Coffee heat rising

Covid

Covidified!

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coughity cough
coughity cough
coffity cough
cough cough COUGH cough cough cough….

The song of the day… 😮

I’ve been living on aspirin and Robitussin for longer than I can remember now. Fortunately, though, I don’t HAVE to remember. In a blinding stroke of foresight (how DID i know i would not be able to remember my name, much less when i took the last dose of pain-killer or cough med?), I set up an Excel spreadsheet to record when I gulp down this med or spray that med into my nose.

Good thing, because this damned covid virus affects your brain. I couldn’t remember my name if it weren’t written down somewhere. (But…where???)  Seriously: there’s no way in Hell I could keep track of the med-gulping without writing it down.

The Mayo’s staff diagnosed me with Covid on May 16. So this has been going on for over a month, with no credible end in sight.

Well. No. That’s not quite true. With mind-boggling genius, I started taking notes in that spreadsheet, recording the state of the Onion and the progress of the Disease. And adding any bits of information I happen to come across. Review those notes,and you see that in fact this thing is getting a LITTLE bit better, very very verrrreeee slowly. At the crack of today’s dawn:

Date Time Temp Meds Ailments
19-Jun 6 a.m. 97.7 Robitussin Mild cough
CBD cream itching hands, feet (milder than y’day)
Tingling about the same as y’day, maybe slightly better
8:00 a.m. aspirin Back pain mild, seems to be going away

WordPress resists any attempts to tidy up Excel’s formatting…sorreee. I’m just too sick to fight with a computer program this morning!

Hmmmm… The fever has gone away: 97.7 is normal for me, being the cold fish that I am. One of the most aggravating symptoms of the Ailment is FRANTIC tingling in your hands, feet, and lips. This is called peripheral neuropathy, and it is truly crazy-making. A little experimentation revealed, however, that over-the-counter CBD nostrums work handsomely on the phenomenon. Unscented CBD balm — comes in a tube that looks like Chapstick on steroids — beats back the lip tingling. And unscented CBD lotion keeps the buzzing in the extremities at bay.

This, of course, means you need to reside in a state where CBD products can be sold legally.

Robitussin and aspirin, though, should be available wherever you are in the US.

Lanacane and Aspercreme, both presumably legal anywhere in the nation, do exactly nothing for the peripheral neuropathy.

Apparently, the reason I’m not in the Mayo’s ICU just now is that I had the good sense to get ALL THREE shots of covid vaccine at the earliest opportunity. Otherwise — given my gruesome susceptibility to respiratory diseases — chances are good that I’d be on a ventilator. Or dead…

So, if you haven’t taken the covid vaccine, GET IT NOW! Do not buy into the superstitious nonsense about the vaccine. It will not kill you. It will not make you sick. It will not turn your hair green. But it will protect you from developing a life-threatening case of this hellacious disease.

Meanwhile, despite repeated evidence of the truth of the old axiom, “Whatever can go wrong WILL go wrong,” things are as under control as they can get. I guess.

* Ruby has apparently not caught the disease (yet), even though dogs are susceptible to it and even though there’s no hope in Hell of keeping her from sleeping on the bed with me.

* Swimming Pool Service and Repair came out last Friday and made off with the pool pump. They said it would take three days or so to fix it. So I hope their guy will resurface (heh) along about Wednesday.

* Pool Dude has disappeared from the scene. Whether he also has The Disease (a strong likelihood) or whether he got peeved when he discovered I’d arranged someone else to fix the equipment is unknown. I hope he comes back — the man has been a godsend. But if he doesn’t, well…I’ll just post a query on the neighborhood Facebook page, asking after some other service.

Don’t think SPS&R does regular weekly maintenance. If they do, they’d be charging some phenomenal rate…don’t even ask!  However, I’ve found a new Leslie’s outlet, and the guy who runs it does NOT behave like a vulture. So if Pool Dude disappears from the scene, I’ll go over there and ask for the name of a customer or two.

* Today is Cleaning Lady Day. Just now Luz should be at WonderAccountant’s house, across the street, though the last time I walked by the front windows I didn’t see her car out there.

