Whilst I've been clear for a few days now I am still feeling quite weak but I thought I would share some observations.
Good news department-
I've lost five pounds weight since testing positive.
My ankles have not been swollen for ten days. No idea why that would be.
No noticeable affect on my heart.
Bad news department.
Daytime TV is rubbish.
No matter how carefully you isolate from other menbers of your family they will get it! I even used toilet paper to flush the loo whilst Sam bleached door handles and light swithes regularly yet she still caught it. Maybe I had already infected her before I felt ill myself. Only Paul who has his own suite at the other end of the house with private access has avoided it . When he really had to enter our part of the house for anything he resembled Matt Damon on Mars.
It really messed with my INR. Four days in it had dropped off the scale to 1.6 yet adding 1/2 mg for four days jacked it up to 3.6! Quite stupid really so given up testing and reverted to normal dose to test again in 7 days. No idea why it did that. First time in nearly three years I have been out of range.
Worst part was night sweats. Lots of changes of nightwear.
I have had worse flu.
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BobD
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Sorry you had to put up with Covid but your observations very helpful, thank you Bob. Hope its soon behind you and others who benefitted from your generosity.
Pleased to hear you are feeling better Bob and coming through. Seems to have played havoc with INR., but that is always so sensitive and needs a lot of respect. Did you get for you CT Angiogram, or have I missed something? Hope you did. Keep getting better and send you good wishes.
Yes . Usual SNAFU though. It is in a large lorry in carpark and when they turned it on that morning it blew the main fuse on the wall of the hospital or something odd. There were many men working on it when I arrived so about 1 1/2 hours late. Think I got zapped speeding on the way home too. Not paying attention. First in 45 years if I did.
Glad you're on the mend, Bob. Yes, a lot of publicity and recommendations around clean surfaces etc., but it has now been shown that C19 can also spread through the air as invisible tiny buoyant particles, probably left behind when droplets containing the virus dry out. So good ventilation as well as clean surfaces etc is important, and probably the reason why Paul escaped it.
Your mistake was breathing , Bob. Spread by aerosol, not touch. Stock up on a hazmat suit in case of another time. Seriously, glad you recovered without too much trouble. Ask for new jammies for Christmas.
This. The public health messaging around Covid was inadequate. I cannot count the times I have seen people -- and still do -- sanitising their hands but not wearing a mask, because they missed the message that the virus spreads in the air.
Quite early on I saw a visual demonstrating how a virus would spread in the air in a supermarket but that didn’t seem to go viral (sorry 😂). So I had all my groceries delivered followed by ‘Click and Collect’ and we didn’t get Covid for a couple of years.
Masks are not effective against the virus, as it easily passes through the spaces between the mask's fibers. Several studies have shown no substantial difference in rates of infection using masks. Specialized masks with extremely tight construction do help, mostly if the sick person is wearing it. Also, I've observed people not wearing masks properly. Wearing them pulled down under their nose, pulling them down under their chin and then pulling back up over face, touching them with their hand on the mask's surface, thus depositing the virus directly on the mask. I once worked in the operating room, so I know proper mask wearing technique. Almost no one wears them properly.
I recall a report about a choir practice event (in the US) where a high percentage of attendees came down with COVID. Reading the report, I figured, unless the choir members had a strange habit of licking doorknobs, transmission of COVID-19 was largely airborne. At that time, the public health experts were still pushing the fomite theory, at least here in the USA. In fact, the public health officials here were incredibly slow to acknowledge that COVID 19 was airborne, perhaps because of the mask shortage. Anyway, after reading about the choir event, I began wearing masks. I still wear a mask when I go to places like grocery stores, airports, health clinics or hospitals. To my knowledge I have not had COVID. Since I began wearing a mask , I have not been sick with any respiratory illness. My previous lifetime pattern was to be laid up in bed with influenza about 2 years out of every 3 and to also have 2-3 severe colds each year. I have to say, it has been quite nice to have not been ill for almost 5 years. So, I feel like I have seen a clear benefit to wearing a mask.
I understand that the airborne virus are not generally floating in the air as free particles, but are attached to other particles in the air, such as water vapor and particulate pollution. That is one reason why a mask can help filter out a virus even though the virus is actually smaller than the pore size of the mask. Another reason is that many/ most medical masks also have an electrostatic charge that adds another level to the filtration.
I agree that the most effective use of masks from highest to lowest is (1) when both parties use masks (2) when the infected party uses the mask and (3) when the non-infected party uses the mask, but I only have control over myself. While a mask can not completely eliminate exposure, as long as it reduces the viral load a person is exposed to, it is providing a benefit.
Viruses don’t just enter through the nose or mouth, however. They can enter the body through any orifice which contains moisture which means the eyes are also a common exposure point. If you wear glasses you reduce your risk a little more. The virus is also carried on your hands and fingers, and if you rub your eyes, pick your nose, stick your fingers in your mouth or even up your ‘other orifices’ and you have touched a contaminated surface, you expose yourself to the virus as a well.
I don’t wear masks routinely and still haven’t had COVID that I’m aware of. I have had many colds though since COVID spread around the world. I’m averaging at least 3 a year and currently have my second this year. I won’t even try to assume why I don’t get COVID or flu, but now get colds multiple times per year as I’d be concerned I was giving myself a false truth about it all. Anecdotal evidence can be very misleading. I haven’t been vaccinated for COVID or flu this year either - another little point to add to the mix.
There are some I'm sure that literally do the hazmat suit thing, mask, disassociate, and attempt to stop breathing but I refuse to mask the face that God created, mask my breath and live in isolation as we saw so many do to their own demise several years ago. God says when our life's are to cease. And yes, of course if one is sick, you stay home and heal.
