I lost a lot of momentum at the end of August. Some of you know why: I was hospitalized on August 29th.
I've been out of the hospital since September 3rd, feeling much better.
What exactly happened? I had a bad case of COVID-19. Here's the timeline:
- Late December 2019 through Early January 2020: Had a bad case of something. Nobody knew what it was but it was going around. Looking back, many of us thought it was COVID-19.
- All of 2020-2021: I work from home, just like I had been doing since 2012.
- August 19th, 2021: Initial symptoms.
- August 25th, 2021: Home COVID-19 test positive.
- August 29th, 2021: Admitted to hospital with shortness of breath.
- September 3rd, 2021: Discharged.
Following the initial virus infection, I ended up with an opportunistic infection, brought on by a haywire autoimmune response. It's not a simple cocktail to fix something like that.
They gave me anti-virals, specifically Remdesivir, and some follow-up off-label treatment for COVID-19: Olumiant (typically used for rheumatoid arthritis).
I'm home with O2 at 2 liters. Probably do that for a week or two.
Everyone in my household had symptoms at various points in August. We all had them one-at-a-time and we all got over it on our own, except for me. I needed a bit of help, there.
I believed I had a previous infection. That may not have been the case. Or, it was, but no longer offered any protection.
I do not regret being unvaccinated. I regret that my autoimmune system went haywire as a result of a secondary infaction.
There's no guarantee a vaccine would have prevented this. You will modulate your immune system one way or another. Unlike me, hopefully, you'll find a way to do it safely.
Hey just curious, what was your SPO2 at when you got admitted?
I work as a paramedic and I’ve been seeing them send lots of people home right away. You’re pretty lucky that they kept you and caught some of your problems while you were there.
This iteration seems much worse than the initial wave. I’m seeing a lot of young people getting critically ill or dying. Still, many are not needing any intervention.
Hope you get better bro.
I have a low baseline SpO2. For example, here is an overnight report from May, 2020:
As you can see, I wicked down to 82% without a corresponding pulse spike. They saw this while I was in the hospital as well. I would go to sleep with O2 rate at 2L, but wake up the next morning at 15L because they saw it drop like this.
It's hard to say what my admitting SpO2 was. It was a bit of a blur. If I had to guess, it was 92%. For my low baseline, it probably looked worse to them than it really was.
It really wasn't that unusual. I'm pointing out my low baseline because that was something that kept me in the hospital longer, I think.
Not trying to get too personal here, I understand if you decline to answer, but is your lower baseline due to underlying factors such as COPD?
I do not have a root cause for the low baseline. I'm going to investigate, though.
Generally speaking it’s COPD. (Typically chronic bronchitis.) That may not be true for you but if you’ve never looked into it sleep apnea may be at play. Look into getting in a sleep study to see if you fit the criteria where having a CPAP at night can help you. Everyone I know that did this raves about improvement in their quality of life.
Yup. All that has been brought up. Hopefully, it's something simple.
Cool man. Sounds like you're in with some good providers.
We are trained to put someone on a nasal cannula under 95% by the way. The hospital is a lot more stingy than the ambulance.
Turns out, ER said it was 84% when admitted.
Yeah that’s pretty low. If it was sustained for any considerable duration you were probably in an altered mental status.
I heard about your hospitalization. Glad to see you are back home.
I wish you a quick and healthy recovery. Take care!
Thank you!
Keep feeling better bud 🤟
Recently found ya in here. I look fireweed to following ur stuff for many years to come🤟
Glad youre feeling better!
Great to hear from you, hope you will get better day by day.
Welcome back! Glad to hear you made it through ok.
I had a worse than typical cold back in February 2020. Even though they claim there wasn't wide community spread until late March or early April, it makes me wonder. I ended up getting one dose of the Pfizer inoculation once I heard Novavax wasn't going to bother getting approved here until next year. I figured with more virulent, immune-evading strains I might as well give my immune system a little bit of a head start.
Get well soon, glad to see you are back home.
Something attacked my body down in Florida and I could feel it in my kidneys and felt weak. I made it a point to go outside the next day and get in the sunlight even though I didn't feel like it. The sun gives everything energy.
Hope you are back to 100% soon.
Congrats on getting better, let's hope the future holds more of that,...
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good to see you feel better!