—by Eric Foy
As one might imagine, contracting COVID-19 and being sent to your room for ten days is a thing that generates extra opportunity to spend time doing mildly entertaining or marginally beneficial stuff, and stuff.
Thus, this.
I will be updating this document in the days to come, so stay tuned for a gripping nail-biter: the story of one man's harrowing trip through Wuhan-land, all inside his own home...
The Inception
I woke up in the middle of the night, about 3:am, and I had a hunch something wasn't right. I don't recall exactly what gave me that impression, but I think I remember feeling sort of like I had a fever (which I didn't have), and feeling sort of like my lungs were congested (which they clearly were not). I had no shortness of breath, but something inside my mind told me that I might be short of breath. I checked, and I wasn't. I was breathing just fine.
Yet, something was telling me that all was not well, and that I should prepare for something bad. Then I went back to bed.
Later that morning I got up feeling "okay, I guess," but soon knew that I had contracted something. It wasn't until I checked the list of COVID-19 symptoms online that I realized… my symptoms lined up almost perfectly, especially if I answered "yes" to the ones I didn't quite have, but was pretty sure I would soon have.
Like shortness of breath, for instance. When someone asked, "have you experienced shortness of breath?" my knee-jerk answer was, "why, yes, I have," even though the fact of the matter is that I had not experienced shortness of breath; I had only contemplated it. But it seemed real. But I know that it was not.
Now, the thing is, I had a pretty serious case of pneumonia back in 2000, which included a fever of 104, and took me a couple of weeks to kick, and numerous months to really recover from. Since then, I'm very careful when it comes to anything that causes lung congestion, as I have noticed that I am now more susceptible than before. So I am watching this thing real close.
Consistent with my socially rebellious nature and my propensity to question authority, I have quickly developed my own treatment regimen, which I will describe. Note that what I am doing might be utter foolishness—even harmful—so DO NOT take this as a recommendation. If I'm being really stupid or negligent, then perhaps the world can use me as another example of what NOT to do. We'll see.
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I am NOT locking myself in my room and staying there for ten days.
So far (as of Day 3), I have felt pretty good each morning, with very minimal symptoms. So the way I figure it, to just lie there in bed like a rug 24/7 would cause more harm than good. Therefore,
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I AM taking time each morning to do a non-strenuous task which involves enough movement to exercise my muscles and cardiovascular system just a bit. This will prevent my breathing from remaining shallow, which would invite the in-settling of fluids and pathogens; or it will at least help maintain a more oxygen-rich environment, which is more conducive to my own immune response.
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I AM taking two long naps each day, one at noon, the other at five or six in the evening. This should provide the extra rest my body needs for recovery.
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I AM doing deep breathing exercises several times a day, similar to those described in the Wim Hof method. https://www.wimhofmethod.com/blog/staying-positive-and-healthy-during-th...
Medications
These are the vitamins and minerals I am taking every six hours:
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Vitamin C : 6,000 mg
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Vitamin D3 : 30 mcg (1,200 IU)
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Calcium Carbonate : 2,000 mg
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Magnesium Oxide : 800 mg
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Zinc Sulfate : 30 mg
Plus, NOT every six hours:
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Ibuprofen : cautiously, only as required.
Diet
I think diet is very important. Now, I keep hearing about how this Chi-Com virus works by producing (?) or modifying (maybe ?), or transmitting maybe (?) some protein(s), or a specific protein… Like, apparently the thing has what they call a Spike Protein. Now, I don't know what that means, but it doesn't sound good to me. So apparently there's such a thing as "bad protein," and obviously this Wuhan thing is a purveyor of it.
This naturally made me think about diet, because over recent years, I have tended to lean more toward a high protein diet. So my demonstrably scientific analysis concludes that my diet is already optimized for fighting COVID-19, because the best thing to do is to fight protein with protein. Good protein against bad protein. Therefore, I have continued to eat nine to twelve eggs a day, plus a little toast and juice, plus coffee, because coffee is just, plain good for you. And don't worry. I often throw some veggies into those eggs, so, you know.
Days 1 and 2
Day 2 was an interesting repeat of Day 1, as I felt pretty good in the morning, both physically and mentally. Then as the day progressed, the full body ache moved in, reaching the point at around 8:pm at which it made sleep impossible.
It's not that the pain was so unbearable (I suppose it was a six or seven—not an 8 or 9), but it was so persistent and pervasive. I mean, everything ached, and the only way to deal with it was to keep moving. This obviously was gonna keep me awake. But I needed sleep! So I took 400 mg of ibuprofen each evening. That did the trick, and I slept like a baby… except for waking up in a cold sweat two or three times each night. I don't know what that's all about, but it's a very minor distraction.
Day 3
I woke up wide awake, refreshed, and ready to get back to work. Things just got better as the day went on, as the body pains didn't return and the fevers left as well. It was great, and I really felt like living again. I stayed on my vitamin regimen, and needed no ibuprofen. It was great, but it was a ruse…
I ended up going to bed quite late after falling asleep on the sofa watching YouTube, because, well, Russian car crash videos. Anyway, on my way to bed, I noticed a twinge of the whole body ache had returned...
Day 4
The morning of day 4, I realized that, contrary to how I had felt on Day 3, I was not "pretty much over this thing." I found myself now dealing with the actual lung and breathing issues that I had subconsciously anticipated on Days 1 and 2. Even though all the body aches and fevers were gone, I had very little energy, and I was easily winded.
So I began taking Oil of Cajeput, which is claimed by some to be an excellent expectorant and booster of lung health. Not sure about that, but Sheila has been using it for years with seemingly positive results. So I figure it can't hurt. Unless I'm wrong...
