#actually i got covid last month

[no-gorms]

Hi Annie!! Hope you’re doing well! Wanted to ask if you had any recent SteveTony recs? Reread your catalogue and am itching for more stuff like yours so wanted to ask if you had any new stuff you’ve read that you like 😌 also good luck for Ramadan 🫡

---

Hello, hi! Sadly I haven't been reading much Steve/Tony lately, the last think I bookmarked was Angel Eyes by stark-contrast where Tony accidentally catches Steve doing a thing that makes him realize Steve is into him, which is fun! But other than that my Mark for Later section of fic is uh..... getting pretty huge. I will definitely rec more once I catch up, which I hope that I do. And happy early Ramadan to you, too!

#scaramouche answers asks #anonymous #superhusbands for ts #actually i got covid last month #i'm much better now but still tired #scaramouche recs fics

[obsessivedilettante]

Good morning from the day after getting the new covid booster and flu shot. Glad I’m not working right now because my body is miserable.

My right arm is like, “Oh, cool, so we probably won’t get the flu this year, great, let’s move on to more exciting things.”

My left arm is like, “F— U COVID!!!! I WILL DESTROY YOU AND EVERYTHING ELSE IN MY PATH!!!!!!! FEEL MY WRATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

#last year I got the covid shot in my right (dominant) arm and the flu shot in the left #I made it very clear this year I wanted it the other way around #because I actually wanted to be able to do things while I recuperate #my mum only gets a little tired for a day after her vax #I get full on sick with a large welt and painful lymph nodes #anyway it was perfect timing for the new booster because we’ll be in a germ cesspool next month! yay travel!

[27-royal-teas]

hey uhhh immune system what the fuck dude you’ve been failing me for fucking months. do your job bitch

#i got covid in august and have just Not Really Recovered since #i was JUST SICK and now i feel like im getting sick AGAIN my nose won’t stop running and I can’t breathe I feel horrible #my head hurts my throat hurts I want to sleep and never wake up again #I feel like my thoughts are transmitting through cotton balls #im going to be insanely busy from now until. uh. march #so if I can last until march without getting sick I will be GOLDEN #don’t think im gonna last that long though #half my family has the flu rn #but UGHHHH #ive got SEVERAL PERFORMANCES TO DO!!!! ive got FRIENDS TO MEET WITH!!! Stuff to do!!!! I don’t have time to get sick!!! #im super behind on schoolwork and I need to learn 5 dances and write these stupid fucking fics that aren’t writing themselves #I just want to feel BETTER. please. fuck. I want to breathe in through my nose and actually have the air pass through #I want to swallow and not feel like my throat is being stabbed. I want my head to stop hurting #Im so tired of being sick its been months please #vent kinda

[pierog]

so i applied for a DREAM JOB and out of 6000 applicants!!! I ended up in the final 15 😟

…and I did SOOOOO soooooo well til the very last round 😔 i accidentally became privy to some scathing information from the judging panel. ouuuuuuuchhhh lol my insecurities.

proud of myself for being true to myself and getting far as i did, though.

#also i got covid so feeling a bit self pitying at the moment #i honestly have massive beef with their criticisms #i left this country when i was 5 and have ended up with a lot of cultural differences #sorry English ppl reading this but i feel like the UK is very caught up on appearances. for example: #it’s an outdoorsy job and the panel were unimpressed i didn’t come in my hiking boots + wet weather gear #umm…. yeah because we are SITTING INSIDE ON A SUMMER’S DAY??? #it felt like posing to me? i grew up in rural NZ so I’ve spent majority of my life in the bush #PS most of the hiking boots i did see were obviously pristine and never taken on an actual hike 🙄 #yes i own that stuff. no im not gonna wear it just to prove a point. i wore jeans and the same shoes ive been wearing while hiking across #europe these last 2 months. #also the NZ wilderness is so much more rugged like these hikes in UK/europe would barely count as a casual day walk to me #so our standards are very different #and we both left feeling quite unimpressed with each other I think #i’ll provide one more rant: one of the exercises involved wiring up a plug. i did it successfully but failed cos I didn’t plug it in after #well um. my mama is a scientist and taught me not to fuck with electricity unless i’m 100% sure #yes I did all the wiring right but it was still my first time so I’m being cautious. apparently that’s a bad thing 🤷‍♀️ #enough rants from me but basically yeah lots of little things like that which I disagree with

[itsdelicate]

not to jinx it but i think i’ve finally truly stopped coughing after almost 9 months god bless 🙏

#long covid is soooo bad 😭 #like i thoguht it got better around month 5 when i got a humidifier #but it came back with a vengeance last month #and i think i’m finally ACTUALLY healing now #cause it’s been the first time in months that for the past week i haven’t woken up with a coughing fit #and i can take a short deep breath without coughing 😩 #text

[zevrans]

.

