Covid'ised

 Day 6, Friday, 3^rd June

I wake up feeling rested. And feel a lot better mentally. Maybe this is easing up. It’s not possessing me 24/7, the worst flu by far I’ve ever had. The worst medical event excepting all the accidents which have put me in hospital or in splints. I can feel the brain fog but I’m at home and no-one is asking anything of me. I clear my school inbox but only complete surveys. I don’t reply to anything or correct any work. I catch up on my long neglected blog. That in itself makes me feel better, getting so far behind makes me feel I’ve lost control. As a too busy life does- somethings have got to go as other things get added in.

I keep to the routine of a morning shower. The weather remains warm, too warm for early June. Leaves are yellowing and falling off but some flowers are opening too soon and I’ve still got strawberries ripening in my street garden. Climate madness. I drive to pick up a vase I’ve bought and wished I hadn’t, a hand painted brooch which represents hours of painstaking work and is beautiful, and some Depression glass which I wish I’d left on Marketplace. As I brake at the lights, the cardboard box with the glass crashes to the floor. My bad. Nic rings and we converse about the house. The lawyer is just able to look at the LIM after being sick with Covid. Feels like this purchase is stretching out.

I make myself a pizza with Ros’s tomatoes when I get home. I’ve got so much food and little appetite. In fact I can’t eat much. Better to keep drinking, except alcohol…this is the longest time I’ve gone without alcohol in recent memory. I keep myself moving and head outside to the south garden with a fork and the radio. I’ve ignored the weeds for weeks. It doesn’t take too long and Jorge is back from the physio and wants to help with compost, even though the physio worked his shoulder and made it sore. We get most of the garden done before Jorge feels a click and the pain he came home with after his visit to the physio intensifies. I finish off. I feel like I’ve achieved something in spite of Covid. With so much unoccupied time at home, it’s impossible to do nothing. Physically, I’m tired but not wrecked. It’s nearly dark when I finish.

Tina has driven to Nelson, I call Bertie and offer food. I feel bad for Jorge and his dreams of getting back to normal after the motorbike accident which took out his shoulder- he’s had months of unoccupied time on ACC. He helps peel and slice potatoes into chip shaped wedges. The nightly routine: dinner, TV, nose blowing, breathing to clear, TV till late so I’m tired to sleep when I get to bed.

 

Day 7, Saturday, 4^th June

I wake up snotty but I’ve had a good sleep. Not shivery and with perceptively more energy. I make tea and toast, head back to bed to read and write. The time to do both is luxurious. Catching up with the history of my life. The Absolute Book is not the right read, becoming a slog but I determinedly read on. The Covid brain fog everyone talks about is real and I’m hoping this cerebral activity will keep me lucid. There are more Covid casualties on the Friday group chat, at least we’re all getting ill at the same time so can have a good catch up at Scoff and Lisa’s disco party. Don’t know how out of it I can get, my brain feels like it needs time to get back to itself.

I decide to tidy up the garden out front where the portaloo was. Jorge is keen to help so I give him the job of cleaning up the path to the washing line while I dig. I’ve got Kim Hill blaring and clear a swathe of dahlias, runner beans and dead leaves. Jorge helps me wheel barrow a top layer of compost and we’re almost finished when his energy levels drop and he feels cold. Covid. His protestations of rude health which can withstand the virus fall away and he disappears inside to lie in his room shivering. I carry on, vindicated in my predictions that he, like everyone else, would succumb.

I cook up another pizza for lunch. There’s a Covid camaraderie in the house but Jorge is too unwell to want to do anything but lie prone. So I leave him to it. There’s not much going on so I try to read then decide to go out. I have another Marketplace purchase to pick up and a butter drop off to Robyn. The vase turns out to be another white elephant I’ll have to store then flick on. Shopping online is a trap, even little things. It’s about surplus stuff, which is why everyone is selling.

Truth is I’m bored. I keep doing things and am getting through a backlog of tasks but without the stimulation of getting out and about mixing, I’m bored. I’m tackling stuff in my room, starting with shoes, when Bertie calls. I give him a blanket, I’ve also identified 3 pairs of my shoes, a pair of Lionel’s cowboy boots, and some clothes that need to go. While I’m in the wardrobe sister Nick and Amana ring to see how I am. I photograph a coat I want to sell but Bertie persuades me to keep it. In the end we all have too much stuff, the western curse, and my stuff in piles all over my room is getting to me. I’ve lived with it for too long, walking around and over it, ignoring it till I can’t see it anymore. But it’s a mental barrier to a clear path ahead. I need to get it out the door.

