Covid and me

[Buggyman]

Post or Long Covid is very like what I was told to expect to happen to me after I was in Intensive Care with severe sepsis. "After this your life will not be the same, there are things you have to relearn and things you will never do again." were the comforting words of the consultant. Me? I really couldn't have been ar*sed at the time, I was hooked up to everything imaginable and struggling to see the next hour.

She was right of course, when I finally got home, I found it hard to concentrate, having to read the same page over and over, my speech went walkabout, halfway through speaking I would stop because I could not remember the words or, even more frightening, I would fall asleep mid-sentence. To me being an ardent amateur car rally driver and motorsport enthusiast the worst thing was that I got very car sick! Thankfully that soon passed but I still have a handy plastic bag in the car 'just in case'.

And now we are reading and hearing about people having the same after effects. No it is not like flu despite what our neighbours maintain. They proved positive but only paid lip service to being isolated. It lasted a couple of days and then they went back to their old habits of ignoring the protocols. Until we are all using the same song sheet this horrible virus will not go away, let us hope that sense prevails.

Keep Safe


Allan

[Motormouse]

Hi Allan, your second paragraph sums it up, that's exactly what we were like once we started getting more active again

I was told by the Doctor treating me ( and she had had the covid too) that it is called post viral fatigue, it is a very real medical condition.

Ttfn

Pete

[Airspeed]

We both had cases of that post viral fatigue in our house a couple of years back, that followed a dose of 'flu, though we'd had vaccinations.
The pvf lasted weeks if not months; I've tried to forget the details.

[TSR2]

PVF is common after things like glandular fever. It’s known to last months, even years in some extreme cases. It’s certainly not unique to this particular virus. Very unpleasant, but glad to hear we’re still here and recovering. Hopefully the side affects won’t last too long.

[Buggyman]

Hi Pete,

There is a recognised condition called 'Post Sepsis Syndrome' which covers a large swathe of after effects. Trouble is that, although the NHS recognises it and advises on it, lots of GPs have either never heard of it or don't accept it. Sadly my GP is one of the naysayers even after I gave her reference material downloaded from t'net.

As ever the best way to deal with any after effects is with the full support of understanding family and friends - makes a heck of a difference I can say.

ATB


Allan

[Motormouse]

Just bumping this up with a little update, ct scan last month showed the PE greatly diminished, and lungs showing signs of healing, chest consultant has said she doesn't need to see me again, and I'm swapping from the Apixaban blood thinners to Clopidogrel ( as recommended by neurology consultant) later this week.

My blood chemistry on other hand, is still a work in progress, I'm being something of a lab rat; as they just don't know if the damages caused will right themselves or not ( my brain damage from 2 clots in my noggin; is, sadly permanent) but on a bonus note, I've been allowed back to work, but not yet for full 12hr shift..

This linky explains what the lurgy has done to me
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsuppo ... od-vessels

Ttfn

Pete

[Airspeed]

Thanks for that, Pete.
Sorry about the brain damage not improving. Is it affecting you noticeably, memory, motor control, emotions?
We've learnt another family of words today; endothelium etc.

[Motormouse]

It's memory and words, names, places, that sort of thing.
The neurology guy says it's like a faulty pc hard drive, it can't read that bit, will learn to store things elsewhere.

Ttfn

Pete

[Paul K]

Sorry about the brain damage not improving. Is it affecting you noticeably, memory, motor control, emotions?

Mike beat me to it on this - I was going to ask the exact same question.

Pete, you say the doctors use the analogy of a faulty hard drive, and that the info you're currently having difficulty with will eventually be stored in an undamaged part of your 'HD'. Do you have to do mental exercises to speed this process up, kind of like physiotherapy for the brain, or is it something that will happen naturally over time ?

[Tako_Kichi]

It's memory and words, names, places, that sort of thing.
The neurology guy says it's like a faulty pc hard drive, it can't read that bit, will learn to store things elsewhere.

It sounds very much like what I have to go through on a daily basis since I was struck down with ME/CFS over 20 years ago!

The names of things, places and/or people has gotten worse for me over the years (old age is probably creeping in too) and it can get very frustrating at times especially as I used to have an almost photographic memory for things like who sang what song, when and what album it came from and now I often hear a tune and know that I know it from years ago but cannot remember who sang it or when.

I can be having a conversation with someone (a neighbour or store employee for example) and suddenly I will be unable to find the next word I want to use. I know that I know the word but I cannot remember what it is or a suitable replacement for it and it can get very embarrassing at times when the person you are talking to looks at you as if you are from another planet as you stand there with your mouth open and nothing comes out! I then have to go into a lengthy explanation of what has happened and hope I can remember the word I need in the meantime!

This is the way I try to describe the problem:

Do you remember the old fashioned libraries with rows and rows of books you could borrow and the system they used to locate a specific book known as the Dewey Decimal System? The system relied on drawers full of index cards (one for each book) where you looked up the author/book you required and the card then told you the aisle, row and shelf position of the book location.

My brain is like the rows and rows of index card drawers where significant pieces of information (like important words) are stored on the cards but some @ssh0le has shuffled all the cards so when I go for a word I can't find the one I want!

It can get very, very frustrating at times as I know I used to know the word but when I want it I just get a total blank. Even worse is when I remember the word I wanted 10 minutes later but it's no use to me then because either I have moved on or the conversation has!

I am sorry you are experiencing something similar Pete and fully understand what you are going through.

p.s. There is a side story to this problem. When I was a child of about 9 or 10 my mother used to take me to the local public library to exchange my books and so that she could exchange hers (she was an avid reader of romance novels). While she was spending 30+ minutes trying to find something she hadn't already read I was left alone in the kids section to pick something but more often than not I would wander down to the science section as I was fascinated by anything scientific at the time. I was a somewhat 'gifted' child and read stuff way beyond my years and wanted to be a scientist when I grew up when all my friends wanted to be policemen, firemen or soccer players. This particular day I had picked my allocation of books and mum was still searching for hers and I had become totally bored. In an act of mindless stupidity, which I still regret to this day, I pulled all the alphabetical reference cards from the front of the drawers in the index system, shuffled them all and then put them back in a totally random fashion!

I have often wondered how long it took the very nice lady librarian to get all the drawers set up correctly again! Karma has now done the same to my brain and as they say 'Paybacks are a b!tch'