I Finally Caught Covid...

Hurricane Helene... then... Went to Washington DC, and then COVID happened... Yes, I finally caught the dreaded covid. I'm on day 12 of dealing with it right now. I'm going to skip talking about Helene in this post, but it was bad here.

Anyone who knows me knows I thought I was immune to covid, and maybe I was up until now. I never caught it during the pandemic, and I thought it was because of my blood type or genetics or something. They also know that I was afraid to catch covid because it is known to cause POTS, which I already have and I absolutely do not want to make it worse. So when I tested positive I was naturally very scared. Turns out covid has mutated enough, so if I had any naturally immunity before, covid learned how to bypass it. 

Let me back up. Why did I go to Washington DC? My husband was invited to present at a conference in West Virginia, and we decided to stay with a friend who lives in DC so that we could see DC since it was so close. This is how he is. His ambition is so strong that he doesn't expect (or he simply ignores) the reality of his plans to fulfil his ambitions. I'll say a few things about the trip to help you understand my exhaustion: 

It was supposed to be a 6.5 hour drive to DC. That's like driving from Bismarck, ND to Minneapolis, MN, which we did several times. Except that on the east coast you should always add a couple of hours to driving time due to traffic. About 8.5 hours later, after a lot of stop-and-go on the interstate and the need to exit the interstate and drive through towns to avoid crashes on the interstate, we arrived in Harper's Ferry, WV. We stayed in a great little mostly fragrance-free Airbnb. The next morning we wanted to spend 1 or 2 hours being tourists and seeing the sights of this tourist town, but what we quickly discovered was that it was impossible to park anywhere near the attractions unless we paid $20, and we were not going to be there long enough. Also, he was in his dress suit. So we drove through the town, and later a friend told us we honestly saw it all just by driving through, so I don't feel so badly. It was quaint, but just a historical village with a good view of the rivers. 

So we drove to Sheppardstown, WV and I dropped him off at the college where he was presenting. I took my licorice pills with enough green tea that I felt strong enough to go exploring a little on my own. Well, I tried to follow GPS to a park along the river and I ended up going over the bridge and into Maryland. Then I made my way back and had lunch, then went shopping downtown. It was a cute downtown with an herbal shop, a sustainable living farm store, a really cool bookstore, a natural fiber only women's clothing store, a small new apothecary that focused on soaps and salves, a fantasy figurine store... lots of really interesting places. But after all that I was tired, and it was time to go pick up the husband. The trouble was that the husband was feeling sick and not well enough to drive, so I needed to drive us most of the way to DC. He was thankfully able to finish the drive. It was supposed to be 1.5 hours, but it took us about 2. We arrived at the restaurant and met our friends, had a great meal, explored Alexandria and found grass-fed organic gelato, then went back to their place for the night. 

I was too overly stimulated from doing too much, so it was hard to sleep well. My husband slept maybe 2 hours, but he has insomnia issues. But this day was the big DC day! This was the day we needed our energy for! 

Thankfully our friend works in DC, knows how to get around, and was our tour guide. He drove us everywhere (except the two times we needed an uber) and saved us A TON of time and energy. We toured the US Capital building, went to the Library of Congress, went to the Smithsonian Natural History and American History Museums, went to the monument, went to the Cheesecake Factory, went to the Vietnam and Korean war memorials, went to the Abe Lincoln memorial, and then went to the Thomas Jefferson memorial. We arrived back at 11 pm, totally exhausted. I think my experience of this day deserves a blog post because I felt like I was on a pilgrimage and I felt really enlightened by many things I saw. The problem with this day was that I was around so many people from all over the world - the crowds of people (especially in the Natural History Museum) were so thick that it was almost intolerable because it was hard to see much through all the people. 

So you can image all the opportunities I had to catch covid, on top of being worn out and exhausted. And weak from reacting to fragrances and fumes.  

Sunday, the drive home. I woke up with a strong sore throat, but I thought it was just my ME/CFS and I was crashing. I wasn't well. I barely had the energy to load the car with my things. We went out to breakfast and I was able to eat well. I chose to drink coffee knowing I needed the push to help me survive the day. Coffee normally affects me badly because it's too strong and hurts my heart... this barely did much for me. We drove for a while and arrived at Whole Foods midway through the day. I should have been really hungry, but my stomach did not want food. I bought a super light meal of fish and force fed myself, but my throat hurt and my stomach was not happy. Okay, I still thought it's just ME/CFS. Shopping was annoying and difficult. I didn't have it in me to think through much, but we had to buy groceries to stock our fridge with. (Hurricane Helene caused a lot damage and made grocery shopping a major difficulty, so we had to shop in Charlotte the week prior and then chose to shop out-of-town again on the way home.)

We get home, and Monday and Tuesday I felt sick with a sore throat. I wasn't well, but I kept thinking it was just a sore throat and cough from ME/CFS. I went to work at my new job (this will be another new post) on Wednesday, but I wasn't ok. If it were any other job I would have called in sick, but this is a new start-up business with very very few customers so far, so I sat there for 5 hours without talking to anyone. While I was at work I started to get body aches and a fever developed. I was so uncomfortable that I realized it was worse than my normal "feeling sick with ME/CFS" crap. So after work I bought a Covid test kit. Within a few minutes the kit showed a strong line for Covid. After 15 minutes the line was even stronger. 