We make pumpkin soup, a coconut feijoa cake, offer Jorge help, and I watch footage from the Queen’s personal videos. Bertie’s anti-royal and is diplomatically quiet, occupied with cream cheese icing for the cake. I love history and the Queen has been part of my life. I admire who she is and what she’s achieved through her unwavering commitment to her role as monarch. Other women with big shoes, Kurds who created their own fighting force, alongside men, against ISIS. I blow my nose and cough a lot. Once I start coughing it’s hard to stop. But I’m feeling more human, except for my head. It feels as big as a football and more solid than a bowling ball. My Covid’s an endurance test.

 

Day 8, Sunday, 5^th June

I wake trying to clear my nose. I’ve slept longer but it’s still dark outside. Even Covid can’t knock me out for long. As well as my nose, I’m clearing the backlog of neglected blog and now Covid, diary writing. This time is invaluable, my time. I’m well enough to sit up with a computer and unwell enough I can’t work. There’ll be a catch up but I’m taking advantage of this isolation time while I’ve got it. Covid has few silver linings.

I’ve got a radio on my bed and news is all about the Queen. It’s her 70^th jubilee, and it’s NZ’s Queen’s birthday. I’ve lived in England long enough to feel part of that story; the Di and Charles part of that story, mid 80’s to mid 90’s while I was living in London. When I get up I collect garden forks, wheelbarrow, gloves, radio, and start digging the street strip. I make it to the drive before lunch pangs and a head ache send me inside. My head down for so long has generated a head ache, an obvious Covid message. I need to stop. I ponder long Covid which Tina had and which is talked about a lot. I don’t want it. Finally, online, I record my Covid positive status. There’s no place to put the date so I leave it. An imperfect system and I get text reminders to put info on household contacts which I ignore.

I find I want to eat carbohydrates and sugars, veges not much, fruit only a little. I finish the fourth sachet of Vitamin C concentrate Tina left out. It tastes disgusting, bitter, a spoonful of medicine. I’m slowly losing my paunch which I put down to no alcohol and less food. Lunch is pumpkin soup and I consider my afternoon over the kitchen island. Same, same, and I’m bored but today I need rest and to quiet my slowly throbbing temples. I don’t even want to go out in the car. So I pick up my book, make cups of tea and ponder the universe. More nose blowing, sinus pressure points and TV watching.

 

Day 9, Monday, 6^th June

I wake up feeling like I’ve turned a corner and sit up to clear my nose; this takes an hour. I’m using boxes of tissues but at least I haven’t got anosmia, a word I learned in The Absolute Book, where smell is completely absent. I haven’t lost either smell or taste, though at times they’ve been reduced. I beginning to wonder if the impact on my sinuses is caused by my underlying condition of rhinorrhea which I inherited from Tui. Normally I blow my nose all the time, especially when I’m eating. Covid has blocked up that area. Just a guess.

The sky is blue and it’s warm, been like that all Covid; rings climate change bells. It’s not cold enough for June. Jorge crawls to the blue chair and sits in the sun. He groans when he speaks and his eyes narrow and glassy. So much for non-vaccination. I’m sympathetic but I’m not. I go into the garden and finish the front, pausing for lunch and a Covid test before composting it. I sneeze and sneeze and am predictably still positive.

I’m grateful for the Covid garden catch up. I’d simply fall further behind in my outside maintenance chores otherwise. My compost bins need refilling so I drive to the Ferrymead Pony Club horse poo stash for a pick up. I heave four into the car then drive slowly home with the back weighed down. I compost a last spot by the clothes line to footpath level then wheel the horse poo to the bin. I’m halfway done when Bertie arrives.

