Personal Note: I got Covid, Urgh

Today is Monday the 10th.  So last Wednesday night (the 5^th) it felt a little funny in my chest.  I thought I might be coming down with something.  I woke up Thursday nauseous with dry heaves.  I even teleworked in the morning and took the afternoon sick.  Eventually I was just out of it.  It became hell.  The fever wasn’t high (less than 101F) but I wonder if I was even reading it right.  I was in a delirious state.  Waking up at one point I thought it was the next day. I noticed on Friday morning from my daily pill box that I had already taken Friday's meds.

It felt like my body was encircled by some electric charge and was just trying to survive.  He was ready to have me go to Emergency Room. My screaming out scared Matthew, who had come in the bedroom to check on me. Probably should have sent me to the ER. If it were me watching someone else in that state I would have too. I don’t think my wife ever realized what state I was in.  I had crawled into bed in the middle of the day and time seemed to vanish. 

I felt better on Friday morning but someone suggested I check for Covid. I had my wife pick up a test kit and sure enough I tested positive. I called my doctor and we set up a telehealth visit as they call it. He asked about my temperature (which was oscillating between normal and 101F), looked over my recent blood test on file, asked when I felt it come on, and prescribed Paxlovid.  Doctor said I should quarantine through Tuesday.  I still had recurring chills but after the first dose of Paxlovid that night I started to feel better. There was no fever on Saturday, Sunday, nor today, but a general weakness. 

Today even the nasal congestion seems to have let up.  I feel pretty well.  I happen to speak to a nurse today—about something else actually—and she said that today the flu might be harsher than Covid.  Hmm, I would agree except for what I experienced on Thursday afternoon.  When I spoke to the doctor on Friday, he seemed surprised this was my first time getting Covid.  Is it that common that everyone gets it now?

###

The story has more to it than my experience.  My wife had been sick before me and was still coughing and occasionally feeling run down.  I told her she should check herself for Covid, so she got herself a test kit and also tested positive.  So this was beginning to make sense.  Her mother has been in a nursing home for over a month and a half.  More on that below.  But the floor of my mother-in-law’s room had a Covid outbreak last week, and still does.  My mother-in-law didn’t get Covid but my wife must have picked it up in one of her daily visits.  Nursing homes are just germ magnets, depositories, and dispensaries. 

My wife’s symptoms were nothing as severe as mine, though hers seem to be lasting longer, probably because she has not been prescribed Paxlovid.  This makes me wonder why my body reacted so to the Covid initially.  It reminds me of my first reaction to the Covid-19 vaccine which I detailed here several years ago.  That post was titled, “Knocked on My Butt By the Vaccine.”  Perhaps I’m more reactive to Covid than others.

###

My mother-in-law fell at the beginning of the December.  She fractured her skull, had a brain bleed, they resolved the bleed, but that developed into blood clots, blood clots got into her lungs which nearly killed her, but they resolved that.  You can see I've honed that story down to its bare elements from frequent retelling.  She was three weeks in the ICU.  The day before Christmas Eve she was discharged to a nursing home, and she's been there since.  As you can imagine, this was pretty challenging, especially for my wife, and it still is. 

As it happens, the nursing/rehab facility is very close to our house.  It's less than a mile.  We go back and forth regularly.  The first time she seemed out of it but in time her brain seemed to be getting sharper. Initially she responded very slow and deliberately but now seems to have total comprehension. It took her a while to get up out of bed.  There was nothing physically wrong with her body but perhaps atrophy from being in bed so long.  After a good month of rehab now she has been able to walk up and down the floor with a walker and a cane, go up and down stairs, and fully function as a solitary person.  Today we even got the great news she will be discharged from rehab facility at the end of next week.

###

So let’s end with a song that came to mind as I reflected on my Thursday afternoon delirium.  It’s a song that came off the Rolling Stones’ album that came out last year, “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” of the album Hackney Diamonds.   Many of you know I’m a big Rolling Stones fan, and, while I would agree their later years have been of mixed quality, this album is a glorious return to what I think is just short of their all time great ones.  I highly recommend Hackney Diamonds and perhaps one day I’ll have a post on it.

