Feeling Strong

  

    We began the very first day of 2021 with the Covid virus. Steve brought it home from work the week before. His symptoms were so mild that we didn't realize he was sick. It wasn't until he tested positive that we were forced to accept the fact that he had Covid. I can pinpoint the exact moment I caught it from him. It was before he went for his Covid test. We were installing a cabinet door in the hall bathroom and he sneezed. My memory replays the scene in slow motion. I was holding the cabinet door while he attached the screws and we were practically head to head in that tiny space. And he sneezed into the air because his hands were occupied with attaching the door. The rest, as they say, is history.

    My bout with the virus wasn't as mild. It was miserable. Thankfully, we both recovered at home without medical intervention. The lasting effects were a little more baffling and complicated for me. I have finally come out on the sunny side, ten months later. Even though I had Covid in early January, I was in the emergency room in April and then briefly hospitalized in May. Apparently the virus had attacked my autonomic nervous system leaving me with excruciating headaches, muscle spasms, confusion, and a litany of weird symptoms that later revealed themselves to be Postural Orthostatic Hypertension Syndrome. Basically, my nervous system wasn't controlling my blood pressure or heart rate as it normally should. 

     In time, my body slowly healed itself. In the course of it all, I learned how to do somatic tracking to deal with the headaches and muscle spasms. Not even the strongest prescriptions had worked on those headaches and I was desperate for relief. I found online support groups for Long Covid and they turned out to be much more helpful in a practical sense than the medical community at this time. I learned how to meditate every day to calm the heart palpitations and balance the highs and lows of blood pressure fluctuations. Basically, I learned how to be calm, which is anti-me, and allow my body to heal. It's not an easy thing to do when you're unsure if you're actually going to heal. It required a lot of trust and inner battles of self doubt. 

     So, that's where we've been this year. 

     We have had lovely visits from the daughters and their families. We grieved and buried my father-in-law, Steve started a new job, we've traveled some, we started new hobbies and let some old ones go, and we talk about the future. I hope to start sharing here again. My daughter, Claire keeps a nice blog and I always enjoy reading what the family is up to. Whatever way folks can use to connect, keep in touch, make one another laugh, encourage one another, and share stories is always a good thing.