My symptoms were out of order. I started with the sore throat and cough for 3 days, then developed the body aches and fever (stayed around 100.5, didn't get hotter) for 2 days, then I finally developed the congestion and "head cold" stage which has lasted 7 days so far. I'm still sick right now, but it's just manageable congestion now. I wasn't able to sleep without taking this (it's a clean version of Nyquil made by Genexa) because otherwise it wasn't possible to breathe and my coughing wouldn't stop.  I lost my sense of smell and taste, but not completely. I could taste 20-30% of anything I ate, and mainly just the bitter parts. I had a burger patty and I could only detect the texture of it, I really couldn't taste it. I had horseradish to try and drain my sinuses, and I could feel the heat but I couldn't taste it. I haven't really experienced that before, so it was alarming. 

Covid wasn't as intense as other illnesses I had (H1N1 that caused my POTS is still the worst I've had), but one thing it did do to me that I have not experienced from other illnesses was keep my heart rate up over 100 bpm for 3 days straight. Even at night, my heart rate remained high. My Fitbit and Oura Ring were both giving me a lot of warnings of tachycardia while at rest. This was abnormal for me, even with POTS. I'm used to my HR going down to the 80's while I'm resting, or even crashing low into 50's when I put my feet up. When I'm on my feet I'm usually above 100, yes, but not at rest. So this showed me how hard my body was working to fight Covid, and it does give me some concern. 

My high heart rate was why I wanted to see a doctor for a saline IV. The problem was, Hurricane Helene destroyed the plant in North Carolina that makes the IVs. So the doctors said no, the best thing I can do is drink electrolytes and stay home and rest. 

I got covid really quickly. My husband, on the other hand, didn't develop covid symptoms until 5 days after I started having symptoms. He progressed through it faster than I did. It only knocked him out for 6 days, and I'm on day 12 still with symptoms. 

It's too early to tell how covid is going to affect me long-term. I'm weak and exhausted, I still can't taste much, and I'm still symptomatic. 

Covid Vaccine Side Effects....

I've been hesitant to say anything on social media about my choice to get the covid vaccines. I know many of you will not approve, so please don't start an argument with me. I spent a lot of time researching the benefits vs the risks, and I decided that the benefits outweigh the risks, especially due to my health situation. Covid has the potential to undo all the hard work I've done to manage my illnesses, and I'm not willing to throw away 8 years of intense work to have this level of stability (and I'm far from stable!) I determined that the vaccine is less likely to cause me long term harm than Covid itself, and it would completely idiotic to assume I won't catch covid eventually.

I would go into more detail on my research, but I don't have much energy at the moment. It all boiled down to UK studies showing that people with post-covid POTS were going into remission from the covid vaccine, and the rate of people developing POTS from Covid is substantially reduced in vaccinated people. The last thing I want is for Covid to worsen my POTS. The vaccine side effects are better than worsening my POTS. I also just don't handle viruses well. Ever since H1N1 I haven't been able to handle getting sick. I take really good care of myself and don't get sick easily anymore (I did as a child and teenager), but now when I do get sick it knocks me out twice as hard and twice as long as everyone else. Covid could be really dangerous for me. I've been avoiding people the best I could, but it wasn't possible anymore since fewer and fewer people take any covid precautions. 

But I do want to share a bit about my experience to contribute to the conversation. I was hesitant because I was nervous about how my body would react to the vaccines. Last year I had a tetanus shot that left me with side effects for 2 weeks! It was miserable! But my motivation to help end this pandemic (since not enough people are willing to get vaccines to help protect the most vulnerable) fueled me to research this covid vaccine and just do it. 

I got the Moderna because I have the most trust in their company.

My first shot gave me 3 days of side effects. It was not fun, but it wasn't as severe as I worried it would be. I tasted metal in my mouth, had a constant headache, lots of heartburn, my gut was in a lot of pain and caused some unpleasantness in the bathroom, my joints were swollen, I had occasional chills, a sore throat, and my toes were more purple and freezing cold than normal. The 4th day was better, so I went for a walk that ended up being more strenuous than I could handle, and left me with another couple days of malaise and fatigue. I wasn't ready for exercise and I paid hard for it. Then I started to return to my "normal," but all month I had a struggle with chest pain and heart burn. I kept taking so many pills to try and stop it and nothing was helping enough. I had to go home early from work a couple of times because the chest pain was so bad that I couldn't focus. I had about 1.5 weeks where the chest pain and heartburn subsided before getting my next shot.

Then I got my second shot 5 days ago.

Monday morning at 10 am I got the shot. It only took a few minutes for an elevated heart rate to start bothering me. It took about an hour for increased fatigue to settle in. By 5 pm that evening I was in pain. A LOT of pain. I don't just mean my arm. It was like a full blown fibromyalgia flare on steroids. 

Tuesday morning I woke up in tears. The pain was enough where I considered going to the hospital, and then it felt like I had the flu on top of it. Every muscle in my body was screaming, tense, and giving me sharp pains when moving. My calves were twitching and spasming. My circulation was much worse than normal and my toes were so purple and cold that I couldn't move them. My neck and head felt like they were imploding - like they were filling with gas that was trying to expand them. I couldn't touch my skin because it was tender and sensitive the way skin is with the flu. My fatigue was strong enough that it was really hard for me to get out of bed and take anything to help. I ended up collapsing when trying to stand up. It wasn't possible for me to stand in one spot. If I was on my feet I had to keep moving or I would faint. POTS made the vaccine worse, or the vaccine made the POTS worse? Don't know.

