Covid Diaries; Spleen

It's been awful since I received my AstraZeneca vaccine ten days ago. (For my covid diaries, see here; here;  here; here;  here;  here;  here; here; here; here; here; and here) I have had new kinds of headaches and weird fatigue untriggered by any activity. In addition, I am also highly irritable and have excessive hunger. Luckily, my insomnia has stayed on the (melatonin aided) downward trajectory before the jab. 

My blood work results came in, and were uninformative. My GP has asked me to repeat it regularly. So, yesterday's big project was organizing the next appointment. Thankfully, the NHS's online systems are terrific, so it was less exercise than I feared.

I don't regret getting the vaccine, and maybe in a week or two this past week will seem just a blip in road to my recovery. But it's been tough because the week before the jab I had been clearly improving and I was in all respects better than I am now.

 

When I first grasped that I may have long haul covid, my biggest fear was that I may never recover the ability to do philosophy; that the brain fog would never lift fully and that certain kind of concentrated thought might stay out of reach forever. But I kind of assumed blithely that I would be able to return to a normal life with physical labor and ordinary social activity. 

 

I now realize that my assumption was groundless. What prompts that thought is, of course, the fear that my headaches, fatigue, and irritability stay. The onset of the former is highly unpredictable. (The latter is kind of predictable by-product of the former.) If the fatigue does not disappear I am incapable of retraining to rejoin the workforce with more manual labor. (The fatigue nudge me into bed regularly.) The headaches and irritability make social activity, including parenting, impossible. When my son is happy -- and so singing and humming -- I withdraw from the room. Meanwhile, I am steadily withdrawing from further engagements and commitments, including some that were a source of great inspiration. 

 

Yesterday, not entirely coincidentally, I discovered that my wonderful former colleague, Fred Beiser, is cited as an authority on the definition of Weltschmerz in Wikipedia. Part of the bitter joke for me is that I had somehow missed he had published a whole book on it, and now that I have time and interest to read it, I simply can't.

 

Yes, I am still reading sci fi with great joy, but I struggled with China Miéville's Embassytown because it subtly mixed narrative (which I can read fine) with abstract commentary (which I found challenging). I admired it, but I did not enjoy the effort it took me.

 

Anyway, while I love the sound and connotations of weltschmerz it is the wrong word to capture my current sadness. I suspect spleen, while wavering between the French and English usages, does better.

 

Just before I got the jab, I had kind of planned to write a paper one daily paragraph at a time. I still intend to try that. But I won't start until I have a headache free day again.  

 

Other people have warned me that the setbacks are the worst. I can affirm that: living without grounded hope for what to expect makes the-not-awful,-but-not-at-all-fine-present much worse. Because my symptoms make social interactions so difficult and unpleasant for all involved, I recognize that I am withdrawing from people and activities that might otherwise cheer me up. (Yes, it's another way of saying, I spent too much time on twitter.)

 

Part of the despair is that leaving aside financial concerns downstream, I really cannot imagine what to do with my life if the fatigue, headaches, and irritability keep recurring. Even the idea of volunteering seems utopian, if by necessity I spent so much of my day in bed.

 

So, the days pass. Because it is rather chilly outside I can't even spend a lot of time reading sci fi even when I feel up to it. It's been about four months now. My local GP -- who recovered from a year long haul covid ordeal -- believes that after six months, I should start noticing structural improvements. I want to believe her.  

 

Comments

[dmf]

not being of much use, even being an angry drag on those close,is maybe as hard as the more overtly physical suffering,
sorry it's beaten you down so but not surprised your immune system kicking in/up has made things worse for the time
tree allergy season has started here which cranks all my symptoms up to the farther end of the known dial, one of the ironies of illness/immune-system feedback looping.
Might be good to talk with someone who isn't directly impacted by your situation.
peace, dirk

[Rick]

My thoughts are with you Eric. Hang in there mate. Rick