My Sunday Class was cancelled at 6.15am. A head-cold was picked up on Thursday when me and the youngest went shopping, and that’s not being inflicted on 26 other people in a small spin class with ineffective air conditioning. We’ll sweat it out instead on the static bike in the shed, if the body feels good enough to do so once the drugs have worn off.
Being an adult in the post-COVID world is easy. It means if there has to be a trip out anywhere today it’ll be with a mask, but more sensibly we just don’t go out at all. I know a lot of immunocompromised people. Technically, I live with one. There was also a test yesterday before anything else happened because even colds don’t feel like they used to.
On reflection, this may well have been in my system before Thursday.
As my fitness has improved over the last few months there’s been some odd blips: leg pain has been the most obvious, and there’ll come a point where walking upstairs creates joint leg pain. Ironically, that was the first time I realised that something was wrong with my body before contracting COVID in March of 2022. It’s now become a useful red flag.
When time and space allow, it would be great to go to a Doctor and start a sentence with ‘since I’ve had COVID…’ to see what happens. It is just as likely a neuropathy issue, of course, as feet stability is the bane of existence when the weather is cold. It’s also why, as an adult, its a really good idea not to use confirmation bias as a way to make complex decisions.
Mostly, it’s a sensible idea to look after myself more than I currently am.
Self-care has always been a problem, but in the last few years, and with the application of serious exercise, that has undoubtedly improved. It is not just physical malaise that needs to be better understood but the effect mental stress has on my body. Having been under considerable pressure since early February, it is perhaps no wonder the system is struggling.
However, understanding of myself has come forward in leaps and bounds. Everything is a set of balances, the constant reassessment of what is taking place and how it affects the biome that is me. There needs to be a lot of factors regulated: sleep and temperature have been the two biggest problems during the last month. Both are getting easier to manage.
After that, good hygiene is absolutely crucial.
This is a reminder that washing your hands without soap will not kill germs. If you’re out and about right now, every surface you touch is potentially an infection point if you’re not properly sanitising. I’m not talking about COVID either, I’m talking basic hygiene protocols, which seem to have been forgotten completely as if illness has vanished.
It is hard to be an adult in the modern world with so much vying to take up your time. It is difficult to decide what it real and what is fake. Illness is very real, and as winter approaches in the Northern Hemisphere that means an increasing likelihood of infections which could cause far more than just a few days off work or a bit of a blip in your exercise schedule.
COVID’s influence is everywhere, and many people do not even know it.
The most physically fit people on the planet have been permanently damaged by COVID. Long COVID is also very real, and millions will be permanently scarred by its effects, just as has been the case throughout history. For the sake of 30 seconds of your time, and wearing a mask when you could be infectious, so much harm could be prevented.
You should also be considering a flu jab. Take a COVID booster if one is offered to you. Remember it’s got nothing to do with conspiracy and everything to do with common sense. Being careful costs nothing and the consequences are never just about you. That’s the real takeaway from all this. If you do nothing, your actions can literally make everyone sick.
It’s a sobering thought far too many people have conveniently forgotten.
