2020-03-14 - Sick 
 =================

 So,  amidst  all the  headlines  and  the  scares and  the  idiots
 variously claiming that the whole thing  was a hoax or hysteria, I
 got sick.

 It  started  as a  general  feeling  of  malaise, a  fuzziness  of
 feeling, a loss  of appetite. Last weekend it got  worse, and came
 on like the  worlds worst flu ever, aching in  every joint, fever,
 sweats. I resolved to call the doctor monday morning.

 Monday dawned, and I literally could  not get out of bed. I tried,
 but I collapsed on  the floor as if exhausted, it  took me half an
 hour to  get back into the  bed (family having decamped  to school
 &c).  It was  while struggling  back  into bed  that the  coughing
 started. After coughing,  I couldn't catch my breath,  I lay there
 gasping as if  drowning, except I didn't really  have the strength
 to gasp properly.

 Yeah.

 Cutting a  long story  short, I  have covid-19.  I was  briefly in
 hospital in  the middle  of the  week, and  was released  after my
 symptoms  settled  into a  controlled  phase.  I was  released  to
 self-isolation at home, one which  I now technically share with my
 family but  am completely isolated  from them. I  communicate with
 them over the phone.

 I was released because my bed was needed by someone who's symptoms
 were  far  worse than  mine,  someone  who needed  oxygen,  either
 passively  or by  intubation. I  got  a handout  when leaving  the
 hospital which  speaks of the Fifth  Day. That's the day  when, in
 some cases, the lung capacity of the infected is reduced to such a
 level that  the body starts to  "crash" in terms of  symptoms. The
 lung capacity is  so low that the heart starts  to beat faster and
 faster trying desperately to pump  oxygen to the organs. The brain
 starts to  prioritise organs  and body functions.  As it  does so,
 things  begin, inexorably,  to  fail, and  require urgent  medical
 attention.  This  happens  to  between  4 and  7  percent  of  all
 sufferers of  Covid-19. Something  short of  half of  those people
 die.

 Today was  my sixth day  since becoming symptomatic. I  still feel
 like death, this has taken me an age to type, but I am still here.
 As Granny Weatherwax says: I Ate'nt Ded.