Today is the Spring Equinox, which means that it is also our 18th wedding anniversary (our marriage is old enough to vote!), and also the 18th birthday of our sweet orange kitty, Ren. We weren’t actually sure that Ren was going to make it to his 18th birthday; he caught COVID from us and had already been declining prior to that, but with some new meds and a new routine of subcutaneous fluids, he seems to be doing better. Here’s hoping we get more time with our dear boy.
I am still struggling with the aftermath of COVID; the level of exhaustion and fatigue is just utterly crushing, and while I’m so grateful that the worst of the illness took place during Spring Break, so that I was not getting any further behind on work, I’m now trying to catch up, while also being back to a normal teaching schedule, but with intense fatigue. I’m still having some pretty freaky coughing spells/asthma issues, too. This past week, I taught remotely, so that I could minimize the amount of activity I was forcing my body to do before it was ready, but this week, starting with the first session of my next Mindfulness & Meditation class tonight, I will be back on campus, teaching in person. I’m nervous about how I will handle the exhaustion.
While thankfully none of us ended up in the hospital, I was so sick that I could not do anything at all. I had so many plans for crafty things I had wanted to do over my Spring Break, but instead I spent it utterly immobilized, rewatching the entirety of Steven Universe with my kid in a fevered daze. It was only a couple of days ago that I felt like I might be able to knit on a pair of socks that was nearly finished. So now I have yet another pair of DRK Everyday Socks, this time in Knitpicks’ Hawthorne Tonal in “Sweet Home,” a lovely light purple that goes really nicely with my purple Vita de Vie sweater.
One of the strangest things in this recovery is how disoriented and disconnected from my body I’ve been feeling. I notice it most with violin and knitting, but it’s really everywhere – things I’ve done for years and years suddenly feel strange, alien, unfamiliar…even though I can still do them. And sure, I didn’t practice my violin or knit or drive for about 2 straight weeks, but 2 straight weeks really isn’t long enough to forget what it feels like to do those things. It’s like my brain and my hands and body just aren’t quite on the same wavelength anymore.
I’m experiencing some more standard “brain-fog” issues, too, which are making it very hard to give feedback on the giant pile of assignments I owe my students feedback on. I’ll read a paragraph, realize I should comment, then realize I forgot what the paragraph said, then re-read the paragraph, just to realize I’ve forgotten what I wanted to comment. It’s utterly maddening. But giving feedback is literally my job, so my plan for the afternoon is to set up my Focus Timer app and try as hard as I can to get through the remainder of drafts I owe feedback on for one of my classes. And then the rest of the week, I’m going to try to give feedback on at least a couple of things per day. I have no idea if I’m actually going to be able to sustain this – the fatigue is so intense when it hits that there’s no “pushing through it”, so we’ll just have to see. There’s no end in sight, though, other than the end of the semester, because once I get through the current pile, there will be a new pile for me, and with everything taking me longer than usual, that’ll stay true through the beginning of May. I planned ahead and built in breaks between piles of feedback when I created my course schedules, but COVID obliterated them (and me). C’est la vie. I doubt I’ll have much in terms of crafty stuff to share here for the foreseeable future while I try to do a more-than-full-time job with less-than-full-time energy.
whit::knits 
I was fortunate that when I got it, it didn’t linger, and the physical symptoms weren’t too bad (although two days of being simultaneously freezing and way too hot were fun).
But that brain fog. Wow. It is no joke. I’d heard of it, obviously, and encountered people who were still dealing with it well after everything else had passed, but I’m not sure I was really prepared for it when it hit. I write for a living, so I’m very glad that it didn’t stick around very long either, but it was haaaard while it was going on. I don’t think I’ve ever really experienced something like that before. I wish you all the mental fortitude and focus and whatever else I can wish you to get through it.