OK, so I wasn’t able to get tested for the Corona virus until Sat 18 April and
the following day my results, via Quest diagnostics, came back negative. At
that point I had still only mild nasal congestion and loss of smell/taste.
Today I have only a tiny, limited capacity for smell/taste and no nasal
congestion, but my right ear has been notably full and achy for several days
now. I have been irrigating my nose in the shower and running an oil/water
diffuser in the bedroom, I have been sampling Benadryl, Flonase, and Mucinex,
and I have really been trying to remain patient but there’s been no improvement.
That’s the bad news.
This is the good news: This past weekend was
Memorial Day and the weather here was a sudden and well-deserved picture of perfection
after the long cold spring spent in quarantine. My garden opened up as quickly
as the American population and, for the first time in a while, I was gifted with
energy and motivation to spend unchecked hours outside, doing whateverthefuck I
wanted, which included quality time with friends and neighbors, sweating in hot
sun of the garden, observing Baltimore Orioles and hummingbirds from my swing,
and plenty of quiet mindfulness quite literally just bathing shamelessly in the
joy of this instant vacation. It was heavenly. Today, Tuesday, I woke up tired
and fell back asleep until around 13:00, spent the afternoon lazing around
watching TV on the couch, the evening trying to scare up some dinner (I opted
for Chinese, first time since the virus, I got maybe 25-30% of the flavor and
it was limited to a dull, vegetable-in-savory-sauce shadow taste) and do some
bare minimum cleaning up before I decided to go work on this blog like I’ve
been periodically reminding myself to try and prioritize. I had planned on
starting a different, longer post; however, after I sat down I decided I should
write this instead. Hopefully I’ll find time to get to the other one. I think I
will enjoy writing it.
