Do Whatever You Can

Between typical lousy springtime weather and continued daily struggles with Long-COVID problems, I've been trying to find things to accomplish around the house.  

I'm still having more difficulty than usual with breathing problems.  I'm always feeling like I'm trying to clear thick, nasty phlegm from my lungs.  Actually, I am still clearing this thick, nasty phlegm from my lungs (dark nasty stuff) but it is difficult to move this thick stuff and it seems to continue to replenish itself even after I clear some out.  So, this makes breathing difficult which also causes extra fatigue.  

Another lingering problem is inflamed joints.  This isn't nearly as bad as it was from January through March but it is still worth mentioning.  As exhausted as I am, the pain continues to keep me up at night and keep me more uncomfortable than usual almost all the time.  I'm always dealing with pain due to my extensive spinal injuries as well as the bone and joint pain due to my systemic mastocytosis but this additional Long-COVID joint pain is different, lingering and relentless especially when added on top of my usual bone and joint pain.  It is definitely an added pain that I don't need.

In a previous bout with COVID (my first or second bout, if I remember correctly) I had some lingering symptoms affecting my eyes and ears.  I don't have the eye problems this time but I do have the ear problem in the form of tinnitus.  There is no doubt that this virus is affecting my nervous system between the additional debilitating joint pain and the tinnitus in my right ear.  That is one of the odd things...  this only seems to be affecting my right ear...  hmmm...  and the additional joint pain is only on my right side too.  That might not be a coincidence.  

So, my ability to concentrate on anything is a bit lacking and has been this way since developing this bout with COVID back in December.  This makes it difficult to accomplish anything even sedentary.  

I'm able to sit at my desk now (I hadn't been able to do this for quite some time due to joint pain) so I revisited some recent bird photos I captured last week.  These two bird photos, below, came out well especially considering the details of how I captured the photos.  I was handholding the camera with a big, heavy, long lens mounted on it.  This is tough to keep steady especially at long focal lengths and I was at an extra long equivalent focal length of 800mm.  Also, this was a Canon lens on a Panasonic camera body which are two different autofocusing systems.  I had used a new and inexpensive lens adapter to get the lens and camera body talking to each other.  I'm pretty impressed with these two photos.

I've said this many times before but I'll say it again...  I hope to find some time to set up a blind in the backyard so I can get a good collection of bird photos.  I had planned to do this last summer but it never happened.  I really need to make more of an effort to get this accomplished this year.

In the meantime, I'll continue to accomplish whatever I can, whenever I can.