For now I’m going to highlight “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” a gospel tune that is uncharacteristically Christian in outlook for the Stones.  Featured on the record are Lady Gaga (vocals), Stevie Wonder (piano and organ), and saxophonist James King.  Wow is not nearly expressive enough.  Here’s the song first, but then I’ll explain why this song came to mind after.

 

Here are most of the lyrics as well.

 

Sweet Sounds of Heaven

(Jagger/Richards)

 

I hear the sweet, sweet sounds of Heaven

Fallin' down, fallin' down to this Earth

I hear the sweet, sweetest sounds of Heaven

Driftin' down, driftin' down to this Earth

 

Bless the father, bless the son

Hear the sound of the drums

As it echoes through the valley

And it bursts, yeah

Let no woman or child

Go hungry tonight

Please protect us from the pain

And the hurt, yeah

 

I smell the sweet scents, sweet

Sweet scents of Heaven, Heaven

Tumblin' down, tumblin' down

Tumblin' down to the Earth (Oh)

I hear the sweet sounds, sweet sounds

The sweet sounds, ooh, the sweet sounds of children

And they're praisin', praisin'

The land of their birth (No)

 

No, I'm not, not goin' to Hell

In some dusty motel

And I'm not, not goin' down

In the dirt (Yes, yes, yes)

I'm gonna laugh, I'm gonna laugh, I'm gonna cry, I'm gonna cry

Eat the bread, drink the wine

'Cause I'm finally, finally quenchin'

My thirst, yeah

 

You can't have a light without a little shadow, yeah

Always need a target for your bow and arrow

I want to be drenched in the rain of your heavenly love

Oh, yeah, c'mon (Oh)

 

Let the music, let the music play loud, play loud

Let it burst, let it burst through the clouds, through the clouds

And we all feel the heat

Of the sun, yeah

Yeah, let us sing, let us shout, let us shout

Let us all stand up proud

Let the old still believe

That they're young, yeah

 

Sweet, sweet sound

 

Sounds so sweet, oh, so sweet

Sounds so sweet, so sweet

Heaven, Heaven

Down

Fallin' down, fallin' down

To this Earth

 

That’s pretty religious for Mick Jagger.  You know he supposedly had converted to Catholicism for his first wife, though he’s never spoken about any religious upbringing, so I doubt it was much.

So why am I reminded of this song?  Well, lying in bed in a delirious state felt so isolating, so other worldly that it felt the end was a possibility.  The verses, “No, I'm not, not goin' to Hell/In some dusty motel/And I'm not, not goin' down/In the dirt” resonate.  If you’ve ever been a way alone (business trips for me) in some crappy hotel, the isolation feels overwhelming with perhaps a sense that if I died here no one would really know.  It’s actually a horrible feeling that I’ve had more than once.  Perhaps in that delirious state, eyes half open in a darkened bedroom, alone and feeling almost out of body, might be as close to a premonition of death as one gets.  At least as I’ve gotten.

But then the sweet grace, the sweet sounds, the sweet sense of heaven came down and revived me.  Thank you Lord.

Edit: It's unclear whether Mick Jagger converted to Catholicism or even had a need to convert.  From what I found on the internet, Mick Jagger's father, Basil Fanshawe “Joe” Jagger, had a Catholic funeral.  There are places that claim Mick was raised Catholic.  Still I doubt religion was a big part of his upbringing.

M-W 2021 Word of the Year: Vaccine

I guess that should not be a surprise.  Vaccine is the Word-of-the-Year chosen by Merriam-Webster Dictionary.  According to Merriam-Webster the word “vaccine” shot up in usage this year and defined the year as a word, driven by two phenomena: the savior of society from the coronavirus (or Covid-19, whichever term you prefer for the agent of the pandemic) and the politics associated with vaccination, either from those who embraced vaccination and those who resisted.  It is true.  The word “vaccine” was on our lips and in our ears throughout the year. 

First a definition.  

