In February 2020, I received my first round of COVID. It came from my wife who caught it from a group of friends in Sparkbrook Birmingham.
Beforehand, I was relatively fit, having been cycling 13 miles each way to work through Birmingham along the canals. Besides commuting, I would run 5-8 miles in Sutton Park on Saturdays.
Initially, I wasn’t bothered by the COVID, but by the summer, I became concerned that I was not recovering. Outwardly I was doing fine. No one including the doctor thought there was a problem. I could walk and talk and eat so what was the problem?
Through lockdown, I struggled to do a short Sunday afternoon walk with my wife or even my 82-year-old mother-in-law! I was out of breath and exhausted. Each day I fought the urge to lie down and do nothing. At night I couldn’t stay in bed more than four hours at a time because my body was aching all over. During an online course, I struggled to understand questions on subjects I was familiar with.
My mind, body, liver and kidneys felt stiff. My emotions were flat. My usual healthy libido went for a long holiday. I noticed significant decay in my taste, smell, eyesight, hearing and balance. For the first time in my life, I felt physical pain in my chest when doing heavy work. I felt at least ten years older. Was this just a normal part of ageing or something else?
The following year, I kept thinking I was getting better, worked a series of normal days, and then crashed again with extreme fatigue for a few days. If someone else were telling me about such prolonged fatigue, I would have thought it was psychological. I have always been a physical person who enjoyed sport and hard work. This felt very physical to me!
It was October 2022, two and a half years in, that I started to feel inside myself that I was recovering. I suspect it may have been a continual process over time, but I remember it happening in significant stages.
The day Liz and I arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh we received the VAT return from the materials used for a new house build. For the first time in years, we had a positive bank balance. This was such a relief for me. I felt great joy!! The weight of struggling to get to this point in our life rolled off my shoulders. I could stop. I could rest. Properly rest. That deep, satisfied rest that is content to sit in a chair and watch the day go by, not needing to do a thing besides play with a young ginger tom cat. Tom came each day to sit on my lap to be stroked and fight my hand. He had a deep loud resonating purr that was deliciously satisfying.
Despite what the sages may say having surplus money did help my health! It enabled me to rest from work. I gave myself permission to sleep when I needed it. Oh, what a wonderful feeling!
I made a point of cutting out the coffee, sugar, packets of biscuits and bars of chocolate I had been self-medicating myself with to keep me going in the afternoons. We ate more fruit and fresh vegetables. I quite naturally returned from my post-COVID 86kg to my normal 80kg.
During November 2022 the streets around Dahab were full of people watching the World Cup. A California friend and his two sons came to visit us. One of them had had some success in praying for people with COVID and wanted to pray for me. I didn’t want to disappoint him so was very keen for his prayer to work! I was a little disappointed at how short and simple his prayer was yet I perceived something shift inside me.
December brought another breakthrough. Our third son Ben and his wife Felicity came to visit us. They are fitness coaches. We went to the Hammer Gym together and Ben led us in a highly motivating mini-circuit training. I became pumped with the pace and competition. The endorphins and libido returned from nowhere. What ecstasy!
I wish I could say I was back to my normal self. I am not. I am very grateful for my life and improving health, but COVID changed me. I used to be able to think deeply, imagine a better future and work towards it without external motivation. I can no longer do this. To think I now need to talk. I have become an external processor!
How has COVID affected you?
