8 months later ....

I just passed my 8 month anniversary since being diagnosed with Covid-19 and admitted to an ICU unit at the St. George Intermountain Care Regional Hospital. I have not written regular updates to my blog, as most of my time has been devoted to trying to get back to some sense of new normalcy. A couple days ago, I attended my first on-site meeting in Salt Lake City. Although the meeting had limited attendance and the participants practiced good COVID-19 hygiene, I will admit I experienced some anxiety with being in a larger crowd. This anxiety was likely related to the increasing spike we are seeing in Utah and other states in COVID-19 cases in a segment of the public that chooses not to be vaccinated. After my dance with the devil, I definitely did not want another.

In a previous blog post, I mentioned the book entitled “The Pale Rider,” which was written by Laura Spinney and published in 2017. The book details the events leading up to and during the 1918 flu epidemic. The flu epidemic had three spikes that eventually claimed over 50 million world wide and over 600,000 in the US. COVID-19, now in its third spike, has claimed 5 million people world wide and we are approaching 700,000 in the US. The efforts used to mitigate the 1918 flu epidemic parallel those we see being implemented today for COVID-19; tracking the sources, tracking the direction the virus is moving, and its response to measure implemented to mitigate it. However, there is one major difference between the 1918 flu and the COVID-19 pandemic; the vaccines. The data about the effectiveness of the vaccines are pretty strong – those who are vaccinated are less likely to contact COVID-19, and if they do, less likely to die.

As for myself, and I suspect the millions of others how have contacted and survived COVID-19, we are all “works in progress.” I joke with those who ask me how I am doing, by comparing

COVID-19 to a game show host. The host keeps wanting to give the participants parting gifts. Over the last several weeks I have and will have additional medical appointments to try to mitigate some lingering symptoms.

One of the big issues has been sinus blockage and the feeling that I had a plug in my esophagus. My wife said, was probably allergies and related to the smoke from the wild fires. After a month or so of trying every allergy medicine, I still could not find relief. So, I went to an Ear Nose and Throat specialist. It turns out that my problems were related to dense mucus. We all have mucus in our esophagus, but mine was denser than normal. I now use a nasal spray (pictured below) and the relief has been immediate. No allergies – yet!

The moral of this blog remains – better living through science and medicine. In the next few weeks, I will see another specialist to see why my hands have started to go numb. And so it goes for those who have suffered and survived COVID.