Two weeks ago — last C.L. Day — I turned her away, because I surely do NOT want her to catch this thing. The shack really needs to be cleaned now. So…this does not bode well. I hope she hasn’t come down with the the covid horror.

****

Hmmm….  WonderAccountant thinks the Beloved Luz  arrives HERE around 9 and then goes to her place. I think the opposite. Ohhh well…

****
BING BONGGG!
*****

And speak of the Devil…by golly, there she is.

Well, this is good. BUT….  I’m not real comfortable about exposing her to The Disease. Just explained to her that I’m Infected and so she does not have to clean the house today. Offered to pay her for this week’s job and let her go on her way. She declined.

And (cough!) today….

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Yes: Today is still today. The world has not collapsed into a ball of bread dough. The air conditioning (thank the heavens) is still working.

Seen from the underside:

It’s too hot to breathe, AC or no AC. My right eye continues to fuliminate and as we scribble consists of one blue-green pupil in a field of bright blood-red.

Mercifully, it doesn’t hurt.

That’s something. I guess.

The covid (or whatever it is) continues to hold forth, though I’ll say today the cough is a little milder. However, I still have a fever: 98.2, it sez here.

For normal people, that sounds OK. But it must be borne in mind that I am a spectacularly cold fish. Normal for me is about 97. 5, and even that is on the high side. So we have about one degree of fever, which ain’t that bad. But which I could surely do without.

Just tried to clean and flush the steamer, which had about stopped dead as of dawn this morning. Kinda doubt it’ll do much good. Managed to fish a few little flakes of calcium out of the thing, but not enough to interfere much with its operation. So I don’t think “clogged up” is its problem.

“Clogged up” is sure my problem, though. My head is stuffed. My chest hurts. Breathing is a chore. The cough is dramatic. And I’m real tired o’ this stuff. 😀

Having done nothing today, I’m deathly tired and would love to go to sleep. That seems not likely to happen, though.

I should get up, get dressed, trudge down to the Walgreen’s through the chilly 95-degree heat, and buy another steamer. But ohhhhhh I don’t wanna!!

First place, you just know that if I traipse down to the Walgreen’s, I’ll find they don’t carry the things anymore.

Next, you know I won’t be able to find anything like it. This thing gets hot, and of course Big Brother wouldn’t want any of us to hurt our little pea-brained selves, so probably you can’t get your sticky little hands on it it. Or on anything like it.

Hmmm… This thing looks kinda similar. Mine is not that brand, but its design is like unto it. Now waitaminit…apparently you can rev these things up by adding salt to the water.

Why not? The thing is already not working. The worst that can happen is adding salt will totally bust it. Either way, I’ll have to trudge out in search of another one, or  order this one from Amazon (which will take another two days to get here).

*******

4:20 p.m.

How can it possibly be this early? Feels like it should be about 8:00 or 8:30 p.m.

But it’s not. It’s actually late(ish) afternoon. Ugh!

The salt-in-the-water experiment: YES!!!

It WORKED!!

No kidding. To my astonishment, adding a tablespoon of ordinary table salt to the gallon or so of water in the steamer’s tank revved it right up! Within 10 or 15 minutes, it was pumping out steam.

Who’dve thunk it?

Actually, it’s revved the thing up so much that a tankful of water is unlikely to last all night. Highly unlikely. But for the nonce, it’s pumping steam into the victim’s face, and I can sorta almost breathe.

At any rate, the contraption is working for the nonce. Probably I’ll have to get up in the middle of the night and fool with it. But that will mean I’ll have managed to steal half a night’s sleep. Which would be some kinda miracle.

 

Humanity…HOW have we survived?

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Seriously, how HAS a creature so many of whose representatives seem dumb as posts managed to survive at all? Gawd, but humans are stupid!

Out the door this morning, in an early hour of a hot, sticky morning: doggy-walk time.

Ruby dearly loves to walk around the park. The human dearly hates it.

No doubt Ruby loves it first, because our yard has no grass, so that grass stuff is THE bidness. And second, because the damn place is overrun with dogs, many of them as ill-trained as she is. Whatever her sentiment, a visit to the beloved park means an hour-long Dawg Drag for the human: she hauls me around the park at the end of her lead, jerking here and jerking there.