Wednesday was still very bad, but different. The body pain mostly moved up to my head and chest, but my joints still ached mildly. The chest pain began, the heart burn kicked in, and my headache was worse than ever. The sore throat begin. 

Thursday the pain reduced enough where I felt relief, but the chest pain continued. I could finally start using my arm mostly normally. The fatigue was still too much, so I couldn't accomplish much. The sore throat and headache were bothering me a lot. I was still icy cold. 

Friday, yesterday, was the best I had felt all weak, but a new problem occurred: diarrhea. I don't just mean a little. It was dangerous to be away from the toilet. My body was in purge mode. It lasted the entire day up until bed time. I had to go grocery shopping, and it was the scariest grocery shopping experience since all I was thinking was that at any moment I could have to drop everything and run to the bathroom. My fatigue couldn't improve much under this situation. My chest pain reduced a little bit. The sore throat and headache reduced too, but still came and went. I noted how incredibly pale I looked. I was just out in the sun for most of last week, so I have a decent tan. My face was sheer. 

Today, Saturday: My head is still going in and out of a mild headache. I don't get headaches often, so this is not normal for me. My stomach and gut still give me occasional sharp pains and gurgles, but I returned to solid. My fatigue is still stronger than my normal, but I had a cup of green tea to help me get something done today... which is writing thig blog, apparently. I still feel like it's too much effort to get out of my chair, but my mind is working better than it has all week. I feel like I might be in the stage where I'm past the vaccine side effects, but my body has to recover from being so sick. 


If any of you understand how to read sleep data, then here are my Oura Ring results from Monday night into Tuesday morning:

  

For reference, here was Sunday night into Monday morning:

Fine, I'll Talk About It

Hello blog, my old friend. It's been a while.

I'm not entirely sure I even want to write this blog post, but I thought that perhaps it would help me. (Edit: It didn't. But I'm publishing since I wrote it.) 

It isn't so much the pandemic or the election. It's the way people are reacting to both. People are emitting intense energy everywhere I go: work, grocery store, online forums, online games, etc. This energy is so stimulating and taxing that it's draining my own. I'm hiding away inside myself to protect my precious little energy from the storm, while observing and analyzing the people around me. I'm taking it all in and internalizing it, not expressing myself very often. If I was healthy I'm sure I would enjoy being engaged in the debates with others. The person I used to be would have joined in the fight. The person I am now that I'm sick can't be the same as before, however, because I would fall apart rapidly. As the wisest people in my life have told me, I need to nurture myself first. All this internalizing might be causing me some unnecessary stress that I'm not fully aware of. A couple of my health care practitioners have told me my body is expressing a lot of stress and they've asked about my emotions. I think I'm subconsciously suppressing my emotions as a defense mechanism that I don't have control over right now. 

The truth is that I'm emotionally numb, which is a sign I'm not taking care of myself. I'm often acting when I am talking to people, which is frustrating me because I'm a very genuine and sincere person. There are only a few select people that I'm able to be totally myself with, and it's a huge relief to be in their presence, but even then I'm more comfortable just listening to them (thankfully a couple of them are my co-workers!) I'm going to have to dig far to pull the emotions out of myself. I've been living one moment at a time. I'm following the news, I'm reading the facts, and I'm listening to what people around me are saying. I know what's going on around me. I'm just not reacting to it, and that's not healthy. I know it. So... am I ready to react here, to this blog? I feel like I'm acting just writing this. I'm so dissociated. 

*Deep breath*

I feel like every camp or ideology I've been aligned with is getting turned upside down and shaken out. I don't recognize the political parties anymore, and I've struggled to find my values in any candidate. I'm Roman Catholic and agree with many liberal values, but I'm not like Joe Biden. I have often voted Republican, but there haven't been any Republican candidates worth voting for (except for my governor, and he's disappointed me in the past couple of months.) I don't feel represented. I'm happy Trump will no longer be president, but I'm not happy with his replacement. If I explore my feelings on the election, I find myself just compromising. "Well Sarah, at least he'll take Covid seriously and that's really important. He'll protect our National Parks, I hope. He'll listen to scientists about our crazy tap water crisis. He has potential to do good." If Trump had won I would have made compromises too. But the more I dig for my feelings, the less I care. It's just not worth my precious little energy. I am very passionate about my concerns, and the president isn't going to affect my ability to advocate for what's right. I can do good and right things in my little corner of the universe. I can focus on what I have control over. I voted. I had my say. I was really quick to accept the outcome and move forward. Time to refocus on my actual life. 

What I'm really struggling with politically isn't the presidential election at all. Again, it's how people are reacting to it. I've been watching people act as if we're all going to hell or getting saved from hell. It's so incredibly extreme. When I see Trump flags, hats, and t-shirts I feel overwhelmed. When I see people celebrating that Trump is not going to be president anymore, I zone out. So why can't I just ignore it? Because people keep attempting to engage with me in aggressive ways. I wouldn't mind a civil discourse when I'm not at work and feeling decent, but my experience here in North Dakota has been overwhelmingly hostile (not physically violent, but verbally pushy.) I have had several of my customers preach to me about how Trump is some sort of Messiah figure for the world. What triggers them to preach to me? Me wearing a mask or sanitizing. They started out by telling me their opinions on Covid, which, after some time and a whole lot of words, led to statements such as, "So you better have voted for Trump!" Each time I just shut down. I felt myself just go black inside, going still and quiet. I'm happy to work and sell them what they need, but it's completely uncalled for to lecture me about political preferences for doing my job. No one has been this aggressive with me about voting for Biden. It's only Trump supporters. 

