders to talk with another human, even if the main subject is always me and my health.
This friend was completely appropriate, even if I had to bring him up to speed a little. He didn't say anything awkward, like "You look fine to me!"
I read a fun article today entitled "What Not to Say to Your Coworker with Long Covid." It obviously wasn't going to be too relevant to my case, but I didn't expect it to be so simple. "1. Don't tell your co-worker that they are faking it." Wow. Workplaces these days sound brutal.😁
Sometimes people say things. It's usually online, though, and that stuff just has to be discounted. We lose so much communication when it's just a sentence or two with no body language. I think it's understandable to take offense at something someone says to you online, but I also think it's kind of dumb most of the time. None of us are good at this.
Telling me I look good is tricky, because c'mon. I look great all the time. It's almost a curse.
But I also got into certain habits just as therapy, and one involved my face, taking good care of my skin and my beard. I've eased up a bit and trimmed the beard way back, but I was glowing for a while, ask Julie.
No one is being thoughtless. If you tell me I look fine or sound coherent, I know what you're saying. But what I hear is, "So you must be exaggerating." Human nature, can't be helped.
I'm not exaggerating anything, FYI.
Nothing irritates me about this. Sometimes I'm surprised, and I tell Julie and then SHE'S irritated, but I'm good. No energy for trivial negative feelings, maybe.
The latest news has Covid-19 still creeping back into play, perhaps more dangerous and definitely more elusive, but also facing a population with a lot of immunity built up.
But the long Covid rates seem to be heading town. Now it sits at about 4% of Covid patients going on to Long Covid, and that's anything over three months. Most of these people resolve before a year's up, and usually just suffer from the fatigue and aches and pains, maybe some respiratory stuff.
So, again, I'm very much an outlier -- male, over 65, vaxxed up completely, had a relatively minor episode of covid. I shouldn't have gotten long Covid, statistically. Especially from my first and only infection. And then I shouldn't have been the one that doesn't recover.
But I stopped cutting notches for every moment of irony, it's all over the place now.
Those of us at two-plus years are in our own category. If you're unlucky, Covid can leave you wiped out for months. If you're somebody like me, though, we have a very different course.
As I talked about with my friend today, this is the new normal, for sure, but then it always was going to be. I've entered the last stage of my life, and it's always going to change (for the better, for an awful lot of people, surprising). That's nothing new.
I didn't really know what to expect or what I wanted to do, but my options felt wide open. For nearly an entire month. I got Covid two weeks after my first Social Security check arrived. Welcome to retirement.
I expected good health. I expected some sort of income, derived by doing only what I wanted to do. I expected a lot of travel. I expected to have some choice. I got something else.
And I'll be happy to tell you all about it, just come visit me. I've got a 45-minute slot open everywhere
