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Tuesday 31st
March 2020
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08:49 BST
Yesterday's weather forecast predicted no
rainfall, but did show a few times when the chance
of rain might be as high as 14%. I can't remember
whether that is when rain fell, but there
certainly were some showers, and at least one
lasted for a fair time, and made sure it looked
very wet outside. Apart from the rain it was cold
and grey all day with the temperature only just
reaching the prediction of an afternoon high of 8°
C.
Real life has turned
out better than the weather forecast - so far
! If the sun and cloud symbol for 8am was
replaced by the sun symbol, reality and
forecast would match. The latest revision of
the forecast shows that 11am should be sunny
instead of sunny intervals. From midday there
should be sunny intervals right through until
sunset at 7.33pm. The wind is still from the
east, but should be quite light, and maybe the
afternoon high of 10° C stands a chance of
being pleasant. Tomorrow morning may well
start with a frost, but the morning should be
bright, and sunny. The afternoon will probably
be rather dull, and only 9° C.
As is often the case, I didn't really know
quite how I felt until I had tested myself, and so
just before midday I went out to try and get some
shopping. As I wrote yesterday, I definitely
wanted to buy some Diet Coke, and I had a strong
hankering for some fishfingers (for some unknown
reason). I was fairly sure that I could get Diet
Coke at any of quite a few Caribbean/Asian food
shops, but I thought I would have more luck
getting fishfingers from somewhere like Tesco. I
didn't fancy tackling the big Tesco store, but I
had an idea that the smaller Tesco Express might
be OK.
I put on a warm coat, and did it up before
setting out for Tesco Express. That coat was a
wise choice because it did feel really chilly
outside - easily comparable with a winters day.
Just like a winters days it wasn't long before
breathing in that cold air made my breathing very
slightly wheezy, and it made my ribs aches. I can
remember, albeit in vague terms rather than
specific dates and times, arriving in the pub at
lunchtime feeling wheezy, and with my chest
hurting. Two pints of Guinness, and sitting in the
warm to drink it, usually helped a lot.
On this occasion there was no Guinness at
the halfway point, but it was warm inside the
store, but first I had to get into the store. They
were operating a policy of no more than 5
customers in the shop at once. There were only two
people waiting outside the shop when I arrived. I
joined the queue, and it wasn't long before I was
allowed in. Had I been wearing an NHS identity tag
I could have jumped the queue, but the no more
than 5 customers in the store rule would still be
stuck to. The important thing is to avoid when
hospital staff are likely to want to shop.
Once inside the store I made a beeline for
the Diet Coke, and picked up two 2L bottles. I
then looked for frozen fish fingers. They were not
where I thought they might be, but I did pick up a
bowl of ready made salad, and also some reduced
price sandwiches while searching for a fish
fingers freezer cabinet. If I recall correctly,
the Tuna Crunch sandwiches were reduced from over
£2 to just 88p each. I probably should have
grabbed a few more at that discount size. I did
grab a ham and cheese mini sub (or whatever they
call it) that was heavily discounted, but alas
there was no sign of fish fingers anywhere.
On my way home I passed Aldi. It looked
quite busy, and there seems to be some sort of
control of the amount of people shopping at one
time, but it seemed rather chaotic. I would like
to get some shopping from there sometime, but I
think I will have to pick my time carefully -
something quite hard to do when Aldi shoppers are
very chaotic, and don't seem to conform to any
predictable pattern,
On my way to get my shopping I made a point
of checking what looked like a note on the door of
the corner shop. So now I know when it locked up,
but not really why. I couldn't read the bottom
line, but I think it is just an apology for the
trouble the closure will cause, and ends with
"stay safe". My neighbour, who lived a few
doors along from the shop, suggested that may be
closed for a month. Hopefully we'll see the place
re-open before the end of next month.
I felt good and bad when I got home with my
shopping. It had felt good that it was not a
tedious process to buy shopping in there, and it
felt good that, apart from a little initial
stiffness, my legs still seem to be in good
working order. That which wasn't so good was the
wheeziness and the soreness of my rib cage. The
latter was mostly avoidable by trying not to move
my torso around in certain ways (mostly by
detecting the oncoming pain, and trying a
different way of moving).
Feeling wheezy could be a strong sign of
something up with the respiratory track - an
indicator of Coronavirus infection. The odd thing
was that despite feeling wheezy, I didn't seem to
have any indication of shortness of breath. One
peculiar thing is that I came to realise the
sensation was worse when breathing through my
nose. Doing anything that required some heavier
breathing, such as running up stairs, and so
breathing through my mouth, felt close to normal.
There was one indicator that the
constriction, which didn't really seem to be a
constriction, was at the top of my throat. This
became more apparent when I tried to record a
short message to Patricia, and my voice sounded
like I had a sore throat. Maybe some of it was
just my throat being rusty from infrequent use. My
message was probably little more than 5 minutes
long, and by the end my voice felt more or less
normal. It seemed something similar to the initial
stiffness when I started walking. It took a minute
or two to get back into my normal gait.
It was a hard thing to do, but I had
already decided that I would not be trying to meet
Angela - at the proscribed 2m separation - during
her lunchbreak. I did decide to try and call her
though. My call went straight through to
voicemail, and all I could do was to leave a short
message to say I hoped she was OK. I think sent
her a text message via What's App. I wondered if I
would get a reply. I did, but it was rather vague.
