COVID is a B!+¢#

 Covid is a b!+¢# to deal with. I was lucky to get one of the milder cases. As far as congestion goes, I've had worse chest colds. However, it's your body's inability to take in the needed oxygen is what makes covid so insidious. The days I was feeling light-headed or wiped out was when my resting oximeter reading was 86% or below. The lowest it got was 82%, and I was not that far away from cyanosis ... you know, when your skin starts to turn a little twinge of blue?  

How about waking up and feeling tingly on your face and arms, or perhaps your whole body? That's oxygen deprivation!  Sometimes it's stronger than tingles, it's more like pins and needles.  Those of us with sleep apnea are familiar with those sensations.  Sometimes we're experiencing those sensations in our dreams and continue dreaming instead of waking up and getting air.  Maybe people with asthma or COPD have similar syptoms, but I cannot comment as I don't have those ailments.

The point I'm wanting to make is that Covid is nothing to play with.  It's your choice whether you want to get vaccinated or not. It's your choice whether you want to wear a mask or not. However, we need to act like a community and not like a bunch of selfish self-entitled blowhards under the guise of exercising personal freedom.  We need to respect each other and not browbeat others just because you're inconvenienced by their rules or restrictions. Medical personnel are burning out and leaving in droves. People are refusing to work due to less pay or abusive customers or both.  I'm tired of the bad press and the bad news and the toxic posts and the selfish toxic people who know how to suck the nice right out of you to the point you want to spend five minutes locked in a room with a baseball bat and tell them how you really feel.

I'm one of the lucky ones. Many were not.  My heart grieves for their families and friends.

There's a covid symptom that is not being described enough (in my opinion).  The tingling sensation is a huge warning of oxygen deprivation; prolonged exposure to oxygen deprivation will lead to organ damage and organ failure.  It would be a worthy investment to get a blood oxymeter, easily found at Walmart, Kroger, Target, Amazon, etc. I've seen them priced between $10 and $37 US. I'm not joking about the oxygen deprivation symptoms and damages that can result.

This is why Covid scares the hell out of me

 This is my follow up post to this one I made two years ago.

From the time I was in the ICU in Waycross until I was transferred to Kindred Medical Center, I had been developing what seemed like pneumonia. It only kept worsening as time went on. By the time I was transferred to Kindred after two weeks, I was extremely short of breath and required a CPAP type machine with a BiPAP mask to ensure I continued to breathe. I was originally moved to a regular room.

Later that night I was moved to the ICU at Kindred.  In order to do that, they deflated my bed (with me on it) and rolled it to the ICU wing. They then positioned it and reinflated the bed.  After about an hour, I felt like the mattress was too hard. I felt okay at that moment and decided to do it myself.  I flattened the bed, repositioned myself to reach the controls at the foot of the bed, adjusted the mattress from level 10 to level 8, then moved back to lay down on the bed and adjust the head and foot for comfort. I was tired from the brief excursion, but it felt good to stretch those muscles and feel tingly. And then ...

Oh $#!+ !!!

That's when I became extremely short of breath; it felt like my skin was tingling then burning with increasing intensity.  My chest started to burn as well.  I felt like I wasn't getting any air and was freaking out. I called out for help as best as I could. The nursing staff came to my aid. They made adjustments to my oxygen machine and kept checking my  blood oxygen levels. Despite their assurances including showing me my oxygen stats at 94%, I was still short of breath. I was unable to take in a normal breath due to the pneumonia. This went on for 90 minutes. At one point, the nurse told me that I was going to exhaust myself if I didn't slow down my breathing. That's just it! I couldn't slow down!

By some miracle the nurse realized that I might have been overheating.  She asked if she could open the windows to cool the room down. I asked with a sense of hope only a savior could instill, "You can do that?" She said yes then proceeded to open all three panes. Granted, it was 45°F outside, but I welcomed the cold air.  Within five minutes my breathing had slowed to normal.  I felt relief for the first time since the panic attack began.  Let me tell you about that head nurse in charge of the ICU that night: she was a compassionate bad@$$. She stayed with me until my breathing normalized.

For the rest of my stay at Kindred, they made sure I had my own room with the thermostat set at 67°F. I was also allowed a fan within reach so I could turn it on and off as I needed. The ICU at the Waycross hospital would not allow a fan, so there were many moments I was miserably hot.
This experience is why Covid scares the hell out of me. In addition, Covid killed my Uncle Billy.  After some time passes, and I see that the immunization shots are working, I'll go out and get immunized. Until then, I'm not going anywhere nor am I accepting any visitors.

To clarify:  This was not the time I almost died.  The time I almost died was between my arrival to the ER and two days later in the ICU.  I have no recall of those two days. One of the nurses mentioned that I almost died but didn't go into more detail. My throat was sore; I could barely talk. Sending text messages was impossible due to the shakiness of my hands.

I also want to acknowledge Rhonda Proctor, who checked on me and was willing to listen to me whine about my fears and complaints. Thank you, Rhonda. BTW, the headphones were a Godsend, so thank you for those as well.