Image by Larisa Koshkina from PixabayModified by Me Using PhotoShop
Covid-Scmovid (You Will Not Take Me Down!)
I'm deep in the belly of the beast right now to be honest. It started with fever, shivers and coughing for most of the day on Sunday. More recently the fever has abated a little, but I find myself exhausted, nauseous and most recently a mild wheezing has started to manifest.
I'm sounding a little like something from the walking dead.
https://soundcloud.com/rowan-joyce/zombie-light-moaning-sound-effect
Thank fck I've not lost taste or smell as I couldn't do without coffee to spur me on to stay awake more than 6 hours per day. But all in all, covid-19 has a grip of my system and has been playing its evil xylophone of symptoms one by one like a five year old trying to drive its parents batshit crazy.
Be mindful people! If some of us do turn into shuffling, groaning, asexual, brain munching morons... there is still hope! This German gentleman has made a YouTube career out of showing that you can indeed kill a zombie with a catapult (sling shot for all you yanks).
It's OK!
Please if you see me shuffling toward you in the not too distant future wheezing coffffeeeeee, crumpettttsssss... toilet paper... the chaffing, I cannnnnn't taaakke the chaaafffing.
Please, please don't hesitate to pull out that 'black widow catapult' and pop a hole in my covid riddled zombie ass head. You would be doing me a favor... after all... anal chaffing is no laughing matter!
Fair enough... but you know what they say - you've got to laugh or you'd cry. This is how I deal with adversity and suffering, through humor.
Moving on to the more serious questions of what I will be doing after lock down. Once this shit has run its course through my body and I can leap free once again like the mighty Gazelle, pausing only to nibble upon juniper and other random berries in the sunny prairies of my metaphorical Serengeti.
Click Image to Visit Dan's Post 👆
@theycallmedan asked the questions:
What will you do when COVID 19 ends?
This initiative is to share what you're looking forward to doing again.
What are the first three activities you'll do when the coronavirus is over, and why?
Start with the 1st thing you will do, the second and then the third.
Please write a whole post sharing your story.
In order of priority.
Image by Sasin Tipchai from PixabayModified by Me Using PhotoShop
1 Family & Friends
Straight up, the words in that picture say it all! Even someone like myself with so little family left creates an extended family among friends. Seeing what little relatives I have left (basically my mother), having more zoom/skype chats with my aunt, uncle and cousin in the states, but mostly giving my mother a hug; these are all things that I look forward to post lock down.
As I mentioned in my last post, my mother was diagnosed with cancer late last year and through a miraculous turn of events she was among 1% of cancer sufferers with a genetic mutation called ROS-1. This basically means no chemotherapy, and the medicine that she has to take for the rest of her life has mild to no side effects. But she is still in the high risk category for covid-19. The drugs she takes daily compromise her immune system therefor I have to stay away.
I am looking forward to just seeing people wandering about the place again. Something I never thought would bother me being an introvert and freelance writer. I have gone weeks before now without leaving the apartment and it never bothered me before. Meeting with friends in the pub, having a game of pool and just generally wandering about the city center in this glorious sunshine we're having right now. These are the dreams that are keeping me going and the hope that this shit storm blows over before the summer and my birthday in July.
All Images are my own taken during the Liverpool 2011 Triathlon
2) Exercise
Exercise is something I'm really craving. Before this pandemic hit I have been suffering a six year chronic illness called SIBO, of which I've written many times before and had been following a strict ketogenic diet for 3 months prior to the world going insane.
To cut a long story short I lost 2.5 stone/35 lbs/15.9KG in a three month period and was all set to continue the ketogenic diet with a set exercise regime of swimming and cycling. Once I'm out of lockdown, cycling with a mask on should be possible as the UK don't prohibit daily exercise and hopefully I will have some level of immunity. But swimming pools aren't going to be open for a long time as evidence is pointing toward airborne/saliva/mucus transmission of this disease.
Many moons ago I trained for, and completed, an Olympic length triathlon, raising some money to help toward caring for vulnerable children.
