Flu and Health Update

We are two solid weeks into having the flu and I still feel like crap.  I'm still coughing and trying to clear out my lungs.  I have a pounding headache especially whenever I cough.  As expected, my breathing is worse than usual too.  My throat is still a bit scratchy and, generally, I feel exhausted and lousy.  

Sheila is still coughing too but she seems to be faring a bit better than I am.  My struggles are probably due to my primary illness affecting my mast cells.  Mast cells are the key players in colds and the flu too so my over-active mast cells make things a bit worse whenever I pick up any kind of bug.  

Since the flu is also affecting my mast cells, my usual health issues are worse than usual too.  There is no need to get into details on this other than to say my usual symptoms are worse than usual.  Mostly, I'm simply completely worn out as my body tries to fight off the flu.

I captured a photo of my thumb this week too so that I could write a quick update on my thumb injury.  Below is a photo of how it is looking now.  We're at the point where only I can easily spot the injury so it is healing well although seven months have passed at this point so I think most people would think it is completely healed at this point.  It does look good but it is far from being completely healed.

Even though I accidentally cut off about a half inch of my left thumb back in July, it has mostly grown back and has filled in nicely.  It is actually looking pretty good.  Unfortunately, it is looking better than it feels.  

The length of my left thumb is still 5/64" shorter than the thumb on my right hand.  It is growing and filling in nicely but this aspect of the recovery is very slow.  My left thumb doesn't look all that unusual when you look at only my left thumb but when the two thumbs are side-by-side, the shorter length and still slightly misshapen left thumb becomes very noticeable. 

My thumb is still hyper-sensitive.  Touching anything, even lightly, still hurts.  It kind of has a tingly feeling when I very lightly touch it or even lightly touch anything with it.  My fine motor skills with my left hand are still not where they should be.  I'm still accidently slamming it into things too but not nearly as often as right after the injury.  All that being said, my thumb is in much better condition today than anytime since this accidental amputation in July.  

I'm still working on my fine-motor skills with my thumb with daily physical therapy and I'm still playing the piano whenever I feel up to it which is also helping significantly.  The more I use the thumb, the better off I am.  The flu has cut into time at the piano though.  Playing the piano is actually pretty good therapy though so I squeeze that in whenever I'm feeling up to it.  That should happen more often as I recover from this flu.  

This flu-A is pretty debilitating and brutal though.    

EDIT:  We just finished dinner and I was thinking about how long we've actually been sick...  

Yes, we've had the flu for a solid two weeks as I mentioned above but, only days before that, we were just getting over sharing COVID between us.  We picked up COVID in early December so we've been sick for almost two months.  

It is obvious that our COVID vaccines are working because our latest experience with COVID through December and early January wasn't nearly as brutal as what we just experienced with this bout of flu.  I should point out that we all have had flu-A and that is known to be more dangerous than flu-B so I guess there really is something to flu-A being far more severe.  

This winter, so far, has been quite uneventful and we've been feeling pretty lousy so this getting pretty old at this point.