re: COVID-19 update
-------------------

I'm now on day 9 since I first developed notceable symptoms of
COVID-19, after all of my four other housemates, and yesterday was the
first day I'd say I started to feel 'like my old self' again. Today
I'm even better - though I'm not fully recovered and, judging by the
recovery of my housemates, it certainly takes a while to fully get
over - at least 3-weeks since the start of symptoms, if not more. What
I've noticed from housemates is that symptoms seem to flare up again,
or new symptoms emerge, the less rest you carry on getting when
recovering. One example is a housemate who is on day 11 of symptoms
who thought they were recovered enough to go for a run yesterday, and
felt immense pain in lungs/respiratory system for doing so. I've
similarly felt knackered doing simple tasks such as hanging the
laundry up or sitting in the sun in the garden for a little while -
both left me feeling frazzled and needing to take about a 3-hour lie
down.

Yesterday and today I'm much more fighting fit, but given the slow
recovery time and potential for relapses, I'm continuing to take it
easy. I tried to pick up some work emails and a few work tasks but was
told to continue taking time off... so that's what I'm doing now.

The most annoying symptom I developed was a loss of taste and smell,
albeit with a kind-of 'metallic' taste being left in
mouth/throat/airways. My taste still hasn't returned fully (it's more
'texture' that I'm tasting) so I'm hoping that it will, or that I can
use its absence as a general gauge of my recovery.

For one housemate, the third week was the worst, and they were
bed-ridden for about 3-days with photo-sensitivity to light and
feverish symptoms. I think this may have followed them exerting some
energy though, so there's the lesson. I've been doing not much more
than sitting most through the days, and doing some breathing exercises
that a doctor from an ICU unit in a hospital had been sharing: five
deep breaths in being held to the count of 5, then a cough on the
sixth breath - repeat this twice and then lay on your front for about
10-mins taking deep breaths. I believe this is to help clear out the
lungs/respiratory system, as that's where this thing is mainly
targeting/residing.

Be well, sundogs.

~ moji

p.s. I've just seen a few well-wishes from sundogs on here after my
first post on COVID-19. Thanks very much everyone, its really
heart-warming to receive well-wishes <3