After Effects

The after effects of Covid seem to be lingering, or at least I’m blaming my strange behavior on my 13 days of positive testing.

I’m certainly aware my memory is not what it was 40 years ago, but I think it may have taken a definite dive in the past month. It’s not just losing details about my breakfast a mere hour ago, but I wander around in constant confusion about what I’m to do next.

The idea about having a ‘plan’ is a joke, and not an especially funny one. I’ve never been known to structure my life guided by long-term strategies. I use more of the ‘seat of my pants’ policy, sort of sensing what seems right for me, rather than an organized or pre-thought-out destination.

Thus, I’m comfortable with not knowing what tomorrow may bring.  However, this new awareness that I haven’t a clue what the next minute may bring nor what the last minute did bring, can be more than a bit disturbing.

I believe I am experiencing what some are calling ‘fog brain’, and I believe the term is correct. I do seem to be wandering around in a fog: details not clear, concentration impossible, and feeling overwhelmed when I need to do more than one thing in the span of 30 minutes.

This is unusual for me. I’ve always been able to multi-task, perhaps not well, but getting several things accomplished in a short period of time has never been a major problem. 

Not the case now. If the phone rings while someone is at my door and the eggs have been boiling for 45 minutes but I’ve forgotten I put them on, and the dogs suddenly want to go for a walk, oh my, I’m overwrought. I can’t seem to know which comes first, the exploding eggs, the unknown caller, or the lady next door who wants to know if I have a recipe for tamales.

Obviously the neighbor doesn’t know me if she thinks I would have a recipe for anything. The eggs have already splattered not only on the surrounding counters but I can see yellow globs on the ceiling, and the unknown caller wants to know if I need cheap therapy.

My first thought is to sit down and cry and wish my mother would come and take over. Then I remember my mother never was good at any of those things either and that was long before she reached 80 years old. And she never had Covid.

Thank goodness I do have a friend who knows I’m beyond a mere case of anxiety, I’m in a full-blown episode of desperation that would make a great segment for a day-time soap opera. I know this because I remember sitting with my Grandmother who was an avid radio listener of As the World Turns, Stella Dallas, and of course, The Guiding Light.

No wonder my Grandmother also had these moments of confusion, she was listening to too much drama.

I’m signing off now, having vented about side effects of Covid, and hopefully by next week I won’t still be suffering from long Covid—or I’ll be so far into the ‘long’ part I will have forgotten I once could remember why I was at the grocery store…or is this the dry cleaners?  

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