We’ve heard a lot about COVID-19. Even if you have spent the last two years living in a cave on Mars with your fingers in your ears, you almost definitely have been bombarded with news about it. There’s a lot of panic and misinformation around it, but if you can filter out all the waffle, there are some very important messages hidden there.
What nobody tells you is how boring COVID-19 is.
Since testing positive two days ago, my entire life has ground to a halt. I’m being careful – self-isolating and all that – but, even so, it feels like I’m doing much less than I would be doing were I at home for any other reason – say, a weekend. It’s Saturday now, and it took me a while to work that one out.
I’m usually really grateful for the chance to spend a little more time in bed, but it’s less pleasant when lying in bed is accompanied by a pounding headache and far too much heat for November. In order to protect my beloved, I have been lying on the sofa at night while they take the bed – notice how I didn’t say “sleeping”. Sleeping on our sofa is physically impossible.
The nights are unconscionably DULL. Lying there, lacking the energy to move or do anything fun, just waiting for the morning to come. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Why aren’t I sleeping? I’m not well, so why can’t I just sleep through it like I do with every other illness?
And yet when the morning comes there is still nothing to do. I’m not a particularly active person usually, but the fact that I could do something – go to town, shop in London, get some food somewhere (even if I didn’t do any of those) – was always an option. Staying at home was just something I chose to do. Now I have to.
It’s so boring.
I don’t know why. I have plenty of things here at home – Nintendo Switch, Disney+, a huge pile of books. But now I’m stuck here, feeling grotski, I don’t really want to do any of them. Lying awake last night I made plans for what I’d do today, but since they mostly amounted to “make a sandwich”, they seemed more exciting then than they do now.
Am I complaining? Probably. I feel awful, but I’m fortunate enough that my reaction to getting COVID-19 isn’t any worse. I’ve had to cancel a few things – a gig I was going to; a hospital appointment on Monday – but, at the very least, I have a bed and a sofa and a computer all available.
And yet, on any of them, every second is an age.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
I’m no good at being sick, especially not when staying home is required. So from the standpoint of going from “I choose not to o out” to “I cannot go out regardless of whether it’s my choice,” I totally get this.
I know everyone experiences COVID differently, so I don’t know how severe your symptoms are. Regardless:
I hope you feel better soon.
I have floated along during the Pandemic, not really minding too much about restrictions etc. At the start, I was upset because Ben was stuck abroad and I was on my lonesome for months. We just accepted and never questioned the lockdowns, social distancing, face-masks, vaccines etc whenever they came along, but neither of us felt anxious.
But now my worry levels have changed. All of a sudden, the spread of cancer has made me a vulnerable person. I contracted an infection (not covid) recently and ended up in hospital with mild-middling sepsis. It gave Ben a huge fright. So now I am out of hospital, he is not taking any chances, especially with all the news about this new variant. It looks as if I am going to be in my own kind of lockdown for some time to come. I am just glad to have Ben here.