Politics are so intertwined with Covid that it's impossible to separate the two anymore. My observation is that Trump supporters have been rallied and trained to fight. They're soldiers in the Trump army. I hear so many of them preach about media misinformation, quack scientists, liberal propaganda, and socialism. Maybe there's some truth in some of it, but I don't respond to the aggression they use to preach about it. They don't want their freedoms taken away, so they join a movement in which they all follow this Messiah figure as their leader. This Trump Messiah guy tells them masks are harmful, Covid is not a problem, and it's okay that people are dying. So they fight like soldiers in his army and fight against any Covid mitigation strategy. Instead of rising to the occasion of managing a world-wide crisis in the USA, they decide to belittle anyone who wants to.

Yesterday a regular customer of mine, someone who loves to tell me how sweet I am and always wanted a hug, yelled at me. Our governor implemented a state wide mask mandate at 10 pm the night before, and we were asked to kindly and gently enforce it with our customers. We asked her if she would please wear a mask, and she said no and kept walking into the store. She then yelled at us, me specifically at points, about how we have bought into the mask propaganda and were not only wrong, we're dangerous. I said several times, "It's state mandate now, we're doing what we're told, we want to keep our business open, we don't want to get fined..." and I was only met with very hostile verbal attacks in return. No problem solving, just accusing us happily of doing our jobs well.

*Big sigh* You know, 95% of my customers yesterday were really good about wearing masks. They didn't complain. They knew it was necessary, so they wore it and shopped normally. They're awesome. They help life go on as normally as possible while showing respect for each other. But the rest...

What happened? What caused people to be so verbally aggressive towards each other? How is it that Trump harnessed this rage in people and formed them into soldiers? I'm not saying Liberals are without problems too - oh I certainly have had my fair share of issues with them too. But since Covid began it's really only been Trump supporters that have been harassing me about Covid. So guess what? They're the #1 reason I did not vote for Trump. I didn't vote for Biden either, but that's not the point here and requires some explanation about my morals and how I live in North Dakota and my non-Trump vote doesn't matter one bit. I don't respond well to manipulation, aggression, and harassment. Maybe I even like some of what Trump has done for the USA! It doesn't matter. I will not tolerate a leader of an army of people who threaten my safety. 

My mind is blown. I think I might be in some level of shock. I really genuinely do not understand why it's such a problem to simply just wear a mask properly in public places. I understand there are some side effects for deaf people, certain people with breathing troubles, people who have been raped and muzzled, etc. Of course we can accommodate these people safely while everyone else wears a mask. The masks mandates are not designed to be inhumane, they're designed to save human lives. We're a creative and innovative people, right? Let's be problem solvers. Let's make sure everyone is cared for, not suppressed. 

I struggle with air hunger from time to time. My respiration rate averages around 17-18, which is on the high side. I've never had a problem with a mask suffocating me. Maybe it's because I've taken the time to find the right masks for me. I've experimented until I found ones that fit properly, don't move too much when I talk, and are breathable. Maybe other people buy any mask available and it doesn't fit them well and so their breaths are stifled. Maybe. That's not an excuse. You have to buy clothes in your size if you want to wear them, right? Find a mask that fits you if you want to wear it. 

Is it so important to be right that you're willing to risk harming other people? Really? You'd rather not wear a mask and possibly be the reason someone gets infected and dies? You're honestly willing to take that chance? You're so sure you're right that you're willing to yell at other people, an action which spreads Covid most easily? Do you really want to kill or die for this this cause? Is it really worth it? Seriously, stop thinking about the unscientific claim that 99.98% of Covid patients survive. Millions have died. Are you honestly okay with being the reason one single person has died from Covid? You're seriously willing to do something that could kill a person? All just to be free? Because you really believe you're entitled to your freedom at the cost of a fellow citizen's life? Are you at war? Can you justify your war? I challenge you to take a long hard look at your core values if you really are comfortable not wearing a mask around other people right now. And even if you are comfortable, do you have so little empathy for others that are, with very good reason, uncomfortable if you don't wear a mask? I'm not some wimpy snowflake who's afraid to die. I can put up a good fight if I need to, and death isn't what scares me. But I really don't want to get Covid, and I really don't want you to give it to me. I'm not wrong to want my freedom to be in public as safely as possible. 

Okay... I don't know if this has been good for me or not. I'm agitated. I need to shift gears:

To all of you who have been good-natured, loving, empathetic, joyful, compassionate, caring, and supportive through this Covid and Election crisis... Thank you SO MUCH! I know many people who are not convinced masks are the right solution, but wear them without complaint anyway because they know it makes everyone around them more comfortable. I know people who have gone out of their way to create solutions for masks so they accommodate more people. I know people who have been willing to buy and deliver for high risk people. I know people who have organized supplies for people in need during this crisis. To all of you problem solvers: THANK YOU SO MUCH! Seriously, you're the reason I have hope for humanity. 

I'm so thankful for all of you making the effort to not spread Covid so that we can keep our businesses open. I don't want to shut down. I want to keep working. I want the small local health store I work for to thrive. And I really really don't want to get Covid. 