Swimming in particular is my favorite exercise, and jogging just isn't on the agenda due to a prolapsed disc which I've tried years of yoga to gently improve (zero effect), chiropractor (zero effect), physiotherapy and many other healing modalities like acupuncture which actually helped the second time the disc slipped but was too little too late as I lost all the clients from the gardening business I built over the course of 2 years.
It is my dream to get back to the levels of physical fitness needed to compete, not in triathlon, but maybe swimming galas or the cross river Mersey race that happens yearly. Possibly a moderated triathlon without the running section. Just to generally move on with my life without this constant fear of a disc issue re-appearing, as it did a few months ago, or digestive symptoms fucking my life up with debilitating symptoms with little logical trigger.
Image by stokpic from Pixabay Modified by Me Using PhotoShop
3) Sexercise!
Now I'm not going to beat about the bush here... or maybe I am, I look forward to finding out how the lady in question likes to get down. But this ain't me being crude. It's been far too fucking long since there's been any 'Lionel Richie-esque' sweet love making with a woman in my life. I hesitate to say how long, so I'm not going to 😂 trust your instincts, especially when writing blogs online. I was serious when I threw something of a fever endued rage storm of a tweet at @theycallmedan on twitter.
I've always been a romantic at heart and a little shy in person though this may not come across in discord, or if you meet me on the rare occasion that I'm drunk. But once this Corona Virus lock down is over I'm going on Tinder and I'm going to go on a swipe-fest. I'm going to have a laugh and not take life so seriously. I'm going to burn off all those excess pounds indulging in the best exercise in the known universe... sexercise.
I'll still write poetry...
but maybe I use my poetic muse
to seduce and enthuse,
capture and enrapture
the hearts of a few
ladies who would like
to really let loose.
Fucking hell, not with poetry of that quality, but yeah... I'm still trying to laugh at life here while I type through my morning cough-fest. Check out the current totally not on tinder selfie... swipe left ladies... quickly!!
Once Corona is all but a memory the first order of the day will be a haircut, and either growing my beard to a reasonable length (see pictures below) or going the 5 oclock shadow route. Right about now if I shared my current selfie to tinder I think it would be 99.9% swipe left... unless there are some cosplay ladies out there who really dig the zombie look 😂
But I'm hoping after kicking this illness, with a bit of a spruce up and the lockdown over I might present a more right swipe-able prospect 👇
Who knows, I will at least give it a go and push myself to do things outside of my comfort zone.
4) Travel & Madness
I used to travel a lot more before I got my chronic illness SIBO (mentioned above). I used to be one of those people who would do slightly crazy things which 9 times out of ten made people smile. I used to do so many things that made my life into something marvelous, an adventure which inspired so much of what I've written about on steem over the last three years.
This part 4 is an added bonus expressing my love of travel and above all deep need to get back beneath the ocean waves scuba diving. Living even for just a brief hour or two among coral fronds and throngs of angel fish. Parrotfish pecking at polyps and the ghost's of reef shark skulking out in the blue. There is literally nothing I would rather do than scuba dive right now.
I'll finish this blog up with a collage of photos of the travels I miss with every beat of my wanderers heart.
To conclude, I look forward to living my life the way I did pre-2015, which was around the time my IBS manifested and developed into a serious condition that lead to me losing my job. If I have to go back on the ketogenic diet again to reach those health goals, so be it.
I look forward to laughing, hugging, travelling and loving.
This post is exclusive to hive blockchain.
Thanks for reading.
All Gifs and Pictures were made/produced by me unless otherwise cited below the image.
The Ink Well.
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I'm on day 11 and almost out of the woods. My taste and smell went around day 6 and is barely back so far. Focus on your rest now, it's your body's best defense. Vitamins, water, protein, repeat. Be very aware of the wheezing and how that progresses. My asthma had my throat and bronchial tubes in terrible shape for 7 full days before the relief began.
I'm on day 11 and almost out of the woods. My taste and smell went around day 6 and is barely back so far.That is great to hear, I read your post with worry.
Cheers for visiting to read my brain splurging post Matt.