I’m proud of my garden achievements and relax inside. I help Bertie make beef casserole then retire to my room. Been on the go all day. Tina gets home full of life and aroha after visiting Nelson, catching up with old friends. Our Christchurch whanau sits down to a welcome home winter meal. They tell me I’m too sick to work- I’ve already texted to request relief. I’m better but teaching is unrelenting and I know I’m not well enough yet. Jorge is feeling and looking very sick. But not dying. Omicron has spared us the ravages of the first rounds of Covid. We’re sick but we’ll survive.

 

Day 10, Tuesday, June 7^th

I wake up and blow my nose again and again. Ten tissues and buckets of snot later I breathe easily for the first time in ages. I sit in bed wondering how I’m going to cope with school tomorrow, what I will need to do, how I’m going to motivate my senior kids who can’t be bothered when I don’t have the energy or the motivation. Like their slack work ethic is my fault? I spend time on the computer composing words till I realise the morning is half over and I need to start the rest of my day. I drive to the beach to look for seaweed but the tide is high and there’s only a few scraps. I collect what I can then visit Amana.

She’s in her van but gets up to show me round: progress with paint and windows and there’s a builder on the roof. The last one left a mess but this one is good. He’ll do things once and do them right. I keep my distance so minimize germ spread. She tells me I look sick. I may do but I feel better than I have in ages. At home I put the seaweed in the wheel barrow.

Jorge is looking and sounding better but sitting around. I eat lunch then decide it’s time to really do something about my overcrowded bedroom. I’m hard at it when Bertie puts his face in the door. He helps me do a few jobs. Disconcertingly there are 4 borer holes in the front door frame. Last time we looked there were 2. Old joinery, I thought I’d escaped borer. I even get the shoe nugget out. And list more things on Marketplace. Sooner or later they’ll go straight to the goodwill store.

I have to get my finger splint changed. The break is feeling a lot better but the finger joint is quite swollen. It will be partly arthritis which I was getting anyway and which had Lionel’s fingers bent and twisted by the time he was 90. I also visit the post office and the supermarket. I feel daring and unwell. At home I finish putting horse poo and seaweed in both compost bins then potter. I unwillingly text school to tell them I’ll be in tomorrow…shouldn’t be going. Some schools are going back to hybrid learning because they just don’t have enough healthy staff to man the desks.

I grab food out of the fridge, still so much in there, eat and keep tidying my room. Bertie arrives and helps me glue together my old mirror. Eventually I sit down and slow down. I get slower and slower till I have to kick Bertie out the door so I can get to bed early, for me.

 

Day 11, Wednesday, June 8^th

I wake up not feeling ready for work. The reluctance is coming through my bones, organs and cells, seeping through my brain, my head, my emotive self but it’s so buried its voice is lost. I find my bike in the garage and set the pedals in motion. They turn surprisingly easily. When I get to the wooden railway bridge I count the steps, 25 up and 27 down. It’s a rickety old thing, uneven and narrow, high above the tracks. But not high enough for the two young guys who lost their heads riding on top of a carriage from North Canterbury to the central city station.

At school I feel reluctant to show my face. I don’t have the energy to respond. So why am I here? An overriding sense of duty. My colleagues are thin on the ground, I know my students won’t be learning like they should. The department is having a marking meeting; their first response, “What are you doing here? You should be at home.” I agree. They want me to go but I say I’ll see how I fare. I have an easy day anyway. Yeah right.

I stand at the back of the hall during staff briefing where we practise the school waiata and haka. I can barely keep pace. Kerren puts out a request for preball drinks since I can’t have them at my place…just as well. I start to realise how under the weather I still am. I’ve come a long way in a week but Covid still has me in its grip.

I walk slowly to double 303. I can get through this. The kids will be sitting working, so will I. I wear a mask and it doesn’t feel as uncomfortable as it did. I definitely don’t want to spread germs. We decamp to a computer room as we don’t have enough machines in my class. I connect with Chris, the friendly Samoan giant, who played Kahu’s rugby team at Hagley. He’s even in the background of a picture I took. Doesn’t do a lot of work but is very solid with warm energy.

I make it back to class and a couple of my lively girls greet me warmly. I wish I could reciprocate. I send the Year 13 peer support leaders back to the computer lab to get chrome books the kids left there. My brain is not functioning well enough. It needs to constantly make connections, layer on layer, and it can’t. I shuffle to the English work room and chew on fruit and mueseli. Slowly, hardly tasting, till I’ve finished. I have a free so can take my time, converse with Corinne. We strategise my recovery. Home till I’m better. It’s obvious the school is limping on. Other schools are closing or going back to hybrid learning because of staff absence. We are covering each other, adding to our workload and stress. The others are mutinously muttering about our needs as teachers. Why aren’t management prioritizing those? We’re just managing, limping along to what purpose?

