August 7, 2022 2:20 PM
COVID, final part
Man, COVID just threw off my whole summer. I remember going into the summer feeling calmer than usual, yet excited to get more things done for myself. And in the beginning it was going great. But then I went home, and I got COVID, and I've felt kind of in a funk ever since. I want to get back to my projects, but it's been hard to get started. Plus work has been really busy lately, and that isn't helping.
Anyway, in two weeks my sabbatical starts! I'm really really excited, but also a little worried I might not make the most of it.
July 12, 2022 10:22 PM
COVID, part 4
This past Saturday I finally tested negative, and I drove back to Pittsburgh. My fever, sore throat, and nasal congestion all got better pretty quickly, but what's been lingering is the fatigue. The fatigue and constant headaches and feeling completely unmotivated at work. People have told me that this is normal. It's just made me feel bad though because I'm not able to get as much done as I usually do. I've felt like I've been unable to focus at work, and my forehead just has this weird numb feeling to it when I stare at code for too long.
But today felt different. Today was the first day since getting COVID that I didn't feel awful at work.
July 6, 2022 11:35 PM
COVID, part 3.1
Everyone keeps telling me that they hope I feel better soon. My COVID symptoms have not felt worse than any minor cold I've gotten in my life.
It just feels awful to have to stay away from people.
July 6, 2022 8:16 PM
COVID, part 3
It is Day 5. According to the CDC, tomorrow is when I can finally stop isolating. I took another rapid test today, and I definitely still have COVID.
Is it a really faint line?
No, it's just a line.
My symptoms seem to be getting better. Throat is a lot less sore. I slept last night without the use of Mucinex or Sudafed and I only woke up once or twice. I can breathe at night.
I've been trying to work this week, which doesn't really feel great. It seems like after a few hours my head feels weird and I just want to take a break. I hope this gets better next week.
Yesterday during dinner I was feeling kind of lonely so I gave my sister a call and we video chatted. It was good. I miss eating with people. I've been playing Stardew Valley with my free time, and it's nice and relaxing.
Dan brought me some ice cream and sorbet in the middle of my workday, and it was the absolute highlight of my day. It felt incredibly good to taste the frozen dessert in my mouth.
July 4, 2022 9:48 AM
COVID, part 2
I was feeling pretty good on Saturday. My fever went down, and I was able to get out for a couple of walks. When I got back to the room, I started working on more code for my mobile app, which went okay at first, but I was feeling worse over time and decided I needed some sleep.
Sleep was really rough. I was waking up every hour to pee, and my nose was getting more stuffed as the night went on. At around 5am, I texted Dan and asked him to go look for some medicine for me because I was feeling desperate. He found some Afrin nasal spray, and man, that stuff works fast. Apparently you're not supposed to use that for more than 3 days, or you might become dependent on it.
After waking up and having breakfast on Sunday, I decided to try to get back to the mobile app stuff. I was finally successful in being able to upload gifs, but in the process, I ended up breaking the functionality that made photos oriented correctly. Turns out that the old (deprecated) library I was using for creating a "Bitmap" object didn't auto-rotate images, but the new library I switched to was smarter. So I could delete a bunch of code.
After doing that, I wanted to see if I could replace more deprecated code, but I quickly started feeling worse again and then I concluded that I really should not be looking at code while I'm trying to recover from COVID.
I think I felt worse on Sunday than I did on Saturday because of the poor sleep I got. I tried to take a nap during the day, but I wasn't able to because of my nasal congestion. I ended up pacing in the room because it made my nose feel better.
At around 3pm, I figured there was no way I was getting a nap in, so I decided to take a walk outside. Even though it was way too hot and sunny, I finally felt like I was feeling a little better. It was really good to breathe in the fresh air and move my legs more.
I had an early dinner outside. My family was outside too, and my cousin and I sat at one corner of the pool to keep our distance. It was nice to be there and laugh and watch my uncle beat everyone at cornhole. I also took a walk with Dan once it got cooler, and my nose was feeling much better while I was walking.
Of course my nose decided to be stuffed again right before I went to bed (even though I took Sudafed earlier that day). I was able to sleep a little better though. I still woke up several times in the middle of the night, and then I started coughing a lot, so I took Mucinex for that.
I don't know, my symptoms seem to keep changing each day, but I guess that's just like other colds I've had in my life. I'm hoping today is better!
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