I felt better but little did I realise that the worst was yet to come…
We may have been approaching the crucial day eight but I felt better. Fi and I joked how perhaps I had some underlying syndrome – clubbed fingers, being cursed with a lack of masculine height, born with pyloric stenosis to name a few, not to mention the incredible sense of humour and superhuman intelligence. If such a syndrome existed, COVID might just unmask it.
One thing I did notice this morning, was that I was beginning to distinguish between foods that were sweet and items that were very sweet. Squash belonged to the former category and homemade chocolate crispies, the latter. I also could feel the icy cool rush climb from my palate to my nose when I ate mints. I wasn’t sure if my taste receptors were regenerating, whether I was re-learning the taste of foods or that my body was getting used to the aguesia and relying upon memories of taste sensations. Nonetheless, the bottom line was, things were getting better.
Then for lunch, I ate a ham and cheese toastie. It was burnt but were it not for the charred crumbs decorating the surface of the bread, I wouldn’t have known at all. It was two steps forward, one step back. I guess it would take a bit more time…
The self-critic inside me was also waking from its slumber. I read over this blog and thought how foolish; I should have written this in the present tense. But then I shot that idea down immediately. The present tense makes the future uncertain and there was going to be no uncertainty with my fight against COVID. I was going to recover from this… fully. I was going to improve, so in the past-tense, it will remain.
I started to think about work. Monday was my goal. I’ll be back on the frontline.
The impact of COVID on people with diabetes has been peculiar. The effect on blood sugars interesting. The management strategies utilised, novel…
I theoretically, could roam the whole hospital with the same freedom as a person dressed in a full-blown hazmat suit. In fact, forget the hospital, this was going to be my passport out of lockdown.
And then disaster struck, as later that evening, Fi became unwell. She felt nauseous, more lethargic than I ever had done, and had a temperature higher than I had achieved. I was brought tumbling down to the ground. I no longer cared about Monday being my day eight because there was a new priority.
The sense of failure returned; failure to keep her safe. I was contrite as I opened up a new box of paracetamol for her. The guilt was extraordinary; it was an abyss that I wanted to jump into and swallow me up. The renewed fear, the renewed targets, the renewed sleeplessness… it was the most painful Groundhog day, my worst nightmare.
It really hit home. COVID is one contagious SOB. So rarely, is only one person affected. Their loved ones get affected too. They recover only to have to watch those close to them suffer the same fate and risk deterioration. These are real lives and so many have already been lost. The NHS, its staff, it deserves more, so much more.
Every few days... 