My Messiah is Jesus Christ. I believe he gave us brains to problem solve, and it's our faults if we don't use them to survive this world. 

...And now for a baking soda bath to calm down my super itchy rashes all over my body. 

The Covid-19 Pandemic and Me and You

You might think that the Covid-19 pandemic would have led me to writing a blog about it sooner than this. I am finally feeling like I'm able to articulate my experience, concerns, and hopes. I have been working on this blog for several days. I have so much to say, but when I sit down at my computer and choose between working on this blog and playing a relaxing video game, the game keeps winning. No, not out of laziness and procrastination, but because this topic is stressing me out too much that it's not healthy. I finally trudged through it and found it helpful to not only organize my thoughts through a blog, but also to understand all my anxiety better by communicating it.

My experience has probably been different than what most people have experienced. My reality is that I've had it easy - very easy. I haven't had to worry about money, eviction, work, food, toilet paper, or anything essential to living. For this I am very grateful. I don't care to share my personal living details on this blog, but I can share more about where I live.

I am living in North Dakota, which has been one of the best states to live in during the pandemic due to being a rural state with a low population. We didn't need to go into a full lock-down and contact tracing has been our specialty. Our governor only closed certain businesses with high contact, such as movie theaters and salons. Most retailers were able to stay open. Online shopping, deliveries, and curbside pick up have been popular. The stores I buy my groceries at required their employees to wear masks, and they have been sanitizing carts and surfaces constantly. I have been able to stay home from work, and when I've had to go out to get food I've been able to get what I need as safely as possible. Thankfully I already had a stockpile of meat in my deep freezer before the pandemic started. My husband has been able to work and take classes entirely online, and there has been no concern about him interacting with people and bringing the virus home. The only income we've lost is mine, which is manageable for us since I only worked very part time.

Just because my experience has been easy doesn't mean it hasn't affected me. It has been very difficult to process my anxiety because the majority of my anxiety was not conscious, just irrational and reactionary anxiety, but a good portion of it was rational from thinking through the situation. The anxiety didn't hit me right away. About a week and a half into quarantine I noticed I was completely drained (on top of chronic fatigue), I broke out into hives, my sleep was very low quality with vivid stress dreams, my digestion was awful and at times hard to manage, and I felt extremely withdrawn. I may have been in social isolation from people physically, but I didn't want to engage with anyone online or over the phone. I wanted complete isolation. All news, social media, chats, etc were all too stimulating for me. In fact, I struggled with all noises, even music, radio, and TV. It wasn't a matter of fear, stupidity, or clashing opinions (that came later.) It was simply that reality was sucking my precious little energy dry and putting me into a state of constant recharging. The problem is that I wanted to stay updated on all the news, so I allowed myself to keep reading it even though I was feeling agitated by it. This anxiety fused with 1.5 weeks of strong PMS/ PMDD, which led to a few days of pain and exhaustion. I am just now coming out of that physical and emotional hurdle, finally feeling myself entering the post-anxiety stage of the pandemic. I am still socially exhausted, however, and still have little interest in interacting with people.

I have concerns about my health during this pandemic. I don't get sick with the common cold easily, but when I do catch something I get the worst version of it and it takes too long to recover. I've had too many examples of this in the past few years, especially with norovirus and "walking pneumonia." I don't want to get into details about that since that's what the rest of this blog is about, but I hope you understand that I have to protect myself and must take covid-19 seriously. I am not someone who should be taking risks. If I catch it I will be out sick for a very long time, I will get very sick, and since I have a long history of reacting strongly to most medications I've been given, I might not be able to take anything pharmaceutical to treat it. I'm being as cautious as I can be for my sake, but also for the sake of others who are like me.

I had H1N1 (Swine Flu) back in 2010. I was in my early 20's and was healthy enough to work out, work 2 physically active jobs, and hang out with friends. I have always had some health issues, but during that time nothing was holding me back except allergies (and I was taking Allegra-D every day for it) and endometriosis. I wasn't eating well back then, and I was living in a house full of black mold. Well guess what? It knocked me out very hard for 2 weeks, and it took a little while longer to feel healthy again. Very high fever (I didn't document it, but I remember seeing 103ºF for several days), extreme full body pain, extreme weakness and fatigue, lots of heart palpitations, unable to eat properly, and loads of bathroom issues. I remember questioning how it was possible to live if the symptoms continued to stay that strong. I was taking all the meds the doctors gave me and they didn't really help (if they did then imagine how much sicker I would have been without them), but apparently they were helpful for other people. I had to keep getting doctor's notes for work, because my employer's sick day policy didn't change during that pandemic. It was such an awful illness that when I finally recovered I felt like I had been to hell and back, and I was working with doctors. Well guess what? Covid-19 is worse than H1N1 because it is more contagious and causes more deaths.

The fact is that my health was never the same after I had H1N1. Doctors have suggested that it triggered my chronic fatigue, but there's no solid proof. Doctor's have also noted that I had very high levels of mycotoxins from mold in my body, also known to trigger chronic illnesses. I also have some genes that are not working in my favor, along with some family history. Nothing is certain in my case, but other people with H1N1 were studied and many people did develop chronic illnesses as the result of having H1N1. And... There is already research being done on Covid-19 leading to Chronic Fatigue/ ME.

