Another COVID-19 post, I'm afraid!

Apologies for not having posted anything in a while. Like most people right now, something so straightforward and normal simply hasn’t been on the radar.

My anxiety has had me on a rollercoaster, creating waxing and waning symptoms of everything else and a lack of attention span that should be criminal.

I’ve had to request an extension for an assignment that was due today as I just can’t seem to sit with anything long enough to make sense of it, everything hurts, my digestive system is alternating between making me feel sick and feeling so acidy that my whole chest feels like it is burning – and that is without the insomnia and the mood swings that have me wondering if I’m about to laugh or cry!

Everything has changed – and yet nothing has. When you are used to living the vast majority of your life in your home, when the country has to go into lockdown to beat a deadly virus like COVID-19, you don’t notice that much of a change in your day to day living. In an odd way, my life is currently better than it used to be as my partner is working from home, so I’m actually not as lonely as usual.

But my sister is a nurse and though she has been in management for some time now, she will probably be called onto the frontline and the lack of decent PPE worries me immensely. I worry that once one person in Mum’s care home gets it, that everyone else in there will, too.

And Dad, well, let’s just say he’s not taking things as seriously as he probably should, given his weak heart, lungs and everything else. But, he is an adult and, in theory at least, able to make his own decisions. I can’t go and do anything to help him as I have to stay home as all of my many conditions put me at risk, too. Then, there’s my sister-in-law who isn’t that healthy either who is a teaching assistant, so having to still work to take care of key workers’ kids – so, again a huge risk factor there.

So, I am fretting pretty much 24-7, and probably will continue to do so until our government starts to show some credible leadership, which may not ever happen – so, basically, I am in high stress limbo until there is a vaccine and most people have actually received it.

I hate having to sit by and do nothing. If I hadn’t had all my health issues I would be working in the NHS as a radiographer now, so would be busy on the front line. It would be tough, and exhausting - but despite all my anxiety, I am brilliant in a crisis. I stay super calm and carry on when there are definite steps to be taken and am great at keeping everyone else calm too – but I can do absolutely nothing in this crazy situation we find ourselves in and so I have bitten off all my nails and have a stomach that has forgotten that digesting food is part of its job remit.

And so, I have struggled to write blog posts, and do the research for my assignment. I am struggling to get anything much done at all - and despite all the pain and the physical issues, I am usually pretty productive in my own way. I want to have the energy to do things.

I want the concentration span required to watch a full episode of The Big Bang Theory - but I have entered full-on butterfly brain, and will just have to wait it out until it passes and I can start focussing on something again. It will happen, it always does - I just hope it won't take until all of this is under control because I have a feeling that is going to be a very long time!

Not surprisingly, given the worldwide COVID-19 chaos, my trip to France to look at houses has been postponed – though God only knows when it might be that I get over there to check places out, even less when we may actually be able to make the move permanent. This has made me sad as I so wanted to be in the position to be able to say that we’d found somewhere we loved and that I would now be taking definite steps towards making our move happen. Now it just feels like a pie-in-the-sky dream again.

But at least Bob is happy having 2 humans around to spoil him rotten and do his bidding. I only wish I could be as relaxed and content!