I begin to realise how hard it is for those kids who get Covid badly or who have to stay at home because their family is sick and they must self-isolate and/or look after every else because they are the healthiest. And then there’s recovery time. We need to take it easy on each other. I wonder about my marking and try to organize so I can do some at home. The reality is, I probably won’t. The Year 12’s come in and I rally myself to teach those who are there. Big gaps due to yet another trip out. Little wonder my teaching programme goes out the window. We recap our first film, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, as well as they can with scant notes. They are like possums trapped in the headlights too. We all need more continuity. The core reality of Covid, its chief characteristic…disruption.

At lunch I ignore my duty obligations out on the field and stay close. When my form class come in, it’s an easy decision from them and me, silent reading. They walk out and I give myself a tick. I’ve got through a day. But that’s not teaching and I won’t put myself or anyone else through it till I’m able. I sit and take care of personal things, which leads to paper throw out. I reflect on how much my job has changed over the years. We used to do rolls by hand writing who was absent on a list brought to each class by a student runner. Each period. Someone collated those at the office. Feels like light years away. I still like to use paper and print off a loan application now to buy a car, if I need it. I try to complete an insurance claim online for my finger and go round in circles between school and incognito screens. The forms get lost and buried, I print some off and scan them, download and lose them. It takes too long, I feel tired, frustrated and antsy. I realise Covid is at work but refuse to give up.

Desparate for fresh air, I finally get on my bike. By the time I get home I can’t even remember climbing the foot bridge and going down the other side. I just want to shut the front door, change and get into my garden. Jorge is sitting in a chair looking sick and saying he’s feeling better. He’s been at home and to relieve his boredom follows me down the path to help get Tina’s washing off the line. Joint effort. I weed till dark. Not before time, there’s some noxious weeds about to take hold. Neglect care at my peril. I’ve spent too much time establishing this garden to let it go to rack and ruin. Same with my body. I eat, drink, rest then put myself to bed to rest some more. Covid is king.

 

Day 12, Thursday 9^th June

I’m in a routine of tea, reading, coffee, food, computer in bed, shower then jobs. I make a list this morning and notice I am able to organize. My first is finding a handle to put a cleaning pad on for the shower, then I pick up a Marketplace barometer purchase. Drop off at Amana’s, check the beach for seaweed but the tide is high, drop off Home and Garden mags at Theo and Alex’s, they’re going to build a house, then home. That’s enough.

Bertie is in my park when I arrive. We make a pizza and have a talk. I need him to understand our relationship is not going to be the big one in my life. It’s good to be doing while talking as it takes the sting out of the words. He seems ok. I take a trip to my bank with a loan application to help me buy a car. I want to step away from petrol and Bertie helps me look at EV’s and hybrids. The latter seem the more practical alternative. I’m relieved to see I won’t have to borrow a fortune and as I don’t need to borrow to buy a house down south, I’m not burdening myself with too much debt. I’m hoping savings on fuel will offset interest payments.

Julia, SBS friend and loan processor, is pleased to see me. We look at the form then chat- we’ve seen each other often over the years as I used to come into the bank to deposit Mark’s rent. Lynn is another familiar face and tells me Kahu has been in today to sort out a machine swallowed card. Small world indeed. I call him when I’m home and he asks for food as he can’t get any till he has access to cash again. Also tells me he’s booked a driving test next month. Timing wise that should work. I drive over with a care package and he drives us to friends he’s going to hang out with. I wonder how much driving practice he’s getting, enough to pass his test?

I had organized to go to a function at the Arts Centre but can’t face the noise and business and don’t feel like drinking or eating. So I garden till dark then try to help Jorge with his computer. He cooks a big piece of beef for dinner which takes ages. Bertie comes to watch TV then stays for a hangout. We drink some Noccino, the first alcohol I’ve had since I got Covid. It puts me to sleep. I go to bed with heart burn, a digestive feature which has worsened since my illness.