She arrived here at the Funny Farm just as I was getting both boobs lobbed off at the Mayo. Upshot was, I had neither the strength nor the inclination to leash-train an obstreperous puppy. Upshot of that is: the morning dawg-drag.

This would be OK if other people would keep their dogs more or less under control.

Today, for a change, we didn’t encounter any dogs off the lead over there. The “dogs must be on leash” sign at the entrance is for other people, y’know… But on-leash dawg or off-leash dawg, Ruby wants to lunge at them, yanking me with her.

And today, just barely beginning to recover from the Cough from Hell, I am distinctly NOT in the mood to be jerked around.

I should call a vet and try to get a recommendation for a professional dog trainer. My dearly beloved, now long-retired vet did that for me when I had Anna the German shepherd. The guy he referred me to was a miracle-worker. Seriously: he had that dog under control in two sessions.

Heh! Here’s a new movie series, V, which really does bring up the question of how humanity will survive — the inevitable alien invasion, o’ course. Unreality oozes out of the production room, though, and comes to visit us right here. If it just weren’t so…true to life… 😮 Substitute a virus for the aliens, and you’ve got it.

Speaking of survival — or not: This morning I felt like maybe the agèd body was begin to schuck off the Killer Virus. Now, late in the afternoon, it seems to be thundering back. Dunno about you, though, but in my case whenever I come down with a bug like this, it’s always worst in the late afternoon. It’s 4:30 as we scribble. Can’t sleep — not least because of some moron coming door-to-door trying to hustle up lawn maintenance business. If I hadn’t been busy hammering at Death’s Door, I would have taken him up on that, since Gerardo and the boys have disappeared into the forest.

While hammering, though, I spent half the day driving from pillar to post through Phoenix’s Hellish L.A,-style traffic.

Up to Young Dr. Kildare’s office. They insist I owe them $160, even though I’ve repeatedly tried to pay them. Why my payments don’t go through escapes me. And them, too…apparently.

So I staggered through a covid fog up to his place and insisted on paying the bill in person. This time they took my AMEX card, even though over the phone his staff insists they don’t accept credit-card payments.

Why? Is there some REASON to inflict a mindless hassle like this on your clients? What, really, is the point?

Then it was over to the credit union, to check in person if there was some reason earlier payments didn’t go through. Staff were as mystified as I was.

So now I’ll have to ride herd on that nonsense for a couple of weeks, But…in my covid haze, I’ll be damned if I can get through the online hoop-jumps to access my account. So that means I’ll have to drive back up there again in another ten days or two weeks. Better put that on the calendar, or I’ll forget it.

Hmmm…in other sylvan realms…

Think solar power will be our over-developed planet’s savior? Think again!  We’ve been merrily trashing the Mohave Desert, sucking up its water and blighting its surface.

{sigh}  Y’know, folks…there’s only one solution to the Kill Mother Nature problem: that’s to QUIT MAKING BABIES.

Covid at 3:00 a.m.

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{gronk!}  I hate insomnia.

It’s quite possible that I hate covid-19, too. 😮

Actually, though… I’ve had episodes of the flu that are worse than this. The cough, which can be fairly wracking, tends to concern one. But a dose of Robitussin quickly gets that under control.

A hit of aspirin seems to beat back the lingering fever. It’s now pretty well gone, the thermometer hovering around 98 degrees. Aspirin also seems to help the peripheral neuropathy…but I question whether that’s a covid symptom. I’ve had PN for months. The best dope for PN is CBD cream.

A steamer set by the bed, turned on to full blast, and aimed toward your head helps a lot with the congestion, as does an occasional squirt of Afrin (be careful with that stuff, though).

So. Even though we’re far from out of the woods here, it looks possible that this isn’t going to be as horrible or as life-threatening as feared.

Covid and Our Pets: How scared, really, should we be?

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Got a referral to a pool guy who cleans tiles — mine now being encrusted with lime. When he learned that I’ve tested positive for the Dread Disease, he announced that he wouldn’t come anywhere near the place.

This, frankly, seems reasonable, especially if you have a pre-existing condition of one sort or another.

But his moment of terror led me to wonder…how scared, really, should we be of catching Covid from our livestock?