I wouldn't wish my health challenges on anyone else. Chronic fatigue is no joke. It ruins lives. I am witnessing that most people are concerned about dying from covid-19, but one of my greatest concerns is surviving it and then being left too sick to ever function normally again. Are you successful in your full time career? Imagine never being able to perform well at work again because your body feels like sludge, you can't remember things accurately and get confused easily, you can't always find the strength to get out of bed, and doctors don't know how to help you. If that is the result of catching covid-19, would you try harder to avoid catching it and spreading it? But Covid-19 could cause problems beyond my experience too: permanent lung, kidney, nervous system, and brain damage. Any of these potential complications are too much for anyone!

Keeping in mind that this is just opinion based on my experience and perspective, this is why I'm skeptical of the idea to let covid-19 naturally spread through the population to build up herd immunity. Not only do I think it could create too much chronic illness and kill too many people until we have a treatment available for it, I also worry about the fact that we don't know if we can develop immunity to it. It seems very reckless to me to allow people to get sick with it when we may not develop long-term immunity, and it might become a new virus that circulates every year like the flu does. If we allow this virus to circulate around the world every year when we don't have any way of treating it, unlike the flu that has treatments available, are we doing too much harm to the global population? We don't know enough yet. While the lock downs do harm the economy and mental health, I think too many deaths and people with new chronic illnesses would also harm the economy and mental health. It's a balancing act, and no solution will come without harm to people. We simply need to keep people safe long enough to learn how to effectively treat patients with the virus. If this becomes a treatable virus that circulates around the world every year like the flu, then we can return to normal because it will be treatable. Right now it's not treatable.

The greatest problem with Covid-19 is the fact that we don't know how to treat it yet. All the drugs we have been testing have created too many side effects, and the drug was not better than the virus it was trying to treat. Science takes time! We can't rush the process of learning and studying, sorry. People are dying on ventilators. We do know that people are improving on vitamin C IVs, but is that enough for severe cases? Can we make enough vitamin C IVs? A few years ago there was a shortage. So what is the option to combat a deadly virus we can't treat? Try to prevent it from spreading. We know that wearing a breathable (so many are not due the fabric type used) cloth mask greatly reduces the risk that you will spread it to other people. We know that soap kills the virus, so wash your hands. Sanitizer does work if you can't wash your hands. The only sure way to avoid spreading it? No contact with other people outside of who you live with. I am in full support of shutting down the economy as much as necessary to prevent spreading this virus, because this allows essential businesses to remain open with less risk than if parts of the economy were not shutting down. Again, I know this hurts people. Every solution hurts people.

I have no hope in a vaccine. I'm not against spending the money on researching one, because I believe we have to try for every potential solution. I'm not putting any energy into hoping for one that will be effective, however, because I look at history. We haven't been able to develop an effective vaccine for other corona viruses. SARS did not get a vaccine before it died out. Covid-19 is mutating too quickly, how can we keep up? We struggle too much with guessing the flu strains every year, how can we guess covid strains when we know a lot less about it? If a vaccine ever is successful, it won't be any time soon, and it might come with complications. So what other solutions are available? Lockdowns or partial shut downs are still the best defense we have. Every solution that involves returning to the public is all based on theory that we don't have enough information to prove yet.

On the vaccine point, let me go back to the topic of herd immunity in order to drive this point home, because I believe this is the most important thing for people to understand. If the only way to control the virus is to develop herd immunity, then there are only two ways to do that: naturally or by vaccine. Rather than put this in my own words, let me quote this article from Johns Hopkins University:

What will it take to achieve herd immunity with SARS-CoV-2?

As the numbers above demonstrate, herd immunity is still a long way away. But in the long run, as with any other infection, there are two ways to achieve herd immunity: A large proportion of the population either gets infected or gets a protective vaccine. Based on early estimates of this virus's infectiousness, we will likely need at least 70% of the population to be immune to have herd protection. There are a few ways that might be achieved.

• In the worst case—for example, if we do not perform physical distancing or enact other measures to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2—the virus can infect this many people in a matter of a few months. This would overwhelm our hospitals and lead to high death rates.
• In the best case, we maintain current levels of infection—or even reduce these levels—until a vaccine becomes available. This will take concerted effort on the part of the entire population, with some level of continued physical distancing for an extended period, likely a year or longer, before a highly effective vaccine can be developed, tested, mass produced, and administered.
• The most likely case is somewhere in the middle, where infection rates rise and fall over time. We may relax social distancing measures when numbers of infections fall, and then we may need to reimplement these measures as numbers increase again. Prolonged effort will be required to prevent major outbreaks until a vaccine is developed. Even then, SARS-CoV-2 could still infect children before they can be vaccinated or adults after their immunity wanes. But it is unlikely in the long term to have the explosive spread that we are seeing right now because we hope that much of the population will be immune in the future.

There will always be problems with the solutions. There is no perfect answer, all we can do is manage. But I do think it's worth explaining personal problems I have with the solutions I'm advocating for. I have Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, so when I breathe in fragrance and cleaners I "react." This means my body gives me lots of symptoms in response to something it didn't like in air I breathed: headache, sudden major fatigue, widespread muscle pain, heartburn, swollen tongue and throat, brainfog and stuttering, blurred vision and/or vertigo, digestive complaints, and more. I am more mild than most with MCS, but I am still impacted. So imagine having this condition and learning safe places to go in public over the years, but then suddenly every business that used to be fairly safe because they didn't use fragrances are now using harsh cleaners and fragranced hand sanitizer. Suddenly, there is no safe place to go because everyone is covered in very smelly hand sanitizer that triggers health problems. They are protecting me from the virus, but they are triggering health problems. This is a massive problem, because many types of people with other conditions are triggered by cleaners and fragrances too.