1: a preparation that is administered (as by injection) to stimulate the body's immune response against a specific infectious agent or disease: such as

 

a: an antigenic preparation of a typically inactivated or attenuated (see ATTENUATED sense 2) pathogenic agent (such as a bacterium or virus) or one of its components or products (such as a protein or toxin)a trivalent influenza vaccineoral polio vaccineMany vaccines are made from the virus itself, either weakened or killed, which will induce antibodies to bind and kill a live virus. Measles vaccines are just that, weakened (or attenuated) measles viruses.— Ann Finkbeiner et al.… a tetanus toxoid-containing vaccine might be recommended for wound management in a pregnant woman if [greater than or equal to] 5 years have elapsed … .— Mark Sawyer et al.In addition the subunit used in a vaccine must be carefully chosen, because not all components of a pathogen represent beneficial immunological targets.— Thomas J. Matthews and Dani P. Bolognesi

 

b: a preparation of genetic material (such as a strand of synthesized messenger RNA) that is used by the cells of the body to produce an antigenic substance (such as a fragment of virus spike protein)… Moderna's coronavirus vaccine … works by injecting a small piece of mRNA from the coronavirus that codes for the virus' spike protein. … mRNA vaccine spurs the body to produce the spike protein internally. That, in turn, triggers an immune response.— Susie Neilson et al.The revolutionary messenger RNA vaccines that are now available have been over a decade in development. … Messenger RNA enters the cell cytoplasm and produces protein from the spike of the Covid-19 virus.— Thomas F. CozzaViral vector vaccines, another recent type of vaccine, are similar to DNA and RNA vaccines, but the virus's genetic information is housed in an attenuated virus (unrelated to the disease-causing virus) that helps to promote host cell fusion and entry.— Priya Kaur

NOTE: Vaccines may contain adjuvants (such as aluminum hydroxide) designed to enhance the strength and duration of the body's immune response.

2: a preparation or immunotherapy that is used to stimulate the body's immune response against noninfectious substances, agents, or diseasesThe U.S. Army is also testing a ricin vaccine and has reported success in mice.— Sue Goetinck Ambrose… many of the most promising new cancer vaccines use dendritic cells to train the immune system to recognize tumor cells.— Patrick Barry

Notice that 1b sub definition: “a preparation of genetic material (such as a strand of synthesized messenger RNA) that is used by the cells of the body to produce an antigenic substance…”  Those are the new vaccines addressing Covid-19 that have been in controversy.  That definition of vaccine was updated this year to include that sub definition.  Until this year with these Covid vaccines I had no idea of this concept, but as I understand it these forms of vaccines have been in development for a while.  In their announcement for Word-of-the-Year, Merriam-Webster described the definition change and the controversy surrounding the word:

 

In everyday use, words are useful tools that communicate assertions, ideas, aspirations, and uncertainties. But they can also become vehicles for ideological conflict.

 

This is what happened to vaccine in 2021. The promising medical solution to the pandemic that upended our lives in 2020 also became a political argument and source of division. The biggest science story of our time quickly became the biggest debate in our country, and the word at the center of both stories is vaccine.

 

Hopes for cures and treatments of COVID-19 began as soon as the disease began to spread. Research into a new kind of vaccine containing messenger RNA, or mRNA, genetic material rather than an inactivated form of the virus was accelerated. After decades of studies conducted for application to diseases such as influenza, Ebola, and rabies, this new type of mRNA vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus was rapidly developed, tested, and manufactured for broad use, with the first doses being administered in the U.S. in December 2020.

 

The use of a vaccine that triggers an immune response in an entirely new way required that Merriam-Webster revise and expand its entry for the word, which the company did in May. The definition, which formerly read “a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular disease,” was replaced with the following:

So did you choose to get vaccinated?  Were you forced to get vaccinated?  Or have you been rebellious and fought to be exempt?  From what I read, vaccines have been lifesaving.  The hospitals are full of the unvaccinated.  We at my family have all chosen to be vaccinated.  I wrote a post about a number of friends who succumbed to the virus, “Covid-19, My New York Experience” before the vaccines.  Since then I had one of my closest friends, Joe, pass away as well, but Joe was vaccinated.  But Joe was rather vulnerable given all his other health issues. 

Here’s a video on the M-W Word of the Year. 

 

So how did vaccine register so high in Merriam-Webster’s awareness?  They explain from their announcement:

 

Interest in the definition of this word was intense in the past year: lookups for vaccine increased 601% year-over-year from 2020. But interest in the word has been high since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with much discussion of the funding, development, testing, and ultimate distribution of the vaccines occurring in 2020. The prominence of the word vaccine in our lives in this era becomes even more starkly clear when we compare 2021 to 2019, a period in which lookups for the word increased 1048%.

