She's Got it (Yeah Baby She's Got it) - Covid Musings

 Just when you think the year's all done and dusted and you're ready for a fairly unremarkable amble through December towards a low-key festive season, life decides it has another surprise in store for you.  

For days I had a stuffy nose.  As I have allergies to certain foods, a stuffy nose and watery eyes is a regular occurrence for me.  It's something I've learned to live with.  It's a nuisance but as long as I'm well stocked up on antihistamines, it doesn't bother me too much.  But this time it seemed a bit more troublesome than usual and so I began to think I'd actually caught a cold.  I didn't have the usual cold symptoms, but I was a bit achy on waking in the morning and my throat didn't feel exactly sore but kind of 'yucky', as if it might develop into something but might not.  It was only when I lost my sense of smell and taste that I became more concerned, knowing that this is one of the Big 3 in terms of Covid symptoms.  Even then, I didn't worry too much because I've lost my sense of taste and smell absolutely loads of times when I've had a cold. I still assumed that I had a cold but I did a home test to find out for sure and began self isolating.  The test came back positive.  

I've been lucky because my experience of Covid has been very, very different to the terrifying stories that have filled the media over the last few months.  I haven't had a cough or a fever.  I've not been struggling to breathe or feeling exhausted.  I've even been able to keep running (on a treadmill in my garage), which I feel has helped me enormously in several ways.  First of all, being able to still do my daily run has been a good way for me to count down the days until I am able to leave isolation.  It's also given me an element of normality and routine, which has helped me to stay calm.  Knowing that I can run without discomfort has been reassuring, a sign that my lungs are still working.  Of course, I have been very vigilant and have always been ready to stop if there are any signs of trouble.  I just take it a mile at a time and I don't do more than 3 miles a day.  Those treadmill runs in the garage also give me a bit of time to think and take stock.  When you are holed up with other family members, it helps to have a bit of space for yourself.

It's funny what goes through my head when I'm doing my isolation runs.  Inevitably, I start wondering how I got this thing and feeling a bit peeved that it got me right at the end, with the vaccine just around the corner.  We're in tier 3 and pubs and restaurants have been closed for weeks.  I feel like I haven't been anywhere for ages (apart from runs in very remote spots where I rarely see a soul and trips to the supermarket with my mask on), so if I was going to get it, why didn't I get it when we were doing the 'eat out to help out' stuff back in the summer?  Other more random things I've pondered include whether I would have aced the eating trials on I'm a Celebrity Get me Out of Here due to the fact that I wouldn't actually be able to taste a testicle or a vomit fruit.  I've found myself feeling a little sad as I listened to Greg Lake singing about 'The Christmas tree smell' on my seasonal playlist, because I wondered whether I would ever be able to detect a Christmas tree's distinctive scent again.  (Let's face it, if I can't even smell an onion, what hope has a conifer?)  Sometimes I would find myself feeling a bit paranoid.  Is the government watching me?  Will they think I broke my curfew when I went out of my front door and into the garage?  

Sometimes you start to think, "Should I be running at all?  I've always followed the rule of, "above the neck, off you go.  Below the neck, no, no, no" but does this apply to Covid 19?  I am not coughing and my breathing feels fine but am I being lulled into a false sense of security?  Maybe there are more worrying symptoms still to come.  Often I found myself asking: "Is this really all there is to it?  Surely I'm supposed to be more ill than this."  When you've got a virus to fight plus all the stress that comes with knowing you have to self isolate and the guilt and fear that comes with wondering if you have unwittingly infected someone else, you need something grounding, something to focus on when your brain starts to work overtime with the pointless 'if only' and 'what if' way of thinking.  Just the fear of running out of cat food when none of you are allowed to leave the house is enough to make you stressed, which isn't exactly ideal when you're trying to convalesce from what can in many situations be a really nasty illness.  So, if a fairly gentle half hour run on the treadmill helps you through your days, I'm not going to worry about whether it might be considered safer to sit in front of the telly all day.  It's all about balance.  Yes, there is probably a risk, but there's also a risk in spiraling into depression.  Although a treadmill run in the garage doesn't exactly sound much like fun, it feels a big part of my road to recovery.  It lets me stay connected with the person I was before I got Covid, reminds me that I am still that person, can still do the things I did before.  I have found that helpful.  Also, just knowing that I am keeping up my run-streak means that I still have a goal to work towards, even though it would obviously be much nicer to be outside, taking in some scenic wintery trail.

A few days ago I listened to my Covid themed playlist on Spotify.  It's the first time I've listened to it whilst actually having Covid.  I tried to see the humor in the song titles that came up - .'Don't stand so close to me', 'Staying Alive', 'Harder to Breathe' etc.  They don't seem so funny when you've actually got the thing.  This morning I went back to the Christmas playlist and warbled "Feed the Word" as a I ran, because my friend told me that singing is very good therapy for the lungs. 

It's not long now before I can head out of isolation and get back to outdoor running.  I've missed it so much.  I've been quite envious, reading about people running past twinkling Christmas lights or through frosty forests, or even sliding around in the mud.  I was supposed to be doing my first organised race of the year on the 20th December, but it's had to be cancelled, despite originally getting the go ahead.  Disappointing though it is, I'm not particularly bothered about events and medals right now.  Just being able to go out and run will be enough.  As with so many things, you appreciate them all the more when you've been deprived of them.  I probably needed something to happen to remind me why I run, because I was certainly feeling a bit flat in the aftermath of achieving my yearly goal of 1000 miles and was trying to motivate myself to take on a new challenge.  Well, this wasn't quite the challenge I had in mind, but it's certainly made me more determined to make all my running moments count once I'm back out there.  It's not going to be about being fast or slow or how far I manage to go.  It's going to be about freedom. 

Photo taken during a coffee break in the garden.  I can smell coffee now, which is a good thing, although I can't yet taste it.  Am starting to see this as a sign that Covid has 'left the building'.