Brin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brin_bellway) wrote2023-01-23 09:05 pm
brin_bellway) wrote2023-01-23 09:05 pm
Variolation, part 6: One thousand, four hundred, and sixty-five days
[fairly strong cw: illness]
[informed-consent note for those of you who are looking at a direct link and can't see the tags from here: this post is tagged "#medical: diseases: colds" and *not* "#medical: diseases: covid19"]
(part 5)
(there's no obvious place to put the context-links, but this post assumes that you've read "All those days of pure, elemental misery, of nothing but waiting for the light" and "One thousand and fifty-one days")
---
I've broken my just-over-four-year cold-free streak.
Sort of. Technically. Mostly.
It was my second-ever non-depressive cold. The main brunt of it was over in just under 72 hours.
---
I've been reflecting on it, and if this were all I were risking by breathing public air (and it isn't all that *anyone* is risking, but that's another matter), I'd still mask. Probably not a P100, and I'd be more willing to take off my mask to eat, but do you know what? Even time periods that are net-positive utility can still be pretty awful.
(And while getting three hours of sleep on Wednesday night because one's nasal passages are barely functional is not *quite* so unpleasant as a severe depressive episode, it *is* approximately as incapacitating. I basically did nothing but re-read old A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry posts and nap on Thursday. I barely even ate.)
---
Also, on a similar note, I'd forgotten how *bad* the long tail is. It might be a matter of perspective: I don't have the oh-thank-god-my-brain-works-again relief colouring it (if anything, I was hoping that--since the *rest* of the cold had been a combination of all the mildest traits of every cold I'd ever had--it would also be like that one cold that didn't *have* a tail).
...although I do think the intermittent swollen lump in my throat (subtly different from the first day's sore throat) is new. Doesn't restrict breathing (*knocks on wood*), but makes it annoying to swallow. I've been trying to plan mealtimes around it.
[informed-consent note for those of you who are looking at a direct link and can't see the tags from here: this post is tagged "#medical: diseases: colds" and *not* "#medical: diseases: covid19"]
(part 5)
(there's no obvious place to put the context-links, but this post assumes that you've read "All those days of pure, elemental misery, of nothing but waiting for the light" and "One thousand and fifty-one days")
---
I've broken my just-over-four-year cold-free streak.
Sort of. Technically. Mostly.
It was my second-ever non-depressive cold. The main brunt of it was over in just under 72 hours.
---
I've been reflecting on it, and if this were all I were risking by breathing public air (and it isn't all that *anyone* is risking, but that's another matter), I'd still mask. Probably not a P100, and I'd be more willing to take off my mask to eat, but do you know what? Even time periods that are net-positive utility can still be pretty awful.
(And while getting three hours of sleep on Wednesday night because one's nasal passages are barely functional is not *quite* so unpleasant as a severe depressive episode, it *is* approximately as incapacitating. I basically did nothing but re-read old A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry posts and nap on Thursday. I barely even ate.)
---
Also, on a similar note, I'd forgotten how *bad* the long tail is. It might be a matter of perspective: I don't have the oh-thank-god-my-brain-works-again relief colouring it (if anything, I was hoping that--since the *rest* of the cold had been a combination of all the mildest traits of every cold I'd ever had--it would also be like that one cold that didn't *have* a tail).
...although I do think the intermittent swollen lump in my throat (subtly different from the first day's sore throat) is new. Doesn't restrict breathing (*knocks on wood*), but makes it annoying to swallow. I've been trying to plan mealtimes around it.
no subject