#i actually was mia again after last time because of my health once again i got sick literally 2 days after getting off antibiotics... #i feel like my immune system is nonexistent at this point it'll be a month of me being sick in a few days #like i've been sick for a whole month and i never been sick for so long and both time i am negative for covid so i have no idea #what even virus this is; #i am so tired of taking medications and none even seem to work properly #tbd

[sluttyten]

Love finding out that the girl I closely worked with for a few hours yesterday tested positive for Covid last night

#not totally surprising bc right now we have several people out with Covid #but like really 😭😭 #of course I DO NOT want to have Covid but at the same time I’m like….. then I get 5 days off #but then our opening and mid shift is totally fucked #because it’s 3 of our mid shift people and a manager that are currently out #and it gets worse because my absolute favorite manager just told me that she might be leaving #and then I’m assuming the other girl that I love working with is gonna get promoted to manager #and I don’t really want to be a manager bc I like the hours I’m working and as a manager I couldn’t be working those #so like idk I think if the position was offered to me again I might take it #but also if 2/4 of my favorite people are managers who are never on shift with me anymore #if 1/4 of my favorites only works three days a week and is only ever in the back prepping things so I hardly get to see her #and then the last 1/4 is leaving us (bc of a promotion that I’ll be mad if she doesn’t actually take it/get it bc it’ll be so good for her) #then like……. I don’t see why I should stay here #I’ve been looking for a reason to leave for the last like 3 years (for perspective I’ve worked here for like 3years and 4 months) #and having none of my favorite coworkers with me anymore might just be that reason #and I’ll go work at like Barnes and noble or something bc I was there yesterday and I love books and the employees seem like good people and #I feel like I could do that #that was the first place I applied for a job and I either didn’t answer the phone when they called me back after my interview or I just #never got a call back #anyway……. I feel like this is enough of my ranting of my concerns for the day #I came up with a new fic idea! so that’s interesting #it’s not related to any of this don’t worry…. it is based off a Disney movie I love though and it will probably be about mark or xiaojun #and I was about to write more about it in my drafts before my favorite manager came to talk to me on my break

[pokemonruby]

i’ve been feeling really ill lately (and by ‘lately’ i mean like, the last 2-3 months give or take) but i’ve been too nervous to see a doctor about it because what if they tell me i have stage 5 Death Disorder. or just chalk it down to “maybe you should exercise more” 

#i personally don't think it's covid since it's been affecting me for so long now but who knows honestly. #i know it can have aftereffects that last for months and while i never got tested for it when i was sick the other month since #it honestly wasn't that bad and thought it was merely a typical sinus cold since i have allergies #but it could have been covid! who truly knows. #a lot of my symptoms correspond with anemia too apparently & my mom was recently diagnosed with it so #i won't know until i actually go & get checked out but i am the Anxious. rather just sit here and die honestly #riley rambles

[devertigozation]

Got 2nd booster shot yesterday (4th overall), and damn, not since the first shot did i feel those side effects that intense.

Literally like making a choice between laying in bed all day (which makes all my blood turn to jelly and causes headache) or walking around at least even though my bones and muscles ache so...

#but still. the pandemic is pandemic and im actually really happy that my country allowed those fourth shots #we've got some numbers rising (our fourth wave is building) so. the mandatory masks are back. plus - the new boosters were bought #tbh can i show off a bit bc last day when i got the vacc i just got reminded what a great response my country has had to the pandemic #like - lockdowns for two months with everyone (over18) being paid two and a half months minimal pay #all the vaccinations being free. even the expensive ones like Pfizer #i mean hell - in 2020 when they realized the danger of anti-vaxers they countered with a lottery in which all who'd get two shots would ent #er. the prizes being - an apartment. and two cars (yeah we stole the idea from russia it was still cool) #(like you could only enter the lottery if you were from one of cities with over a million citizens so i couldnt. but how cool is that) #and im sure so many more things. two covid hospitals were built (my grandma stayed in one of them and said they were amazing. so modern) #all while a fucking regime change was happening and the scumpiest politicians were leaving the country with all its money #and they and their assets were hunted down (we still are waiting for the history-defining lawsuits against them) #its just. its so fucking good that western chokehold upon us is over. their puppets if not gone then rendered impotent #theyve always made us feel afraid we wouldnt survive without their investments #but like man - despite despite despite we're thriving #i wish to all the countries - the western empire is crumbling. let it die soon for us all to live in the world without it)

[cesium-sheep]

I've always bounced back so quickly as soon as I get even the slightest bit of breathing room. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that it seems to be happening again.

