Here it is the first day of a new year and I would like to be filled with relief and hope. After all, the year just ended was perhaps the worst in my 55 years. Good riddance to 2020.
This is also my 10th day of symptoms from having COVID-19. I’m better but still have an irritating cough, body aches and easily become fatigued. I’m really tired of being tired!
My worst two days were Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Both of those days were bad all day long. I had a really bad evening on the 29th. This has been a very different and strange illness. The symptoms are many.
I’ll feel fine and then all of sudden I just drop. My eyes hurt all the time which keeps me from reading much and the diarrhea comes and goes and comes again. I’ve never lost my senses of taste and smell, but today I have a horrible metallic taste that I can’t get rid of by brushing my teeth or using mouthwash. I couldn’t sleep last night because my legs wouldn’t relax. My throat also felt like I swallowed some powder and no matter how much water I drank I couldn’t get rid of it. I still have moments of nausea followed by dizzy spells.
I do not know where I contracted the virus. We really have tried to stay in our pod of 8 since we first locked down in the spring.
Of course life couldn’t totally stop because of the inaction of our federal and state governments. I’ve still had to travel on Tuesdays to pick up our newspaper from the printers (they are just transferred from one vehicle to another), I have to go to the post office twice on that day, and I deliver the newspapers to the stores and machines. We however did not put out a newspaper this week.
I do go to the grocery store. But we also do more delivery or grocery pickup.
I wear a mask everywhere except at home. I keep alcohol wipes in my pickup. I wipe down my steering wheel, my phone, my hands. I wash my hands habitually and have since my first job 40 years ago at the Pizza Hut. I try to avoid people, by more than 6 feet apart.
I still got the virus. It is not a hoax. It is not like the flu. It helped to make 2020 the deadliest year in history for the United States. But here in Oklahoma more people than not are still going about their daily lives like nothing has changed. Our governor spouts “personal responsibility” yet refuses to wear a mask when he’s in the public. Apparently our citizens are following his lead.
Let’s hope 2021 brings better days and real leadership at least at the federal level.
OkieBrent 