Sunday bookends: Just glad to be alive to post today

The fact I am able to write a blog post this week is exciting to me and feels a little like a miracle.

It’s just a silly blog post but I am alive to write it. And I apologize ahead of time if it makes no sense at all!

If you didn’t catch my blog post from last week, I spent five days in the COVID unit of our local hospital starting Thanksgiving night. I just looked back at that original post that I copied from Instagram and I don’t think it makes much sense but, then again, a lot of my blog posts over the years probably haven’t made sense. Ha! The second blog post about my recovery didn’t make much sense either but it’s been quite a journey so I will cut myself some slack.

I came home from the hospital Monday night of this past week and am slowly recovering, trying to regain some sort of normalcy again. Making myself write this blog post is one way of getting some of that back. I am still worried about my cognitive state at this point, but I can write cognitive so that’s a good thing, right? I have issues with brain fog anyhow but COVID has stepped it up even more. I had never heard how bad it messed with you mentally until I got it.

So, I mentioned in my other post that I have developed a very odd internal tremor that started either when the symptoms of COVID (dry cough, high fever, exhaustion, loss of taste and smell) started or when I found out officially that I had Covid. I’m not sure which. The days all blurred together. I do know I had a bit of a mental breakdown when I saw I officially had Covid, terrified of what it would bring to my family.

I chalked the tremor up to the effects of the virus itself but it is still there and won’t go away even as I should be over the virus. I do have occasional breaks from it. It’s very hard to explain it other than to say I feel like I am sitting in a pot of boiling water all the time but without the heat. Or that my muscles are constantly twitching from the spine up through my head. Or that I’m sitting on a phone on vibrate 24/7. I also have a low roar in my ears but my ears have been stuffed for over a month so that isn’t leftover from Covid.

I think I mentioned in my post earlier in the week that I had something similar happen to me when my dog of 14-years died in 2017. My daughter was also sick around that time (she’d stopped eating and was tested for the flu), I thought I had cancer (don’t even ask! I really am crazy sometimes), etc. it all built up and a vibration similar to this developed. It took maybe two or three months to settle down. I’m hoping this will take less time.

So I have slowly been getting my taste and smell back and cried when I started tasting food like my mom’s homemade mashed potatoes.

On Friday night I smelled Little Miss’s gas and actually got emotional. Ha! I know! It’s crazy but it’s just another sign I am recovering. I lost my smell and taste on the 13th. My son did as well and he’s still waiting for it to come back. I reminded him I am a few days ahead of him in recovery so it should come soon. My husband only lost part of his smell. As far as we know Little Miss didn’t lose any of that.

What I’m reading

So reading actual books was not on my priority list last week. I couldn’t get my brain to settle most of the time and did way too much internet research. When that obsession settled down, I found that texting my family and friends and watching old comedies like The Andy Griffith Show and stupid Lifetime Christmas movies worked to calm me more than anything else.

I did try to read Virgin River by Robyn Carr on my final day in the hospital, but, well, I don’t think it’s a very well-written book so I struggled some. Or maybe it’s just because I already knew what happened since I watched the first season on Netflix a year or so ago.

When I got back from the hospital my joy was reading Paddington with Little Miss and doing all the voices. Daddy doesn’t know how to read it right, she says.

I’m now also trying to read Saving Mrs. Roosevelt by Candice Sue Patterson for a book tour and so far I am enjoying it. It’s so nice to disappear inside books again!

What I’m writing

I am planning on gutting my novel this week. I don’t have a lot of brain capacity at the moment for writing, really, but I’m trying to do a little editing at least and that’s actually helping my mental healing a lot.

I have no idea when I will share fiction on the blog again. It might be after Christmas at this point.

What I’m Watching

I watched a ton of The Andy Griffith Show last week, as I mentioned above. Comfort watching. It was what I needed. I also watched Lovejoy and Corner Gas with my husband when we were first dealing with COVID and then did a couple marathons of Corner Gas during recovery this past week. I watched a lot of Gordan Ramsey’s travel show on National Geographic while in the hospital and a couple of really dumb Lifetime Christmas movies. I suffered through Pitch Perfect 3 as well. Lord, that was awful and I don’t think it was awful just because of the COVID.

What I’m listening To

In the hospital, I listened constantly to my Christian music playlist that I had set up on Apple.

I listened to Elevation Worship and Crowder and Matthew West, Needtobreathe (ironic, no?), Natalie Grant, Cece Winans, MercyMe, Keith Green, Michael W. Smith, Rend Collective, and For King and Country, just to name a few. I highly recommend listening to music in situations like that. It truly calms the nerves.

So that’s my week in review. I somehow made it! I would love to hear how your week went. I don’t care if you just cleaned out your attic or decorated the house or baked some cookies. Please feel free to share with me in the comments!