I was talking to matt earlier and like. I'd be happy at 50%, that's an entirely acceptable long-term quality of life for me. (I've been below 5% all year.) but I suppose I don't have to limit myself to only 50% if I'm responding so well that it seems I might get further without significant additional cost (personal or financial).

#plus again I do need enough wiggle room that it's safe to (very slowly) take away the prednisone #like that's kinda the more immediate goal #and I don't actually have to reach 50% for that. #did I write down that the immunologist was appalled at the dose tampering from last year when I mentioned it? #anyway idk I just kinda. made peace with being debilitatingly ill for the rest of my life yknow? #and like. a week ago 50% felt soooo distant and aspirational #possibly too much to hope for #a very long-term goal #but I'd say I'm probably back in the 20s already? just eyeballing it? #at least if the past couple days become the norm #(honestly hanging out in the 40s is honestly pretty fine long term) #(but 50% is a good straightforward concept) #(I was in the 40s zone from the time I put my foot down about mcas until I got covid with the exception of a bad med and the vaccine) #(that's over a year with the exception of 2 2-month periods.) #(the first resolved on its own after stopping the offending med) #(the other we had to medicate out of)

[lunarsapphism]

.

#i am actually so unbelievably livid right now #like i do not know what to do with the anger that is being held in my body at the moment #ive just tested positive for covid after being sick for a few days #i just tested negative on saturday before i went to a concert and before i saw my partner #so i thought i was fine #but no! actually if i have plans or want to take a fucking break literally ever someone gets sick (me this time) and the plans are ruined #i am legitimately struggling so badly with my mental health right now this might genuinely be a breaking point for me #i am fully at risk #yknow? #anyway #i feel fucking awful because i saw everyone and was doing normal stuff and i just have an immense amount of guilt about it #like #several people have said its fine but i dont believe them at all #ive asked my partner twice if theyre upset with me and theyve said no but i dont think thats the case #i dont know #i was supposed to go on a trip with them this weekend and weve had it planned for a month #and now im sick and we wont be able to go unless shes sick too or i test negative before saturday #and i have a fucking final on thursday and im feeling like im going to fucking **** ****** #maybe im blowing it out of proportion! i dont know #but seriously this just happened like last month as well with another family member #we were all supposed to go on a trip to the beach and my brother got sick so only three of the seven of us went and it was kinda miserable #i swear to god i cant have anything good #i cant handle anything anymore #i dont want to live in this house and i dont want to speak with my family and i dont want to do school or work or anything else ever #the burden of being alive is immeasurable and i cant keep living with the responsibilities that come with it

[raeathnos]

.

#it’s been over a year since I had covid #I was diagnosed two months after I had it with long covid (mild thankfully but still) #I think it may finally be starting to get better? #I’m still really tired and achy all the time #and I still have the awful rattling cough #but I’ve felt that in the past maybe like two or three months they haven’t been quite as bad #and then I went into my basement which has consistently smelled like rotting meat after I had covid #you guys #it smells normal #it doesn’t smell like rotting meat anymore #I’ve been down there four times between the last two days when I first noticed #I thought maybe it was a fluke or something #but it smells normal #I wanna cry #like holy fucking shit I walk in the basement without feeling like the smell is gonna make me puke #I’m gonna fucking cry am I finally getting better? #when I got diagnosed they said there wasn’t a lot of info and symptoms might be permanent #and like I was lucky cause my symptoms were mild #(never mind actually having covid that fucking hit me like a truck) #but like it’s been over a year and I was resigned to just dealing with it for the rest of my life #I cannot believe #I know I said it seems like the other symptoms are improving #but here’s hoping they fully go away too #I’m gonna fucking cry holy fucking shit

[autismserenity]

know someone who enjoys horror stories? share this one! it's true!

hahahahahahahahahaha aarrggghhhhhhhhhh 3,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19 last year. Globally. Three million. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. The reason people are still worried about COVID is because it has a way of quietly fucking up your body. And the risk is cumulative.

