The Tale of the Peanut and the Long COVID epilogue

Hiya!

I'm a terrible blogger.  

I have found Instagram to be an easier outlet for my creative bursts, such that they are. So if you miss my adorably trying and annoying online presence, please, feel free to follow my Instagram account. It's public for now and will remain that way until the weirdos (read: incels, anti-vaxxers and freeDUM convoy creeps) make it an uncomfortable space and then I'll let my nasty alter ego take over and the internets will be like over-stimulated apes and chimpanzees screeching and tossing handfuls of shit all over each other. (Yes I know it already is like that, but this corner will be amalgamated into that too).

If you cared enough to read the whole previous COVID post and are concerned, I may have neglected to mention that I was, at the time, under an enormous amount of stress. Without getting into the boring and personal bits, a huge change in my life came along and we got through it okay but the journey was one hell of a challenge. 

I'm not longer living in the big city and have left to live in in the boondocks of Canada.

Silver Birches - Tom Thomson

I'm practically living in a Group of 7 painting and it's been quiet, sometimes too quiet, but peaceful.

I can say, with some certainty, that the Long COVID symptoms were also symptoms of extreme duress and the two simply fed off each other and turned me into a hacking, coughy, fatigued mess of a person. 

My stomach aliments, now that we've mostly fully investigated them, likely pre-date COVID and were noted by another doctor/dentist, but largely dismissed because I wasn't familiar with any of the symptoms of acid-re-flux. I did a barium swallow-test and it seems that I do suffer from it but didn't understand that was what was happening and it was obviously made worse with the stress.

Barium swallows are yucky. Normally I have a strong constitution when it comes to conventionally 'gross' food items, but this one was a little difficult on an empty stomach. Imagine drinking chalk. That's pretty much it. If it came in another flavour, it would be like drinking coloured chalk. Needless to say, I'm in no rush to have another one.

My oesophagus is okay tho. No damage. 

My fatigue comes and goes, but with the major stress I was experiencing now gone, the fatigue isn't as bad anymore, but still concerning because I shouldn't be this tired all the time. 

The brain-fog is the most discerning part of the equation. I still have trouble putting my thoughts into words and will stand there trying to piece together steps of a task that I've done many times before. The confusion bothers me because it puts me one step closer to that unknowable monster that is Alzheimer's. I recently read a book called "Forgetting" by Dr. Scott A. Small, which put my mind a little at ease. It broke down the mechanisms of memory and made it more like an engine repair manual. If you have an issue, you trace it back to the source. They have ways of doing this, they have ways to understand this. They are always working on a solution. By the time things start to really show, maybe there will be a magical pill. Until then, I shall continue to prattle on, take bad photos and be a menace to my corner of the internet.

Writing is a blessing to me because, unless I'm messaging someone, I can take the time I need to remember the words I need to describe what I'm feeling, thinking, imagining. But it, like everything else, is becoming a little harder for me to do. When I was younger, words used to pour from me with ease. But my internal dialogue never had words in it. It's images, feelings, abstract ideas that don't necessarily have words at the ready anymore. My descriptive audio is failing. 

However, it's easier to sit and try to remember, say, the same of a tool, like a set of tongs, instead of standing there in the kitchen heat, staring right at them, and trying to ask my husband to pass them to me before something burns. "Hey, can you pass me the things that pinch?" Yes. I've been reduced to describing the action of the item I need. Our conversations are not unlike this on a daily basis: 

Me: "Can you give me the thing that has ink in it? You write with it. That thing." Pointing desperately

Him: "The pen?" 

Me: "Yeah, the write-y, stylus thingy!"

Him: "Pen."

Me: (Frustrated but seeing the humour in it all) "WRITEY STYLUSY THINGY."

Hopefully my memory and physical coordination organ stays in good repair and I can continue being as non-senile as possible for many years to come. If not, I'll look back on this babble and likely wonder who the eff this weirdo is that wrote all this nonsense.