And…can I give Covid to Ruby? Can she give it to me…or to other humans?

Well, the obvious answer is that this is a damned uncomfortable ailment, even in its milder form, which apparently is what I’m enjoying just now. So, yes: it does behoove us to avoid discomfort — of any kind, particularly of the variety that lays you out in bed.

But…

The truth is…it would appear that unless you’re elderly or you have a pre-existing condition, the bug is unlikely to kill you. And it also would appear that yes, contagion between humans and dogs and between dogs and humans is not only possible but fairly common.

Here’s our source:

Anna Csiszar, et al. “Companion animals likely do not spread COVID-19 but may get infected themselves.” 2020 Oct; 42(5): 1229–1236. Published online 2020 Aug 7. doi: 10.1007/s11357-020-00248-3

These authors find that domestic pets, even in First-World countries, are vectors of the disease. However, they regard the risk as rather low: “”Actually, there is no evidence for a single case of pet to human transmission to date.” (Bear in mind the article’s publication date, though.)

More currently, the CDC tells us that

  • The virus that causes COVID-19 can spread from people to animals during close contact.
  • The risk of animals spreading COVID-19 to people is low.
  • Pets can get serious illness from infection with the virus that causes COVID-19, but this is extremely rare.

https://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/covid-19/pets.html

Hmm… Okay. Even though we’re advised not to let our critters sleep on the bed with us (hah! Good luck with that!!), the chance of a dog or cat catching the bug from us exists but is low; serious Covid illness in your pets is unlikely.

Interesting….

 

Odders and Enders

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The adorable Pool Dude surfaced (heh!) with the sun this morning. Ruby SOOOO adores that man! Instantaneously she knew he was out back, and so it was OUT THE DOOR, the better to love him up.

He’s a…distinctive-looking fella. Has a frizzy, light-brown beard that he wears halfway down his chest. This, IMHO — and certainly in Ruby’s opinion — does not make him any less adorable. He’s just one of the sweetest guys you’d ever hope to meet, and nothing about his sartorial taste changes that.

Almost 9 a.m., and I’m coughing my guts out. Just ran out of Robitussin, so I now I have to trudge down to the store and buy another bottle of it. Or two…

The ‘Hood is adorned with shopping centers north and south along Conduit of Blight. With the exception of the Sprouts, most of these contain stores I avoid, because of the crowds of derelicts and panhandlers. I REALLY do not like to be hustled!

But…the AJ’s is way to Hell & Gone down on Camelback Road, and getting there entails a trek through rush-hour traffic. The Safeway, adorning the neighborhood where DXH and I lived (to the east and the south of the ‘Hood), requires two left turns across homicidal thoroughfares. Half the time they don’t have what you want. Granted, there’s a Walgreen’s across the seven-lane street (another left turn!) ….but really. Covid-smacked as I am, I would prefer to drive to ONE store, even if one with considerable, daunting drawbacks, than to Store 1 (nope: no cough medicine), Store 2 (nope), Store 3…and on and on. The Albertson’s at Blight and Main Drag South will have the gunk, and if they don’t, the Walgreen’s right across the street will.

Despite the nasty hack (which was expected), I’m actually feeling noticeably better (which was not expected). That’s not to say I feel good….but, surprisingly enough, I’m not utterly out of it. At least not yet.  And I think I’ve had this thing long enough to be feeling really, really sh!tty, if that’s what’s gonna happen.

A-a-a-n-d…that’s probably one reason (if not THE reason) this damn thing is spreading far and wide. People tend to power on through “just a little cold” — and nevvermind that whoever you infect with your “little cold” could end up flat on their back or even in the hospital. And of course, every time they tromp around in public when they’re sick, they disperse their germs far and wide.

No kidding. I picked up a really fine bug from some nitwit who showed up at choir practice, stood behind me, and coughed on the back of my neck through the entire three hours. People are so stupid…I know the public schools teach the basic facts of infection and contagion, because I remember reading those facts in our biology text. I guess if it’s a fact that doesn’t fit their convenience, though, they just put it out of their mind.

Welp! It’s after 9 a.m. Better go out and spread a few germs of my own…