I'm going to say that again: the risk is cumulative.

It's not just that a lot of people get bad long-term effects from it. One in seven or so? Enough that it's kind of the Russian Roulette of diseases. It's also that the more times you get it, the higher that risk becomes. Like if each time you survived Russian Roulette, the empty chamber was removed from the gun entirely. The worst part is that, psychologically, we have the absolute opposite reaction. If we survive something with no ill effects, we assume it's pretty safe. It is really, really hard to override that sense of, "Ok, well, I got it and now I probably have a lot of immunity and also it wasn't that bad." It is not a respiratory disease. Airborne, yes. Respiratory disease, no: not a cold, not a flu, not RSV.

Like measles (or maybe chickenpox?), it starts with respiratory symptoms. And then it moves to other parts of your body. It seems to target the lungs, the digestive system, the heart, and the brain the most.

It also hits the immune system really hard - a lot of people are suddenly more susceptible to completely unrelated viruses. People get brain fog, migraines, forget things they used to know.

(I really, really hate that it can cross the blood-brain barrier. NOTHING SHOULD EVER CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.) Anecdotal examples of this shit are horrifying. I've seen people talk about coworkers who've had COVID five or more times, and now their work... just often doesn't make sense? They send emails that say things like, "Sorry, I didn't mean Los Angeles, I meant Los Angeles."

Or they insist they've never heard of some project that they were actually in charge of a year or two before.

Or their work is just kind of falling apart, and they don't seem to be aware of it.

People talk about how they don't want to get the person in trouble, so their team just works around it. Or they describe neighbors and relatives who had COVID repeatedly, were nearly hospitalized, talked about how incredibly sick they felt at the time... and now swear they've only had it once and it wasn't bad, they barely even noticed it.

(As someone who lived with severe dissociation for most of my life, this is a genuinely terrifying idea to me. I've already spent my whole life being like, "but what if I told them that already? but what if I did do that? what if that did happen to me and I just don't remember?") One of its known effects in the brain is to increase impulsivity and risk-taking, which is real fucking convenient honestly. What a fantastic fucking mutation. So happy for it on that one. Yes, please make it seem less important to wear a mask and get vaccinated. I'm not screaming internally at all now.

I saw a tweet from someone last year whose family hadn't had COVID yet, who were still masking in public, including school.

She said that her son was no kind of an athlete. Solidly bottom middle of the pack in gym.

And suddenly, this year, he was absolutely blowing past all the other kids who had to run the mile. He wasn't running any faster. His times weren't fantastic or anything. It's just that the rest of the kids were worse than him now. For some reason. I think about that a lot. (Like my incredibly active six-year-old getting a cold, and suddenly developing post-viral asthma that looked like pneumonia.

He went back to school the day before yesterday, after being home for a month and using preventative inhalers for almost week.

He told me that it was GREAT - except that he couldn't run as much at recess, because he immediately got really tired. Like how I went outside with him to do some yard work and felt like my body couldn't figure out how to increase breathing and heart rate.

I wasn't physically out of breath, but I felt like I was out of breath. That COVID feeling people describe, of "I'm not getting enough air." Except that I didn't have that problem when I had COVID.) Some people don't observe any long (or medium) term side effects after they have it.

But researchers have found viral reservoirs of COVID-19 in everyone they've studied who had it.

It just seems to hang out, dormant, for... well, longer than we've had an opportunity to observe it, so far.

(I definitely watched that literal horror movie. I think that's an entire genre. The alien dormant under ice in the Arctic.)

(oh hey I don't like that either!!!!!!!!!) All of which is to explain why we should still care about avoiding it, and how it manages to still cause excess deaths. Measuring excess deaths has been a standard tool in public health for a long time.

We know how many people usually die from all different causes, every year. So we can tell if, for example, deaths from heart disease have gone way up in the past three years, and look for reasons. Those are excess deaths: deaths that, four years ago, would not have happened. During the pandemic, excess death rates have been a really important tool. For all sorts of reasons. Like, sometimes people die from COVID without ever getting tested, and the official cause is listed as something else because nobody knows they had COVID. But also, people are dying from cardiovascular illness much younger now.