 

Lookups of vaccine, already very high all year, jumped by 535% in August, long after discussions about vaccines began taking place in the press and widespread distribution in parts of the world were well underway. A number of stories in August show that discussions about policy, approval, and vaccination rates—rather than the vaccine itself—sent people to the dictionary. During this period, New York and California instituted vaccine mandates for health care workers; a federal mandate was announced for nursing home staff; an announcement of plans for booster shots for the general public in the U.S. prompted condemnations of inequities in vaccine distribution; and full FDA approval for Pfizer’s vaccine was granted.

 

This new higher rate of lookups since August has remained stable throughout the late fall, showing not just a very high interest in vaccine, but one that started high and grew during the course of 2021.

Other words which came up high on their list in 2021: Insurrection, Perseverance, Woke, Nomad, Infrastructure, Cicada, Murraya, Cisgender, Guardian, and Meta.  Their announcement goes through each one as to why it had heightened searches this year.  I guessed why for several but was surprised for the others. 

I leave you with one more video on the Word-of-the-Year, one that is more visual, from Asianet Newsable.

 

So if 2020’s Word-of-the-Year was “pandemic,” and 2021’s was “vaccine,” will 2022’s be “booster”?  Seems like the trend.

Personal Note: Knocked on My Butt By the Vaccine

I don’t get too personal on my blog, but I might as well post about my Covid vaccine experience since it was an experience of note.  I got my second dose of the Moderna on Friday, and, whoa, did the second dose pack a wallop. 

I got the first dose on March 19^th, St. Joseph’s feast day!  Other than the sting in my shoulder afterward, I did not have any symptoms. 

This past Friday, April 16^th, about a month later, I got the second dose.  It didn’t feel any different than the first at the point of being stuck.  That evening I went on to my son’s little league baseball game, a drizzling cold night in April, but I didn’t feel any effects of the vaccine.  That night, just before bedtime, I started shivering.  No matter how many clothes I put on and how many blankets I put over me, I could not stop shivering.  I had no idea if I had fever because I didn’t get out of bed to check.  I barely slept.  I trembled with chills all night.

In the morning I checked my temperature.  I had a mild fever.  I still had chills, but when I got out of bed my muscles resisted the simplest motion.  I had no strength.  I stayed in bed all day.  I took Advil, which brought the fever down.  The chills came and went but they never went away completely.  My wife (God bless her) got me a large order of Wonton Soup.  It helped.  I had it for lunch and for dinner.

Then in the evening the fever started rising.  What was mild (99 to 100 degrees) climbed to 101, then 102, and even a 103.  I started to worry.  Took more Advil and eventually came down.  I slept that second night and when I woke up I felt it had gone away.  I still felt weak, but temperature was normal, and I could do some low stress chores.  It’s now evening of the second day, and I feel close to normal.  I can’t say I feel 100% strength, it’s good 75%.

My left shoulder, where the needle punctured me hurts.  I don’t remember it hurting this much on the first dose.  It feels more like a wasp sting, if you have ever had that unpleasant experience.  The hurt seems to spread over a lot more area than the sting, and it hurts for a lot longer than you would expect.

I had a number of vaccines when I had to travel internationally, and I don’t recall anything like this.  This was tough.  A friend told me the more the reaction to the vaccine, the greater than immunity one builds.  I don’t know if that’s true, but I hope so.

My wife, my mother, and my mother-in-law have all had the same second dose of Moderna.  My mother had some chills, a headache, never measured a fever, but on the second day had a blood pressure drop which caused her to faint.  We took her to the Emergency Room but they didn’t seem to think it was related to the vaccine.  The follow up doctor said it was possible.  My mother-in-law had chills and mild fever and headaches and enervated.  She felt terrible for a few days.  My wife did not have any chills but felt enervated.  She was the least affected by it.

My blogger friend Jan had a colorful way of describing her vaccine experience.  This from her first dose  and this from her second.  LOL.

It does feel like I was hit by a truck.  But I do recommend getting vaccinated.  I don’t know if one has similar reactions with the other types of vaccines, but from what I have read the Moderna provides the best immunity.  It’s worth the peace of mind.