And then it hit

I've been really missing my blog. I've been thinking about it regularly and today is the perfect day to write what I'm up to.

So here we've been in the pandemic now for over 2 years. The anxiety of wondering how things would go if it came to our family has been a lot. The shoe finally dropped for me in the form of my catching COVID. So far my family is perfectly fine, thankfully.

I won't go into all the details, but I do want to share where I'm holding today. Last week on Monday I was already feeling ill. I was certain it was allergies. I got a PCR Tuesday night which is when I tested positive. The remainder of the week was spent in bed with bad cold/flu symptoms. 

Over the weekend I started to really recover. U kicked me out of the house to take a walk when he saw me fidgeting. Sunday afternoon I continued to push myself. I did a few loads of laundry (which means using stairs a lot) and went for two walks, one short and one long. The shorter one winded me, but later the longer one (15 minutes) was great. 

By evening, though, I was short of breath and realized I might not make it to work Monday.

Sure enough... Monday was a fight to breathe. My doctor put me on steroid inhalers and, by afternoon when it still wasn't resolving, prednisone as well. 

The day felt like a giant panic. I was so frustrated with my inability to control the day for my students. The tightness in my chest led to natural panic too. All day my colleagues told me remotely to stop worrying, but I couldn't. My supervisor talked me down from worrying about the whole week and told me to take things one day at a time. 

Today's another story. I'm still needing to go slow, to respect both my lungs and the effects of the medicines, but I feel more ease about doing so. I'm starting to trust more to my colleagues and am most grateful for the ones who are actively communicating with me. 

(I'll make a note of that. Could be others would like the same from me when are situations are reversed. I'll try to ask in the future.)

This certainly brings up memories of when I had cancer, of when I've had to take care of myself differently, but I accept those memories fairly comfortably. It doesn't hold the same darkness or worry that it once did. 

I'm worried about tomorrow. I don't know how to judge when I'm ready to return and I don't know yet what my plans will be for my students (or what to just turn over to others), but I'm feeling more like maybe I can wait and see. 

Yes, I can take it one day at a time. Thanks to the person who told me to do that. And thanks to her too for letting my students call me and wish me better.