People are having strokes and heart attacks younger, and more often, than they did before the pandemic started. COVID causes a lot of problems. And some of those problems kill people. And some of them make it easier for other things to kill us. Lung damage from COVID leading to lungs collapsing, or to pneumonia, or to a pulmonary embolism, for example. The Economist built a machine-learning model with a 95% confidence interval that gauges excess death statistics around the world, to tell them what the true toll of the ongoing COVID pandemic has been so far.

Total excess deaths globally in 2023: Three million.

3,000,000.

Official COVID-19 deaths globally so far: Seven million. 7,000,000. Total excess deaths during COVID so far: Thirty-five point two million. 35,200,000.

Five times as many.

That's bad. I don't like that at all. I'm glad last year was less than a tenth of that. I'm not particularly confident about that continuing, though, because last year we started a period of really high COVID transmission. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. Here's their data, and charts you can play with, and links to detailed information on how they did all of this:

Here's a non-paywalled link to it:

https://archive.vn/2024.01.26-012536/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

Oh: here's a link to where you can buy comfy, effective N95 masks in all sizes:

Those ones are about a buck each after shipping - about $30 for a box of 30. They also have sample packs for a dollar, so you can try a couple of different sizes and styles.

You can wear an N95 mask for about 40 total hours before the effectiveness really drops, so that's like a dollar for a week of wear.

They're also family-owned and have cat-shaped masks and I really love them. These ones are cuter and in a much wider range of colors, prints, and styles, but they're also more expensive; they range from $1.80 to $3 for a mask. ($18-$30 for a box of ten.)

#covid isn't over #covid 19 #disability rights #disability advocacy #wear a mask #covid conscious #covid cautious #mask up #wall of words #public health #health care

[pxrxmoore]

tfw going back to work after a week off is So depressing u start lookin for a new job

#i’m nearly 30 and i don’t even have a solid career path :) #and i fell into this job bc i was out of one for like 4 months thanks covid #so this isn’t something i even wanna do but it’s now the only experience i’ve got for the last 3 years #and i’m spiralling actually :) #if u couldn’t tell #bp

[unluckystreak]

having to put down both of my dogs within weeks of each other ... really! what a month!

#what a year #tw: pet death #tw: animal death #koda died march 10th #he was my soulmate he really was #i fully believe that #sandy was my last childhood dog that ive had since i was 11 #so both of them really hurt #this entire year has been a fucking nightmare #just kept getting worse #april is usually one of my favorite months #but im actually scared #january i had covid and the flue #and then i got that horrible rash so i was physically uncomfortable for a month straight #early february was my dad breaking his arm and my grandma almost dying #and having to be revived and put in ICU #late february was bleak for my grandma still and when koda started his problems #march koda worsened horribly i was fraught with horrible anxiety #i barely saw him the last few days leading to his death #then DAYS LATER my other dog had some weird thing happen to her #where the vet said the BEST CASE SCENARIO ... WAS A STROKE #and then she struggled and it was hard but it looked like she was getting better #and then she declined #and she died two days ago #i dont expect anyone to read all this or anything i just like getting things off my chest #im THE oversharer of all time #i have no idea what to do with myself #my entire body hurts aches and pains #my head hurts my chest hurts #i cant cry it away i cant scream it away i cant distract it away

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

going to bed to avoid getting caught up in The Sadness

#idk where i heard it but there was a comment ‘i don’t know how to live in a world where my dad isn’t here’ or something and it’s so true #that is so true. ​n e way a lot of things have not felt real since he passed like my life does not feel like my life #‘but j it’s been over a year and 7 months’ I know. #i still feel more like im just going through the motions than actually living #the strongest feelings i have are usually grief or terror so. #terror is abt covid + is kinda extending to disease in general a little but mostly covid #when ur haunted by ur memories of what covid took from u ig it kinda makes sense #grief + stress bc im doing things that i was preparing to do with my dad by my side but now im doing it alone n i have no idea what im doing #my mum wants to celebrate stuff like my birthday and some big stuff coming up this year but i can’t because my dads not gonna be there #plus i usually can’t stomach my birthday bc he died 2 days after and my last birthday where he was alive on the earth he was in the hospital #and supposed to be going to a recovery center (which he went to but was then transferred back into the icu. long story) but everyone was #telling me that he was gonna recover and that we’d celebrate again when he got home n everything would be ok #and then 2 days later he was dead and he’s never coming home #so i have a lot of trouble celebrating #the grief never stops it just recedes sometimes and then roars back in a wave so strong that you’re debilitated by it #vent tw