She confirmed she was at work, but then went off
on a tangent to say her recent blood test had come
back less than perfect, and she blamed it on
booze. Unfortunately she never said what she was
being tested for, and if it had anything to do
with excess vodka consumption. I suspect it was
some sort of guilt rather than hard evidence.
There was one piece of information I didn't
get, and that was whether she was living at home,
or at lover boys place. I know she had taken
refuge there some weeks ago, but I was never sure
for how long that was. If she is still there it
would explain her reluctance to communicate in the
evening. I wonder how lover boy is coping with
Coronavirus. He is in the high risk group by way
of his age (the same as mine) and his heart
troubles, as well as a tendency towards kidney
stones. The last time I saw a picture of him it
was taken at an open mic, with home at the drums,
maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago now. If he was drumming he
couldn't be that bad, but his face looked very
gaunt, and like he had aged a lot recently. That
is not a good place to be if attacked by the
virus-du-jour,
I must say I enjoyed my sandwiches in
the afternoon, and soon after eating them I
started to feel a bit dozy. I had some other stuff
to do before I lay on my bed to read, and
ultimately to fall asleep. I probably would have
fallen asleep quicker if I hadn't got hung up on
my own breathing. As I breathed through my nose it
was not so much wheezy, but if felt, or sounded
slightly wrong. Not so wrong that once something
distracted me from dwelling on it, I was able to
fall into a deep sleep. At least I think it was a
deep sleep.
I have no idea how long I was asleep for,
but it was long enough for my body temperature to
drop, or whatever it does. I woke up again feeling
really cold. It didn't feel like a fever, and so I
didn't try and take my temperature. I decided that
what I needed was some hot soup. Going down into
the cold kitchen did not feel much worse - maybe
another indicator that it wasn't fever. I heated
up a can of Oxtail soup, and spiced it up with
some chilli sauce. It tasted and felt good. One
more soup felt like a good idea, and I opened a
carton of Heinz mushroom and grilled garlic soup.
I'm rather glad I had only bought one carton of it
because while not horrible, it was halfway there.
One task yesterday was to prepare
spreadsheets for April to record my blood glucose
readings, and my blood pressure. While it was easy
to copy and paste the dates, I have also made a
spreadsheet to record my body temperature as
frequently as every 3 hours through the day -
between 6am and 9pm - but I am not expecting to
fill it in every hour, or even every day.
Some sort of historical record could be
interesting though.
My dinner was nearly just the big bowl of
ready made salad I had bough from Tesco. I added
some pickles, some black olives, and the last of a
small far of black pepper mayonnaise. If I had
been in the right mood I might have eaten no more,
but in less than 2 hours I felt myself driven to
grill some bacon. That was the crowning triumph of
my cooking and eating for the day. As the
evening wore on I entered that strange state of
tired, but not tired.
It seemed quite late, probably because of
the clocks changing, when I took my book to bed. I
read a chapter, and then put the book down before
I dropped it. It felt like I should have fallen
asleep minutes later, but I seemed to have so many
things on my mind, that my brain would not shut
up. One thing that went round and round in my head
was speculation as to Angela's status, and also
the health of lover boy. The last time I checked
the clocked I read it as gone midnight. In fact it
was just after 11pm. I knew this because I woke up
55 minutes later, and for the clock to say what it
did, I would have had to go back in time.
I seemed to wake up every hour for the next
3, maybe 4 hours. It didn't feel like I needed a
pee of those occasions, but each time went for one
anyway, and each time it seemed fully justified to
go into the cold bathroom. The last time it felt
particularly cold, and I was more than happy to
get back under my duvet. What I didn't suspect was
that I was running a fever at the time. It just
seemed natural that the bathroom would be cold.
The next time I woke up it became obvious
that I had been feverish. My pillow was soaked
with sweat, and sheet had damp patched where my
chest had been in contact with it. I hadn't been
aware of not feeling good before going to bed. I
knew I was not perfect, but it didn't seem bad. It
was how good I felt after that few hours of
sweating that made me realise how much better I
might have felt the night before. The best thing
this morning was being able to go and patiently
sit on the toilet with out even a hint of a shiver
(it was cool, but far from shivery).
This morning there is no trace of any fever
left. My clinical thermometer actually says my
body is quite cool this morning. I don't seem to
have any wheeziness this morning, although if I
concentrate hard enough I can detect a slight
soreness at the back of my throat. My nose still
gets a light hay fever like itch, but at the
moment it does seems milder than recently, and
might be a bit more intermittent. I would even say
that my legs ache a bit less, but my buttocks are
complaining loudly after sitting at my PC for too
long now.
I now face another open day with no clue as
to how I will absorb the time. I did contemplate
going to another food shop today - perhaps Iceland
to try and get those fish fingers. The exercise,
albeit only a short walk, would be good for me,
but maybe I have another idea. Last night I
checked takeaway options, and it seems many of the
kebab places I use are doing normal deliveries, at
seemingly normal prices. I may forego fish fingers
for another day, and have a kebab tonight. Time
will tell.
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