Post-COVID Blues

It's been about a year since I got infected with COVID-19 and most of my symptoms have not gone away. I'm still fatigued, it's still hard to breathe, and it's still hard to think. It's about time to face this fucker and make some changes in my life.

The Sitch

My brain is in a pressure cooker, my knees and ankles are filled with gravel, my legs are trying to split apart... vertically, and my chest has been emptied and filled with swamp water. One hour my mind will throw my body into a volcano and the next I'll be frozen in a block of ice. I could have the best day of my life only to be punished with a week stuck as a victorian child on his deathbed because I dared to leave the house for a couple hours.

In other words, my body go owchie and it keeps me from going to school or outside at all. Shit sucks.

So... can I do anything about it?

Of course it feels like an extreme in my head, but at this point I'm considering using mobility aids. I already impulse-bought a walking stick. It's floral-patterned, in case you were wondering. :3 I think the best-case scenario would be having a wheelchair to go outside with. What's giving me pause at the moment is how inaccessible this house is. Hell, the entire world seems inaccessible when you look closely enough. Whenever I go on the bus, I can't help but look at all the houses with stairs in front of them with no alternative entrance. Imagine you make a friend in a wheelchair but you can't invite them over because they wouldn't be able to get into your home. I don't think we can even make adjustments to our place since we're renting it. Shit's fuckin' stupid!

Can I get help at school?

That's a tough one. I don't have any diagnosis for my physical symptoms yet so I can't get assistance from my school's disability resource center. I could probably ask my doctor for some sort of note about my symptoms even without a diagnosis, but I still gotta wait an entire month to see her.

Work

FUCKING HELL I ALSO NEED A SUMMER JOB. My tuition's gonna be covered by grants next year, but it won't leave me with a refund to support myself outside of school. I think if I tried getting a retail job again I'd end up [THIS INFORMATION HAS BEEN SEIZED BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF FUCK ME IN THE ASS] so let's not do that. A remote job would be better and I have a couple in mind, particularly typesetting positions for manga localization. I'm not sure it'd be sustainable, though. Mental exertion is still exertion and my brain does not do well with too much of it. It's hard to know my limits when I feel good after a day of work only to end up bedbound the next day. I don't have much of a choice, I guess.

... oh, and also

I got my Tumblr account back! Complaining on Reddit worked! I was about to accept this end of an era, but when support swooped in and restored my account, I remembered how truly irreplacable the Tumblr experience is. I hope they bring back 18+ content soon. I get tears in my eyes thinking about the days I'd spend scrolling through the Weeaboobies blog. Good times.