What helps so much is the fact that I now get to wear my filtered face mask in public without scaring other people. Before Covid-19, if I wore my mask to protect myself from fragrances people usually assumed I was sick and they avoided me. I wasn't sick, I just wanted to avoid getting sick. The mask filters out at least 50% of fragrances. It helps a little. It worked out that people avoided me though, because even if the filter was protecting me from breathing in the fragrances, they could still irritate my eyes and ears. The more distance between me and fragrances the better. I didn't like being the weird repulsive one, though. That didn't feel good and made me feel like some sort of monster.

The solution to these problems would be using fragrance-free hand sanitizer and soap. I can personally tolerate some essential oils, but not citrus oils. For my sake it would be fine if you used a natural brand like Dr. Bronner's Peppermint hand sanitizer. I do best with fragrance-free, but with low exposure to certain essential oils I am fine. For so many people with MCS, however, it's not fine, essential oils are just as damaging as synthetic fragrances. Essential oils do produce VOCs that trigger the reactions, and many people are much more sensitive than I am and will react to essential oils as if they're artificial fragrances. Just keep this in mind. If you have the option of using a fragrance free sanitizer, know it's by far the best choice for everyone on the planet.

Clean with non-chlorine bleach, which is just a concentrated form of hydrogen peroxide. It has been approved by the CDC to kill covid-19. (I linked to a news article about this, not the CDC's website, because the information pages from the CDC are actually very convoluted and it's difficult to find the straight answer.) It has no odor at all, and it's not full of cleaning chemicals that harm people's lungs. How stupid is it that people are being told to clean with synthetic harsh cleaners during a pandemic with a virus that damages our lungs, when they are known to damage the lungs?

Back to the issue of wearing masks in public. Keep in mind that there are people who are unable to wear masks because they have a condition that worsens when their air intake is limited. People who can wear masks should wear masks because they prevent you from spreading the virus to other people. Also, wear them for the people who are unable to wear masks. The more people wearing masks, the less it will spread. This is very much like how herd immunity works - a vast majority of people need to be immune to protect the population from the disease.


I would now like to go over my concerns about how lay people (citizens) are reacting to covid-19. Each of these points makes the exact same point, but I approach the point from different angles.

1. We don't know enough about the virus for non-experts to make demands about how other people should react. I understand why people want to develop strong opinions, but the fact of the matter is that we just don't know enough about it to form such strong opinions. Physical distancing, quarantine, and contact tracing have been useful. In hindsight we could see we over reacted, but we might also see that we didn't react quickly or strong enough. We must learn and adapt as we go, there is no choice. Preventing the spread of a virus we don't know much about and we don't know how to treat is prudent and we must make decisions based on current information. Since we don't know much about it, but we do know it's killing people and possibly causing permanent health problems in recovered people, we really have to listen to the experts who know the most about pandemics. We need to be united if we're going to get past this. We can't have some people obeying a lock down while others think it doesn't apply to them - we all need to unite under a plan of action for it to be effective. I don't care if you don't trust medical experts (you know I've had plenty of trust issues myself). We all need to obey the plan of action for it to have a chance of working, no one is exempt. The alternative is anarchy, which isn't organized enough to protect lives during a pandemic. 

2. Misinformation is spreading like wildfire, and people who are spreading the misinformation are extremely stubborn about it. Like I said in my last point, you're entitled to your opinion. That doesn't mean it's factual or up-to-date with current information. That doesn't mean your opinion is helpful. If you cannot back up your opinion with scientific facts and theories, statistics, or proven solutions then it's probably best not to post it on social media. If your opinion is politically driven, not science driven, then it's not helpful. If your opinion is only about how to help yourself, not your whole community, then it's not helpful. Spreading misinformation gives people a false sense of security, creates anxiety, causes people to make potentially bad decisions, and makes it so much harder for our experts to lead us. What you post on social media does influence people, and if you're influencing people to ignore our leader's efforts then you are creating anarchy. If people are not listening to and obeying our medical experts and scientists then we will not be united. Unity will protect lives and our economy. Unity now will mean we can safely reopen the country sooner.

I am, however, seeing that it's helpful to share facts. Facts often come with interpretation (this blog post is an example.) Interpretation can easily turn into misinformation full of logical fallacies. Just think about what you're saying, or at least make it clear that you're only offering interpretation that could be wrong. But people need to be exposed to facts in order to be educated, up-to-date, and less anxious. Facts, not opinions, will help us get through this pandemic.