Yeah, I eat well after getting used to ketogenic diet. I'm a pescetarian... basically don't eat meat, do eat fish. Been watching myself with the carbs and making sure to stick to my habit from the keto diet to have a four egg omelette every day with kimchi and fresh spinach. I usually have salad and fish for dinner as well.
Cheers for your concern m8. I know you have been through the wars. For me, the nausea coupled with fever was one of the worst I've ever experienced. I feel instinctively that this virus goes for peoples Achilles heel.
Me with my 6 year gut condition (the nausea really was off the charts, I'm used to constant nausea but it stopped me eating for nearly a day until I realized I was gonna have to force it down), you with your asthma, this is all conjecture but I have heard such varying accounts of symptoms and from other people with underlying conditions where it seems to have been intensified.
Anyway, all that stuff aside...
Be very aware of the wheezing and how that progresses.Will do for sure. I have always had strong lungs, but I did smoke for a long time growing up and through young adulthood. Gave up nearly 7 years ago now and shortness of breath hasn't been an issue, except due to bloating when the gut issue was so intense that the bloat was pushing up against my rib cages. That level of bloating thankfully passed about 6 months ago.
Take care your self matey and take no risks. I've got a community called The Ink Well I built on steem/hive to fret about and curate but my partner should be able to take over tomorrow and I can just sleep, meditate and ignore the online world entirely. I feel a deep need to get away from all this into a good book when I'm awake.
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 32/40)
This would have taken hours to write, you still have that prowess to blow people away with your content. 🤣🤣🤣
Truth is, I tried to to write mine, but I'm just too lazy to do so lol. Particulaly I'll excercise more like you
Cheers Jose. Yes, this did take hours to make just in the writing, forget about the PhotoShop work and pissing around on soundclouf to make my zombie death rattle 😂
Even feeling really rough today, my mind was working a lot better than it has been the last 3 days so I thought it was time to write something. The poem in the title image just came to me as I was finishing up looking for an image on pixabay, and with a few edits was ready to go.
Now... I am going to eat and binge watch 'the magicians' until sleep takes me.
Thanks for reading, and checking out the ravings of a comedy madman 😉 Probably the only chump on the blockchain to joke about all this stuff... but at the end of the day we all deal differently. I deal with any attack by trying to diffuse it with humor. Probably doing the same with the beginning of this post.
The truth is that you have some of the most amazing contents and even when you were trying to play around with the Photoshop I still feel that it is something that I can't really do myself. See there was one time I needed to master it just so as to you know make some art for my poetic pieces but it really didn't work out.
yes sometimes we only remember or get the inspiration for the title of our works just immediately after we have finished it and that seems exhilarating yeah hahaha?
Well keep on pushing man. Thanks for the honours
#posh shared to twitter FTW with many tags of a corona nature:
Wonderfully written.
Really didn't expect Tinder to top the list.
And as I think of it, I must be on it. :D
Perfect!
Ha ha, well Tinder does not top the list.
Family, friends and health come first.
But after all this life is a lonely game
without a partner to share
both love, pleasure
and those moments of despair.
Also, surely the apocalypse warrants a bit of mindless rutting lol
But you quoted well.
This is what its really all about. Tinder is just a modern shortcut to one part of these essential needs.
Thanks for reading @sidwrites, it means a lot that people got something from this post because I pushed myself to get out of bed and sweat my way through this one 👍
Nicely written and oh so lively presented :)
Thanks for reminding me that it would be nice if I took the time to do this challenge.
I hope that this will soon be over and we will write for what we are doing, rather than what we wish to do in the future!
Be safe :)
Thanks @katerinaramm glad you enjoyed the post.
Yes, won't it seem like a light has been turned on in a dark room when we finally get our freedoms back to live properly.
Thanks for reading, it means a lot that people got something from this post because I pushed myself to get out of bed and sweat my way through the brain fog to get this one written 👍
My guess is the bottom left picture you aren't drunk in.
Ha ha, top left of the final picture.... the one where I have a scuba mask and snorkel on I was as sober as a judge 😉
The rest in that final collage... less so.
