Day: March 17, 2020

what I’ve learned so far and what I’m betting

re COVID-19 @ home recovery.

For your own sanity, try to recover at home if you can. If your oxygenation consistently goes under 88 and your pulse is consistently high (over 100 and staying there) and you feel chest tightness or you’re gasping, you probably need oxygen and you may need to be intubated. Intubation keeps people alive but it’s not free of risks or various kinds of cross contamination. The good thing about it is that by the time you need it you’re in no fucking shape to argue about it, so stay salty.

I’d advise you to read trip reports of people your age who’ve survived it. Read up on advice not to use ibuprofen or corticosteroids. Perform deep chest coughs – instructions earlier this week on this blog. Rest prone as much as you can (From the wikipedia article on ARDS, which along with organ failure is what’s killing people). Drink zero alcohol. Don’t drink too much water <– this is counterintuitive but is supported by science see that same article)  Don’t move except for hygiene and to turn in bed. Symptomatically relieve cough. Thump your back to bring up sputum and get rid of it, don’t swallow it.
Even a mild case will knock you on your ass for two weeks & people who’ve recovered say there’s often a marked rise in how well you feel at around the 7 day mark, during which you will overdo it, and then collapse back down with worse breathing than previously. You need to relax & release your inner sloth and do everything you can to help yourself breathe and not move. Even if you’re feeling better, don’t, you can cough yourself into a situation where your fragile lungs scar worse. So don’t move except the moving you have to do to prevent bedsores and clots and to pee.
TAKE YOUR SWEET ASS TIME RECOVERING. The recovering will need sanatoriums that help people get as much of their lung health back as possible. Post viral conditions will be real and will be spread across all age groups. If you get sick, rest and recuperate a LONG while; don’t make plans to do anything until at least two weeks after the last day you run a temperature and longer if you’re still testing positive.

smallish newish

I will insert one tiny bit of good medical news in the middle of this chaotic roil of *holy shit*. My routine mammography came back negative. mOm will be nodding but not smiling.

walked with Paul in the park. He is a complete slob about covering his mouth in the park, and he has a fairly consistent post nasal hack and I fucking pounded him one verbally, for which I’d like to publicly apologize, so I can’t even repeat what I said publicly to demonstrate how clever I am since that eviscerates the apology, but he started coughing into a hanky consistently after that so either it was an inspired piece of nagging

or he found a way to deflect my ire

either way or any other way I’m good

His foot after he tripped on the stairs longabout a week ago is still sore and tingly so he’s walking quite a bit slower, which I hate, because walking suits me better when I’m going as fast as my body in that moment can make time (depending on equipment, weather, health, wind, urgency and all the rest of that stuff all other shit being equal in other words) so I’m doggggin’ it and hating it. I want to go as fast as possible.

For the first time since I was having trouble walking (liver trouble) we couldn’t make the 2.5 km circuit around Deer Lake; we truncated the walk. It was obvious by the time we got up to the part of the park I call ‘the nettle stand’ that he was flagging, and not in pain exactly but experiencing discomfort. I really wanted to do the whole thing but I would have been an entire asshole.

The mood in the park was terrible. Nobody was saying hello back to Paul. Usually most people don’t but they make face or nod and people just weren’t.

I like walking with Jeff, as far as I’m concerned 87% of the time he’s going the perfect speed. Right now Paul’s walking like a ninety year old Chinese guy, a sort of inspiredly quick shuffle that doesn’t stress too many muscles or your balance that much. And he wears crocs. He insists they’re the most comfortable shoes he owns and fit his feet tightly enough to be safe but I have my frickin’ doubts, me dears.

The kids are probably going to keep working through a lot of this. The marble gets put into empty houses, mostly, and there’s not much public contact, although everybody’s from Italy, oh joy, and Keith’s place of employment means he only sees his coworkers. And then they both come home to a snot factory named Alex.

Isn’t it deeliteful?

I made some really nice pasta last night; it will be even better now. It was macaroni with Newmans Own Tomato Basil and I cut up black olives and the left over bacon from yesterday morning into it and it was nom. I shall wait an hour or so and consume some more. For now, tea.

I got three cans of evaporated milk; it’s better for coffee; milk powder, of which I already had some, is better for tea. My favourite brand of coffee was on sale when all this started.

Latest fanfic is doing well, a PWP Destiel ficlet. Seriously thinking of reposting the great long casefic I did, it’s like 180k words long, but not finished… it’s a poser.

today’s journey

Today’s journey starts with waking a little after 2 am (after seven hours of sleep, I’ll need nine before the day ends) and thinking to myself that I don’t know whether I’m going to get Alex today. I want to stay outside with him all day if the weather is good, but I’m probably just getting him at Katie’s place before and after school. So that’s okay. Some outdoors.

I think if anybody runs the math, keeping the daycares open and letting young parents stay home with their kids may help slow this monster’s roll somewhat. It’s still going to be dreadful, and way worse in Canada that we’re emotionally ready for.

There’s a new bird flu being detected in India and the Philippines, apparently originating in the Philippines. I don’t know too much else about it but hopefully they’ll shut down passenger traffic except for people with required skills to fight all this shit. Watching other countries handle this shit in real time is terrible and Trudeau is being reassuring which sucks ass, he should be encouraging people to do what epidemiologists and recent experience teach us will slow the spread to manageable before we squash it as a species, as we inevitably must.

Of course it will be politicized. The Chinese will start manufacturing and distributing effective vaccines first, I’d bet money on it if it wasn’t against the Quran.