3. You don't know other people's situations, and so we need empathy to guide us. A small business owner might be begging to reopen businesses so that their small business doesn't go bankrupt and permanently close, because they were unable to secure a small business loan before the funding ran out. That person isn't wrong to be worried. A mother and father might be begging to reopen schools because they're both essential workers who cannot get time off work to home school their children. These parents are not wrong to struggle. An immunocompromised person might be begging their governor to extend a lock down because they cannot trust people to not spread the virus. This person isn't wrong to fear for their life. A healthcare worker might be begging people to stay home because they can't keep up with all the patients in their hospital. This person isn't wrong to be anxious about their ability to treat everyone who needs treatment. People are not wrong to be in their situations, and what they need to make their situation ideal might be the opposite of what someone else needs to make their situation ideal. We have no choice but to compromise and be united under a plan that protects the most people. My opinion is that health and lives should be a priority over the economy, but I do think we need to protect the economy as much as possible so that poor quality of life doesn't lead to suicide, homelessness, hunger, and other poor health issues. This is extremely tricky. I don't have the answers, so I'm going to obey our science experts who are leading us through this. I have been very happy with North Dakota's leadership because we were able to keep most of the economy open while doing as much as we could to prevent the spread of covid-19. Yes, people were financially hurt, but there is no solution that won't involve people being hurt.






Now I want to address specific common comments I'm seeing on social media, the comments are copy-and-pasted in red quotes:


"Covid Deaths are Inflated"
"   Wording is very important. Not all of those deaths were caused by Covid. The health department and Burgum himself have announced quite a few as “dying with Covid” not “dying from Covid”.   "

"   dying with means you died from something else and you just tested positive for Covid. That should not count as a Covid death.   "

"   So 4 more have died you cannot assume it the virus! This is BS all older people, maybe it was their time. Every time you do this and count it as virus, we get closer to mandatory vaccination! I want to see real numbers! not everyone passed because of covid!   "

"   It's not deaths because of covid, it's deaths with covid folks, if you were dying from kidney failure, contract the disease and then die... Because if your kidney failure, you get added to the covid death total, covid might be speeding things up but it's not the cause if death, the news needs to do a better job of clarifying this, but facts don't make good news stories.....fear does  "

This infuriates me! This idea is that people with underlying conditions are going to die without covid anyway, so therefore we shouldn't count their deaths as from covid-19 because it inflates the numbers and creates fear mongering. I'm screaming "WTF!?" First of all, these people have no idea how medical coding works, and so their point about distinguishing "dying with covid" and "dying from covid" doesn't actually apply to medical codes. Primary cause of death will always be recorded as what caused the death. If a cancer patient dies from the flu, the primary cause of death was the flu since they would have lived longer with cancer if the flu didn't kill them. If someone with a flesh eating bacteria that was slowly eating them to death was struck and killed by lightning, lightning is the primary cause of death. Second, they're saying that a person with underlying conditions are not worth saving? They're saying that a person with underlying conditions should die? Having an underlying chronic illness doesn't mean that person will die soon. Many, if not most (need to look up the statistics depending on the type of chronic illness), people with chronic illnesses live full lives until old age. If they have covid-19 at their time of death, it was very unlikely they were going to die then without contracting covid-19. If a person's underlying condition is old age, that doesn't mean they're going to die anytime soon. A 90 year old person could still have 10 or more good years left to live. Who are you to decide? Stop treating old age as if it implies a low quality of life not worth living. If a person dies with covid-19 then it needs to be counted as a covid-19 death. This isn't fear mongering, it's data, statistics, and fact. This is a great example of how spreading your uninformed opinion causes harm. It's trying to teach people to value other people less!



"Stay At Home If You're Afraid"
"   Enjoy Freedom, Use common sense, If you don’t feel your ready STAY HOME... But some of us don’t have your feelings   "

"   This crap needs to stop. If your sick stay home. If your weak, stay home. Let the rest of us go to work!!   "

On the surface this way of thinking seems logical. If you're afraid to go out into the world, then stay at home and don't participate in the world. Until you really think about how this "solution" applies to reality. Unless these stay-at-home people can work full-time with benefits online from home, how do they manage their finances when the rest of the world has gone back to "normal"? What if they are an essential employee and their job does not make them feel safe because they have to work with customers who are not taking the pandemic seriously? It isn't exactly possible to keep participating in a world that returns to normal, but you don't return to normal. The stay-at-home people suddenly become like disabled people, who are ignored and forgotten since the rest of the world only looks at the "normal" they see around them.

I can paint you a picture of what this looks like. I have been avoiding most public places for about 7 years now because of how sick I can become in public. I have had to "stay home" because if I go into places like Target or Walmart I'll develop a nasty flare from reacting to all the fragrances, dirty air, artificial lights, and stimuli. I had to choose a job where I could be active enough to keep my blood pressure high enough to perform well, while limiting my exposure to artificial fragrances and dirty air, that also would work with my limited energy and allow me to work shorter shifts. I can't just go work any job like most people, I'm too disabled. When the rest of the world won't adjust its "normal" to be safe for most people, people like myself have to adjust our lives to stay healthy, which means being very cut-off from "normal." I understand that people with my illnesses are in too great of a minority to change the "normal" without years and years of science, advocacy, and government care. People who want to stay home to stay safe during this Covid-19 pandemic, however, may not be a minority, and if they are they are still a very large group of people. This many people staying at home will mean the economy won't just go back to normal - businesses will still have to work with many at-home customers.





Thank you for reading my long blog post. I feel the need to offer my perspective. Even if you do not agree with my concerns, I feel it is very important to understand each other. If I don't say what my concerns are, how can you understand me? I am actively reading other perspectives, which is what influenced me to write this post. Please feel free to comment with your blogs, or even share articles to help you express your perspective. I want to participate in a constructive educational conversation. I hope to contribute to a culture of critical, rational thinking that can create ideas to help manage this pandemic with the least sacrifices.