Day 5
Meh. Same ole same-o.
Day 6
Dry cough, reduced lung function.
Most significantly, I now have a pervasive sinus headache, even though my sinuses are totally clear. In fact, it feels like I took too much antihistamine (I have taken none), and I'm completely dried out. Lately, I can't seem to drink enough water, even during the night. I am waking up every thirty minutes feeling parched. It's like this virus has distributed a dessicant throughout my body, like I ate some rat poison or something...
Day 7
Woke up this morning feeling somewhat better, but still struggling to find purpose in my life. It's strange... like this virus messes with your mind as much as anything... like there's this little voice reminding me of the abject futility of it all. Meanwhile, the world around me and it's demands don't let up. I still have projects at home and at work that are being neglected because I'm sleeping much of the day. I really need this thing to pass!
And here's a bizarre experience: Yesterday I found myself reflecting on old memories—things I hadn't recalled in over 20 years—as though they had just happened last month. Perhaps there's a psychological description for this phenomenon. I don't know if this is a thing, but it occurs to me that we live our lives with a kind of contextual inner thought-life that is constantly placing our current experiences, circumstances and memories into a running context or narrative. I think this background process might be essential to our building up of a persistent purpose in life.
Anyway, yesterday I felt like I had just been sucked up out of my current context, and dropped into 25 years ago. It was very subtle, not disturbing, just interesting, that's all.
Day 8
Well, last night the random-stab headache kicked in. Now I know what a Spike Protein is. It's more like a spike than a protein, and Covid fills your head with, like, a bag of spikes—think railroad spikes—and then shakes vigorously. So at 5:am the pain became unbearable, so I took 3 Ibuprofen. An hour later I received some relief, but the rest of the day has been miserable!
I am the most useless atmospheric breather on the planet right now. This is, far and away, the most debilitating medical condition I've ever had. I don't even know how I have the strength, or the will, to write this right now. My spirit must be rallying right now, and I wonder if it will come back after my next nap (coming soon).
So I sort of went off my vitamin regimen on Day 6 and 7, because I felt I was kicking the virus. But no, it has kicked me, and kicked me real hard. Yesterday and today I am a functionless mass of human flotsam. There's some kind of perfect storm of physical and psychological effects going on here. I have never in my life felt this exhausted. I'm telling you right now: this virus is the perfect weapon. You could infect the crew of an aircraft carrier with this thing, and bring it to it's knees. The defense would have to include not only immune system boosters, but psych meds and energy boosters as well. Maybe micro-doses of opiates and micro-doses of methamphetamine.
It would be interesting to find what treatments our military have developed.
So I am reinstating my vitamin regimen, and adding 975 mg of aspirin to the mix. I'm finding this necessary for fighting off the headache, which some sources say could persist for a month or more. So I'm adding prayer to the list...
Day 9
This is horrible.
This totally sucks.
Wanna know the absolute best thing about heaven? Once I get there, I'll never, ever, ever again feel like this.
Day 10
...just...breathe. Just keep breathing, and you'll probably come through this thing.
Day 11
There's no pain, so that's nice. The headaches have passed. There's no pleasure either. I thought I would feel good about feeling better. But there's no feeling, so...
There's only raw data; no conclusion, no summary assessment, no good, no bad. Just raw data. I'd like to conclude that since the worst has clearly passed, there is therefore cause for hope for something better. That would be logical.
But apparently there's something intangible, beyond logic, that the human spirit needs in order to hold onto hope or optimism. That intangible thing within me has clearly suffered massive damage. I hope it's reparable. There's some irony here, right? I hope that I will one day again have hope. It's a bit of a scary place to be, partly because hope itself is what has in the past carried me through the toughest times. I'm therefore being careful not to go too far down this hall of introspection (which leads to questions of one's own sanity); I am instead simply dead-reckoning on the basis of what I know to be factual and true. And this I know: reality has not changed. My reality has not changed. God has not changed. My position before Him has not changed. My life leading up to this point has not been a grand delusion.
My mind is working in a very strange way now. It's as though the microcode has been disrupted, so no higher-level functions operate properly, like they're all returning errors continually. But they're not fatal errors, the processes still continue to function, yet giving meaningless or useless results.
Day 12 and Beyond
Wow!
Suddenly I have clarity again. Thankfully, my brain's hope center was not permanently destroyed. There is a future, and it's less dim than the recent past. I am thanking God for everything from morning coffee to life itself. There was a very real spiritual side to my Covid experience, which I will endeavor to describe without sounding melodramatic. This will not be easy, for the experience has been profound, to say the least.
Epilogue
I would like to describe my Covid journey in some detail, but I don't want to bore anyone with personal trivia or an overly pedantic analysis of minutiae. (I love writing sentences like that... See the trap here?)
So here's my takeaway:
New Spiritual Insight:
Although I have always understood that God is my Protector and the Preserver of my life, I now see this... Over the course of my years, even in the best times, during the really good times, when everything was going great, and only goodness and abundance seemed to lie ahead—even in those times, I was unwittingly walking on the very edge of the precipice of hell, and it has only been by the more-abundant Grace of God that I have survived the unseen dangers, either of a single misstep on my part, or of the relentless onslaught of the enemy of my soul, against whom even God's angels have continually fought on my behalf!
I have lived my entire life a hand's breadth away from destruction, largely unawares. The good fortune I have received is not the consequence of some universal rule about reaping what is sewn. The good fortune I have received has been a gift from God. A gift. From God.
Yeah. That kinda sums it up.
I will be publishing a follow-up article to this one, which will offer more details, and deeper considerations of the significance of them. Once published, you will find it at How COVID-19 Changed My Life.