Rumination: Still Wrestling the Covid Beast

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Well, Ain't That a Relief?

It ought to come as no surprise to anyone that my Covid infection put me out of circulation for another seven days, what with me not being able to return to work until I've managed to return two negative tests, and with my seven day period of self certification ending, requiring me to contact my GP to obtain a sick-note, or a fit-note as they're calling them these days, which turned out to be a much less testing an experience than I had anticipated, getting a telephone consultation only five hours after I'd contacted my surgery on Monday, getting signed off for another week without much by way of questioning, aside from finding that getting said documents e-mailed to me is a surprising difficulty at their end. They even offered me a potentailly longer spell off, which is nice of them, but I felt it more appropriate to negotiate my return to work role with my employers rather than spending too much time out before I felt 'right' again, as despite returning my first negative result on Tuesday, I still felt like absolute garbage with most of the now familiar Covid symptoms having now settled on me, like the Covid Cough, which we've all gotten to know with its dry, rattling resonance that doesn't really shift anything, the deep muscular aches that remind you that Covid is really a neurological ailment rather than a respiratory one, and the utterly baffling loss of your sense of smell which frustrates when consuming food is one of the few joys you have left. The only symptom that I seem to have avoided is the high temperatures, which is fortunate  as sleeping off my illness gets more appealing, as the night time turn-ins get earlier and no day has me roused earlier than 8am, or rising before 9.30am, settling me into an under-active routine that feels a lot like being unemployed, only getting busy because I need to eat, as Covid plainly isn't a disease that you can starve like a fever, and my paranoid preparations of the last few years means there's plenty to pull out of my cupboards, while I prop myself up in the kitchen to bulk-prepare meals to freeze in order to see me through the dark Autumn, and otherwise keep myself entertained by sorting through the thousands of digital photographs that I accumulated for myself across 2012-15, allowing me to mentally travel while still being housebound.

Thursday turned out to be my breakthrough day, as the congestion that I'd been enduring lifted, allowing me to breathe through my nose again and lose the basso profundo voice that I'd actually quite enjoying having, while a third day of negativity gave me the drive to actually head up to Morley Morrisons for a proper shopping trip of more than an hour, purchasing as much as it felt wise to attempt to carry, which only felt challenging once we got to the act of lugging it up the stairs to my flat, while as Friday rolled around we felt the need to test out my ability to travel into town and back, riding the train and having a three hour trot about the city centre which had no immediate ill effects. That ensured that I would be feeling right for a return to work next week, but also convinced me that a country walk of any duration wouldn't be a wise choice for the Saturday, a decision that ultimately got taken out of my hands by a blast of very drab weather, meaning that Sunday would need a mere tester of a trip, only one hour out at lunchtime, down from Morley to the station, where extensive civil engineering work has been going on as part of the Trans Pennine Line Upgrade, and also up through the fields between Daisy Hill and Broad Oaks to see how the suburbanism of the plots around Laneside farm has been progressing, robbing us of the only green space that kept Morley and Churwell visually distinct from each other. That turns out to have been much harder work than I'd been prepared for, as I'm feeling pretty much spent after that, giving us the reality of the fact that Covid is not a disease that you can simply walk off, making me feel that returning to work might not be as wise as it felt a couple of days ago, but I am going back tomorrow, as getting back into the physical parts of my role in the MRL has already been discounted, and I need to get back into the routine of rising and being active, as staying within my own space for much longer is sure to have me going stir crazy, in spite of the many things that I have to do to keep me engaged and occupied at home, as well as the surprising period of Autumnal warmth that has endured throughout my two weeks of illness, keeping me warmly comfortable and my flat's heaters switched off until after Bonfire Night.

Next Up: But does 2022 get an actual Walking Finale?