Wow... well, I mean, wow. Big plans! Glad you've got your eyes on the life after Coronapocalypse. I hope we move past all this and you get totally and completely healthy, and get to pursue all the things you want to get back to. An illness on top of a chronic health issue is just completely unfair. You deserve to enjoy all the wonderful things in life!
Still here and beating this sht off with a stick Jayna. Lots of salmon and salad and sleep and meditation. They say 3 is the magic number. But as the meditation often turns into sleep at a certain point because I mediatate in bed on my back due to an old disc injury, it equals three immune boosting magical things I'm doing.
One day I will write a blog that is the antithesis of this one... with pics, stories and descriptions of travels, hugs, exercise... and I might keep the tinder dates to myself tbh 🤣🤣
Man, you rocks...:D
Thanks priya
I fight things pretty hard when it comes to the crunch. Lots of salmon, salad, sleep and meditation at the moment. Only immune boosting things.
X
Raj, you're so dynamic and strong-willed, you're sure to defeat this thing. Did you test positive...? Stay off the ventilator... how did I miss that post about your mom fighting cancer?? I feel for you: with so few family members, you have extended family in your friends. And how many are cyber friends... most of mine are.
As a fellow recluse/introvert, I know the same surprising and ironic reaction to this new seclusion:
Get well, stay well, Be Well, Always - keep writing! - we love you Raj!!!!
Hi Carol
We don't get any test in the UK, unless you're carted off to hospital. I have never quite felt bad enough to call the emergency nunber, although there have been moments where the nausea coupled with fever had me on the edge. But they wouldn't have taken me anyway. All they say is self isolate unless your breathing becomes seriously labored, then call the emergency CV number. Once I'm fully recovered I am going to explore options about seeing what can be purchased online etc to see if I can rule myself out as already having had it, and no longer carrying it... or something so I can at least see my mother.
But I'm happy to say that the poem in the title picture seems to have been prophetic in my case and the Sun is tarting to shine again. I'm still extremely fatigued, but I've been through all the major symptoms one after another, and the breathing, which is the danger sign is slowly improving.
This morning I even felt well enough to write a post, but when I realized it was Easter Monday I scheduled it to go out tomorrow. It's a a crazy technical how-to blockchain type post about Hive curation and using certain tools to get autovotes working on hive. It might make your eyes glaze over lol
Yes it is odd to feel so psychologically unsettled by the solitude. The truth is that I have voluntarily gone 2-3 weeks without seeing anyone in the past. Other than the general unknown faces in the supermarket. But when the choice is taken away it seems that loneliness pangs all the more.
Anyway, thank you for the well wishes and love Carol. You are a true friend and one of my extended cyber family for sure!
I'm getting there, will be sure to stay well. can't promise much on the writing for another week, but if all keeps improving I think I should be back to full power around the end of the week. I'm gonna try and get some poetry posted in the ink well if only to show my face. I have a tone of unpublished stuff.
Stormlight24 is curating and generally looking after the place voting-wise. My friend who is a doctor advised me today to expect to recover slowly, and she told me that she'd stop dropping food bags on my doorstep (a sarcastic threat) if I pushed myself with online activities or went out on my bike too soon.
Dr's orders 😉
She also told me exactly what to watch out for during the last 3-4 days, and it seems (touch wood) that I have been one of the lucky ones where the final symptoms were milder. Meditation has kept me going massively over the last week and I will never underestimate its importance for me personally as a health and mental leveler again in my life. There is always a silver lining and I think the lining here is that I will remain a life-long mediator 🌿
You're a survivor, and proof of the triumph of the will (or the power of positive thinking; which cliche is worse?).
Deep Breathing, I've taken up (and it works! and I need to write a book review ASAP!) - but not meditation. Emptying the head of words is quite a challenge. It tends to put me to sleep.
We miss your fiction and wish you a speedy and complete recovery, as you know... call it intentions, call it prayer, but a lot of us are beaming hopes (demands! Listen Up, Universe!) for your good health.