Plague diary: day 31 (really, 31?)

Now that the pneumonia is gone, one day seems to be much like another. I did push it a bit too hard on Tuesday, and needed a long rest. The rest of this week has been more or less the same. I'm ok as long as I'm not doing something. But once I do I just get winded and lose all my energy. I can hang up laundry just fine. Then 3 minutes later I realise, no, it wasn't fine. I can't figure out my limits because the goal posts keep changing all the time for no obvious reason.

A couple of the doctors I've spoke to have said that they're finding The Virus can linger as long as 6 weeks. I'm only just past week 4, so I'm not surprised it's still having an impact. I am worrying that this is what life is like now. Perhaps the lung damage is permanent and I'll just have no energy to speak of from here on out. I mean, with chicken pox, I've gotten scarred for life in a number of places on my skin, so it'd not be shocking that covid-19 might do some irreparable harm. No one knows. It's all new to everyone. Like those Samsung phones with exploding batteries. They were just phones. They're expected to just either work, or to break. Nobody expected them to blow up. Perhaps The Virus just smashes things up before it leaves like a renter who lost their deposit.

In other news, the son is getting consonants. M and D and H, mostly. He says Da like his sister did, but not as often, and with more variety of other things. I suppose by the time we next leave the house he'll be walking and speaking at least a few small words. He's eating too. Anything we put in front of him. Blueberries, cucumbers, avocado, tomatoes, squash, asparagus, mushrooms, lemons, brussels sprouts. Anything. This is so very different from what we got used to with his sister, who in retrospect, was a picky eater. I always thought she was just the sort to just eat a bit, and was ok with only eating a bit. Now I know, she was really thinking Ok, I'll eat this one thing, but the rest, I'll just move around and hope they never try it again. I like milk. Can I just stick to milk?.

Of course I'm not doing the food prep. I'm sure I would have passed on The Virus by now if they didn't have it already, but I'm still a little wary, since no one really knows how this things can spread. I'll feed him, but with chopsticks so I stay far away from touching the food or touching him myself. It's odd, and awkward and unpleasant. He has changed quite a bit in the last month, and it bugs me to be missing it from so up close.

I've spent a huge amount more time with R than I did while we both had school and work. I'm still sleeping in her room, but I don't really count that as quality time together. I've stopped reading her bedtime stories. I've run out of books from our queue and have struggled to find age appropriate stuff. I read Neverwhere on a few good breathing days in there, but that and the short story sequel are done. I need to get back in to the habit of reading before it's broken entirely.

Also, R is now pretty big. She's still smaller than us, but she's not a little girl. She's a small person, but a proper person. Still very headstrong. We are still facing many challenges. I'm trying to get a bit of learning in there, but all she wants to do is use the iPad or sometimes play with toys (which I'm happy to join on, when I have the energy for it, but her room is so cramped with the extra bed, we can't both use the spaceport at the same time). I've been trying to teach her useful stuff based on things that come up in conversation. Monday I explained how FM and AM radio (frequency vs amplitude modulation) works. Today I explained triangulation (how do we know where a lion is when it roars). On a practical level, to get her away from the iPad, I hid it today, and taught her card games. Poker and solitaire. She seems to like them both and the latter I'm finding less boring. This seemed to get her happily away from technology for the whole day.

Plague Diary: day 23 - I leave the house

For the first time in over 3 weeks, I left the house. It was interesting to finally see what the local area was like in lockdown. But more interesting was going to the local Covid-19 hub for additional testing to find out why I so breathless today.

Today was weird. I had lung capacity, at least as I measured with the flow meter. But just having a conversation was leaving my breathless. By mid afternoon I called the GP. they made the appointment at the Covid-19 hub at a nearby hospital to check out my bloody oxygen levels – that's apparently the important number, more important than how much air you're getting in. Since I couldn't walk or drive, they sent an ambulance to pick me up and take me there. With the understanding that if anything was awry, they'd take me on to hospital.

So I charge my phone and collect all my meds to take with me, get my shoes on and wait. All the while my brain is telling me that if things do go wrong this will be the last time I see my family, since no one can come with me or see me in hospital. I try to not think of it, but do make sure I say goodbye before I go.

When the ambulance comes, they want to take my readings in the house before they take me away. Bloody pressing, temperature, that sort of thing. Then they give me a mask and off I go.

It's like a weekend out there. Lots of things are closed, but there are plenty of people out and about. The biggest sign that things are different were the well-spaced queues outside the post office and grocery stores. I saw a dozen or so people wearing face masks, but most people were not. Signs outside the park warning people to keep distant. And many "We're closed" signs on shops.

Once at the Hub I was asked to wait outside for the doctor to collect me. I waited at first in the ambulance, but it was a nice day, so I waited outside the front door with the paramedic from the ambulance a coupe of meters away. The wait was pretty short.

The doctor was wearing a mask and plastic sheet of his clothes, just like the ambulance people. Plus he had goggles over his glasses. He took my vitals and blood oxygen levels, and everything looked good. My chest also sounded clear. He thinks it's the lung lining being irritated from all the horrors it's seeing (not his words) and that it'll be like this possible for a few more weeks. This virus is slow to get over. and even afterward, my lungs will still be tight for a while. So unless my energy levels drop drastically, it looks like I'll be ok to ride this out.

I guess it's closer to the 45 days some of the early reports from Asia were saying instead of the 7 days we're being told in the UK. Which makes me (sigh) potentially at the halfway point.

Plague Diary: day 8

Day 8 and the whole country is on lockdown. On the other hand we finally got our food order delivered. So we are no longer scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of what we can eat. That said, there was no pasta, so I don't know how R is going to cope.

We had two grocery orders. One, from Tesco that we booked ten days ago. The other from the local veg shop that we called in yesterday. Given the reliability of the latter, I wish we could get everything from them. But it's good to know we won't run out of fresh food.

Today R had her first Zoom conference call with the other kids in her class. Good thing I use this at work all the time. It was easy to install and show her how to use it. Then I just let her be for 90 minutes. It seemed quite chaotic and I did not have the energy to even watch.

On that note, I'm still tired very easily. Talking a lot, especially on the phone, really does me in. I had a couple of long calls today after which I just had to nap. I say I'm easily exhausted, but not at night when I try to sleep. Then I'm just laying in bed for ages. (Last night wasn't helped by R setting an alarm for 7am, which only I heard. So I had to hunt down where her iPad was so I could kill it.

Talked to the GP yesterday about my symptoms and Covid-19. She said it does sounds like I've got it – which does bring some peace of mind. She also says that since it's been a week I should start to feel better soon. Most people are over it after a week, she says, except some take a turn for the worse around day 8 or 9. Which implies that if things are still ok Thursday, I should be past the worst of it. Apparently the lung/cough issues should linger for ages – but that doesn't really give me an idea of when I'm no longer contagious. Nor does it give me a sense of when I'd be ready to work again, but I should be able to work that out for myself.

Induction or no?

Still no sign of birth. Head looks more or less engaged. All vitals are healthy.

We saw a doctor 2 days ago who wanted us to go for daily monitoring. Now it's clear that daily monitoring is pretty much a full time thing, taking at least 4 hours to do 20 min or heartbeat monitoring. I'm not sure it's worthwhile. On the other hand, the doctor also told us Remember, it can die suddenly and for no reason at any time. Have a nice day. Bye! Thanks doc.

At this point we need to decide if we want a sweep to kick start the process or we just wait. hopefully today's observations will give us more data on how ready to we are naturally, and if intervention will make a difference.