Feeling Blah from COVID
Our feelings and emotions may be fickle, but God is not.
Last Thursday I tested positive for COVID (hence the lack of blog post last week). With a fever fluctuating up to 102 degrees, I stayed in bed and rested for a couple days. Whenever I’m sick, I act like I have the man cold, like I’m dying and can’t properly function until I’m feeling better. Or maybe it’s just an excuse to lie in the comfort of my own bed all day and use sleep as a coping mechanism for pain.
Normally my husband tries to encourage me to avoid “bed rotting,” as he likes to call it. But with the presence of my fever, he let me be. He seemed genuinely concerned. “If your fever doesn’t break, I may have to take you to the hospital,” he told me.
I’m grateful for my husband’s attentive care. He’s the one who constantly checked my temperature with a thermometer and administered cold compresses on my forehead. He’s the one who made sure I got up to eat something (even if it was just Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup). He’s the one who drove to Target to get medicine and then reminded me to take it.
I’m not sure why, but whenever my family gets COVID, I seem to suffer the most. Do I have the weakest immune system?
My son was the first one who got sick. He woke us up at 4:30 a.m. one morning telling us he didn’t feel well. He had a fever, sore throat, and runny nose. He stayed home from school for two days, but he didn’t lie in bed all day like I did.
In order to try to prevent the rest of us from getting sick, everyone wore masks. Additionally, my husband opened all the windows in the morning before it got too hot and turned on all the ceiling fans. We were really hopeful that our precautionary measures worked, but 4-5 days later, my husband tested positive for COVID as well. He acted as though he had a cold, nothing too serious. He felt well enough to keep working.
He slept in the spare bedroom to try to prevent me from also getting sick. Again, I thought I was in the clear, but 4-5 days later, I tested positive. I wonder why there was a delayed transmission. My family had originally planned to take a short trip to San Diego over Labor Day weekend to visit friends. I guess God had other plans.
It is times like this that I am grateful we live near our parents. My mom, who’s always generous about providing us with food, dropped off a pot of Korean soup, some rice, and a rotisserie chicken from Costco. My mother-in-law, who’s Mexican and also always generous about giving us food, dropped off takeout dinner from a local Chinese restaurant. One of the dishes was beef noodle soup, my son’s favorite. Having support from family is so helpful during challenging times.
The Recovery Process
After my fever broke and I regained some energy, I tried slowly getting back into the swing of things. But I couldn’t help feeling blah. I couldn’t tell if it was because I was recovering from a virus or because of the transition of seasons.
It’s still technically summer (it sure feels like it; southern California is experiencing a heatwave). But to me, back-to-school season instinctively signals fall. Every year, around August, I notice a shift, a drop in my energy. Sometimes I wonder if I’m experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder. But the sun’s definitely still around, so that doesn’t make any sense.
When chatting with a friend about how I was feeling, she confirmed that she’s experienced it, too, over the years. I didn’t realize that recovering from a sickness or injury, anything physical, can often test us mentally and emotionally as well. Everything in the body is connected.
I had initially drafted a blog post about a different topic. I had written a couple paragraphs, but when I came back to it, I couldn’t seem to get into my “flow” state. I got frustrated. “Oh no,” I started worrying. “Am I already stuck and running out of content ideas? Is my blog just going to end here?”
But as time went on, I slowly found my groove. Started doing some light yoga, went on a morning walk, started going back to the gym… Once I started moving and getting back into action, my creativity wheels started spinning. I felt the urge to buy some flowers from Trader Joe’s to create a bouquet to elevate my mood, so I did. Because of the hot weather, I decided to make a yummy pasta salad to accompany the chicken that my husband would later grill. One morning I woke up with thoughts racing in my head and decided to change my blog post idea.
So the moral of the story is:
Don’t get stuck. Give yourself some time and compassion. Try not to let negative thoughts cloud your head. And if they do, don’t let them linger.
If you, too, also experience the “blahs” during this transition from summer to fall, I encourage you to establish a good daily routine and set some short-term goals. It’s ok to feel blah at times. God created us to experience all kinds of emotions and feelings.
But also remember that while our feelings are fickle, God is not. God never changes. So when we’re feeling blah, we should turn to Him. He cares about us and will answer our prayers.