Deuteronomy 32:39 Now see that I, even I, am He, And there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand.
You're right, I may have been in error sharing as I did. But if there is a building there is a builder, a painting a painter and so on, so to speak. I'm sorry if I offended you, but without God there no hope and no real peace...
Good to read that you are improving and that you've discovered daytime TV .... 😂😂😂 !
Daytime TV is one thing that driving buses saved me from. Just lately I've taken to clearing out the spare room and am re setting up the TV and hopefully over the weekend will install a new DVD player. So we now come back to rubbish daytime TV .... even evening TV unless there is good drama on. Or Boris Johnson acting the buffoon !
Yeah the old INR trick, mine does that at times even when I'm fit and healthy. All I do is tweak my doses up or down for a few days and it always settles down again. I did a random INR test this morning and it hit 3.2 .... no idea why and frankly I don't sweat over it. My overall 'in range' INR readings are about 92% so I'm not gonna worry. Just tweak away.
Anyway, hope you continue to improve and that your family all remain fit and well.
Glad you're on the mend Bob and hope you will soon feel totally better. Good news about the weight loss, wonder if that's partly through loss of fluid from your ankles? Did you stay in bed or sat with your feet up all the time?
Getting better but still slight positive line. Didn'tdo much but wit around or walak about . Dont stand for long periods anyway and have a number of stools and chairs in the workshop. Failry normal day today and still slim ankles.
As to the edema, being an inactive can change fluid distribution. Also, some of that weight loss could be water weight also potentially reducing the edema, so try and stay hydrated.
I got the run down of the last variant circling NZ.
It states 'travels very fast'.
Those who had last Covid jab should have another in 6mths to cover this one. Should only get a mild dose of this COVID.
Luckily I didn't get it away in JAPAN but I filed up on seedless huge grapes and capsiums! Bought bananas. Breakfast was full of goodies. Relaxed away but had trouble coping with the walking, stairs, elevated ground.
I had to jump down from the bathroom room to carpet and wash that I could come to a stop as the 'false solid door' was ahead of me. No handles.
The outgoing plane from Auckland was full of coughers. I sat at a window seat. Didn't wear a mask. Probably flu not COVID and I don't have a flu jab only from July 2024 8 jabs COVID.
Watch for Long COVID. Not nice they tell me. Not had COVID.
Take care and you can only do your best re not infecting others.
Glad you are better Bob and that you managed to have your angiogram. Sorry Sam is under the weather now but hope she will soon be back fighting fit. Take care both of you.
sorry BobD my daughter and I have had Covid three times now and it’s not pleasant. Still waiting for my cardiac MRI. Wondering whether to go private. Hope you and your wife feel better soon
Glad you're doing better Bob and appreciate the report. So easy to get scared, or blasé. Sounds like the lived experience is unpleasant, but manageable. I do appreciate everyone's physiology is different e.g. People with autoimmune conditions etc.
Covid is airborne so bleaching handles won’t make any difference at all, wearing face masks 😷 does not help either they have been proven not to work, I’m a healthy 52 year old who is just getting over Covid I had it really bad for 3 weeks, started off with diarrhoea a sickness / loss of smell a taste / blocked ears / sore throat / cough with bad chest, ended up in hospital for 2 nights on IV drip due to severely being dehydrated, I have never been this ill in all my life , the strangest thing about all this is my wife never had the vaccinations and she never got it.
That is very true, I never had mine either, I asked my Electrophysiologist what his thoughts were regarding the Vax, he told me he hadn’t had it and he certainly won’t ever be having the Covid Vax
An elderly friend had it over two years ago and his INR is still more variable than it ever was. He had to go on additional heparin-type anticoagulation for a while, on top, as his INR would not get into range. My daughter-in-law and her sister both had it and she told my wife that it affected her monthly cycle significantly.
It seems that this "flu like" illness is far from a normal respiratory virus that can affect diverse body systems that others do not.
Sorry you've been having it, and glad you're on the mend. And thanks for sharing your experience.
With Covid being airborne, cleaning the air gives some more defence against passing it on - we bought and used a HEPA filter when indoor mixing started being allowed again. But as you say, Sam likely caught it before you had symptoms.
This XEC variant is indeed highly transmissible/contagious. A friend of mine and me met a guy on Tue 05/11 (who had just come back from a weekend in Sheffield) and both of us came down with symptoms 3 days later. Both of our wives also came down with it 3 days after we did (It's my friend's wife who got the test which confirmed Covid). (It apparently turns out that the guy we met on 05/11 had started feeling rough the day before but had neglected to mention it to us..... )
Last weekend was rough with fever at 38.5C. Now one week on after developing symptoms I'm starting to pull around but still got residual cold type symptoms - mainly a phlegmy chest and still a bit tired/delicate.
I think that this is the first time I've had it. Not as bad as a bad case of flu but still not fun and lasts longer. No joke.
Really sympathise Bob. I've had it three times now, not quite as bad as your description. Everyone believes it has left us, but it's still rife out there. I am convinced that my arrhythmia has been caused by the legacy of Covid episodes. No proof, and no heart damage, but still a long way to go with research. Good luck with your recovery and love your story. We need to keep a sense of humour these days! Lynne
Just seen your post Bob. Sorry you have been caught by the covid beast. It loves to lurk about and bite us when we arent looking. Hope everything settles very soon and normal service resumes for you and your family. Keep safe.
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but I refuse to mask the face that God created, mask my breath and live in isolation as we saw so many do to their own demise several years ago. God says when our life's are to cease. And yes, of course if one is sick, you stay home and heal. 
Ablation
Too much to take in!
Sugar - is it or isnt it? 
Bad reaction to Moderna booster vaccine
Apixaban
