A Little Setback (and a bit of anger)

We were supposed to head out of town this past weekend for one of the largest train shows in the US but I have still been struggling with this latest and very long bout of COVID as well as a secondary infection and other secondary health issues.  My health had been slowly improving over the past week (finally) but I was still not feeling well enough for a trip out of town.  Actually, it was not even a close call.  I definitely was still not feeling well enough to do anything other that a few minutes of household chores.

Truthfully, due to contracting COVID yet again during our first trip out of town since the before the pandemic, I have no desire to risk going out of town for the foreseeable future.  This virus is far too contagious and far too debilitating especially when combined with my primary illness.  Besides, every time I get this insidious virus, I'm sick for months and things get dangerously bad every time.  It seems like whenever I let my guard down slightly and venture from the house or have guests in the house, I get this virus (five times now).  Hmmm...  well, we've traveled the 30 minutes to Burlington a few times in the past four years without any consequences but just about every time we have the kids visit, I get clobbered with the virus again.  We finally decided it might be safe to travel out of town...  we were out of town for only a few days...  and I got the virus yet again so I have no desire to travel again for the foreseeable future.  I don't care what the occasion or event is, I have no intentions of exposing myself to this virus again anytime soon.

So, instead of heading out of town for the annual train show with friends because I am still recovering from COVID, we chose to finally have the grandchildren at the house for a couple hours on Saturday so we could celebrate a very belated Christmas.  I'm still not feeling well so Sheila did all the preparing and this was supposed to be just a short visit so the grandkids could open their Christmas gifts from us so it should have had a minimal effect on me.

Even though the grandkids were here on Saturday, I still feel as though we have not had a Christmas this year.  Actually, I'm so out of the Christmas spirit that I forgot to wrap Lukey and Kenzie's Christmas gifts and they were still hidden where I stashed them months ago.  Before Christmas, we were as busy as my health could handle due to preparing for our trip to Manhattan.  Then we got back home from Manhattan and I was sick with COVID again.  Christmas was very delayed so I knew I had plenty of time to wrap gifts.  I was quite sick for more than a month and, during that time, I completely forgot about wrapping gifts.  I knew I had wrapped my gifts for Sheila so I assumed I had wrapped all the gifts.  I didn't.  It wasn't until the kids were searching the house for their gifts that I remembered where I had hid them months ago.  The presents that I had wrapped that I thought were Lukey and Kenzie's were really only Sheila's gifts.  This virus has really worn me down and I feel as though I've aged a decade in the past few months.  So, Lukey and Kenzie missed out on a few small gifts when they were here over this past weekend.  

I've been quite sick since the week before Christmas and this little get-together on Saturday afternoon definitely did not feel like Christmas.  To be honest, it felt rather brutal for me.  Feeling brutal and miserable is not Christmas.  That would be more like Thanksgiving.  (I despise Thanksgiving.)

One of the reasons I could not get into the Christmas spirit even while the grandkids were opening gifts is because I was feeling miserable.  I had a massive headache...  my sinuses were killing me...  my glands in my neck are swollen...  my lymph nodes are swollen...  I was having slight difficulty breathing...  my joints ache...  and I generally felt miserable.  I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep.  I was exhausted.  In fact, I rarely left the couch on that day while the kids were here.

Sheila did all the work for this very belated Christmas day.  She prepared all the snacks...  actually... a lot of different snack foods!  She cleaned the house.  I helped a bit with straightening out the house on Friday (a month's worth of my own messes that had accumulated while sick) and that wore me out which didn't help me at all on Saturday.  Anyway, Saturday's little bit of grandchild commotion in the house, wore me out and caused my health to worsen again.

My head was killing me on Saturday.  I was exhausted.  Sunday wasn't much better.  Today (Monday) was a bit better but I definitely took a few steps backward in my slow recovery.  "Recovery" is a poor choice of words...  I still hadn't recovered fully from my last bout with COVID and I struggled with long-COVID through the entire year of 2023.  Then I developed the virus again to close out one of the most miserable years on record.  2024, unfortunately, isn't much better.

It is long past time to take down all the Christmas decorations. I'll probably be looking for Christmas in mid-to-late February!   Well...  assuming a feel a little bit better by then...

UPDATE:  I ended up having more health problems later that night after writing the above blog entry.  I took some extra medications and emergency medications.  My breathing is also getting quite bad again.  I had difficulty breathing all through the night last night.  I really am so sick and tired of this debilitating virus.  

Consequently, I have a few choice words for all those ignorant morons who think it is like "a cold" or "the flu" and who refuse to do the civilized and morally responsible thing by getting the damn vaccination and booster vaccinations but I'll refrain from going on the rant I really want to write (perhaps "bark" is a more accurate term).  Instead, I'll just add that because of these ignorant morons, the hospitals are full again.  What a bunch of chicken sh*ts....  afraid of a quick, simple, and relatively painless shot in the arm.  You're just a bunch of ignorant, selfish fools.