Commentary: Gratitude and Illness in the Age of Covid

Periodically, I end up with rather random blog posts because my brain tends to not operate in a straight line. At the moment, my brain is operating more in a jagged zig-zag than anything...

I have been feeling a bit "under the weather" for a couple of days. I don't generally get sick very often — thankfully — and it has been at least 4-5 years since I last had a "summer cold."

These are strange times in which we live. I definitely have a cold but it has been eye-opening how many people I know who keep asking me "whether it's Covid."

No, it's not Covid. It's a cold. Yes, they both start with "co," but that's about it.

But it got me to thinking about how differently we approach "feeling a bit sick" after just 18 months of this whole pandemic circus.

I did have "a thing," back in March of 2020. I'm referring to it as "a thing" because it sure as hell wasn't a cold, and according to my physician, there were no documented cases of the flu in our part of the state, at the time. And it did not feel like any kind of flu I had ever had.

Keep in mind that this happened at a time before "Covid Insanity" had really set in; at a time before everyone had "conveniently forgotten" about the flu.

Even so, I didn't do anything "special" about it, and recovered at home, after a couple of weeks.

But I digress. I have a cold, and it's annoying me... especially since we have a bit of a heatwave forecast for the rest of this week and weekend. I have lots of yardwork to be done... and this is killing my buzz.

However, the pause is making me sit back and have a little gratitude for my generally good health... which, among other things, navigated "the thing" that hit me in early 2020. But that thing didn't come without some weird "aftereffects," like swollen itchy toes for several weeks... and from time to time — since then — it feels like there's not enough oxygen in the air for 10-30 minute long spells, every few weeks or months. I've since learned that the "antidote" is to stand in front of the freezer and breathe frozen air for a couple of minutes.

It's just weird.

But on the whole, I feel grateful.

I know what really sick feels like; I had malaria as a kid, when we were living in Kenya. Actually, we were in Tanzania when I got malaria; thankfully we found a doctor attached to a touristy hotel in Arusha who stabilized me, and then we beat feet back to Nairobi where I was pretty well recovered, ten days later, under the supervision of our doctor there.

Yes, there's a point to my mentioning the malaria incident, which is that I was treated with Chloroquine, which many thought to be an effective treatment for Covid, even though I don't think it was ever widely used.

But back to gratitude!

I also have much gratitude for the fact that — after a very long drought — we had a couple of pretty decent eBay sales over the weekend, meaning that we'll be able to pay a few bills and perhaps even get caught up a little.

For me, what's more important is the fact that when I don't have to spend quite so many hours working, I'll have a little more time to write.

And that's a good thing!

Thanks for reading and have a great remainder of your week!

How about YOU? Do you respond differently when you get sick, these days? Do you think you've had Covid or "something like it?" Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20210810 23:24 PDT
0316/1559