Is it possible I've had Covid-19?
Back a couple of months a certain Mr Hipkin and I were chatting by his cafe which is partway down his 'slope'. I've mentioned it several times re stress-testing the old heart. Beach to clifftop with a nice U bend in the middle. Best time, Sand to clifftop, 65 seconds.
"We used to scream down here on our soapbox carts. Terrifying." "Yes, and now you go up it like it's not here". I was kinda proud of my 80 yo bones. Hardly had he got the words out of his mouth and my performance fell off. Next couple of days a seriously uncomfortable pain started in my right chest.
Can't be, not me. Got lots of irritating little things, by legs-heart-lungs - a real Superman me-ee. I pushed on for three days or so and then got gout. That stopped me. Feet became swollen, but that had never happened before with gout. A bitey dæmon with its jaws over my toe, yes, that was back, but the swelling. An now the cough. Dry, no snot, ever. Headache, and a kind of battle going on in my immune system, worse at nights.
But then I've go a history of being allergic to a broad spectrum of chemicals. Wheat, gluten. Total PITA. But now I've got fat feet. I'll call Dr Google.
Flippin' 'ek!!! Right heart failure.
"Right heart failure is not all that bad" my GP was saying to me."
"Oh, toodle off. I want to be Superman, not accepting my bull's heart is anything but 1000 HP just ticking over." "How old are you?" "80" "Really? Well, Behave your age. 80 . . . ?" "yes" "most of your contemporaries are dead." Mmmm, not quite, but getting there. But now the weezing, blamed on the heart's inability to get rid of water, was getting worse. By bedtime, I had to walk fromn my den on balls of water. Can't be right. Chest hurt more, like a painful cucumber to the right of the lung. All my muscles ached , as did my head. Energy gone, and that old something fighting the core of my being while I'm typing, not unusual, but here and a bad one. It's all blurrrrred with this historic allergy thing.
About three weeks of muscles hurting. Press-ups make the muscles hurt that night. Deep nasty hurt. So did the cucumber, right of right lung.
AS I've said before, heart, and I'm going to stress it until it explodes. Heck, I used to run up the Basle tower and meet my FO's at the lift door. Just my sense of humour. Bo-lox to main pump failure, but I'll take it easy for a while. It was getting better, even my feet were becoming feet-shaped again. Yaaaay, I can wear my shoes. But, there were too many things that didn't fit. Getting better was one of them 100 seconds beach to top now, but still pretty aerobic for an oldie.
Slowly, slowly the aching pain of press-ups and rowing are subsiding. My body is healing, but slower than when I was a kid. Not everything fits the RH heart failure hypothesis. And now folk are describing this dry cough, weakness and headaches.
What I had assumed was an allergic reaction to doing a clothes wash - that's the usual one - just may have been a virus. The GP just said that in passing.. Just a virus. But now, there's a specific virus kicking around, and I tick circa 60% of the boxes. or I did.
Needless to say I want to have had it, but the new detection kits are prototypes and not to be wasted on some guy that just wonders if he's immune. I'm not quite convinced enough to go to the front line and tease at it. But it would be wonderful to know.