As I write this blog, I am thinking about the song "10,000 reasons" by Matt Redman. A song about gratefulness and I can say with full confidence that having covid increased my capacity to be grateful by at least 10,000 percent and I am grateful to God for this increased gratefulness.
When I first began showing symptoms that lined up with Covid, I went straight into denial. I did not want to believe that this awful virus had come to me. I knew there was a possibility since at thist point everyone down our little dirt road had already started showing symptoms of covid. As I started to feel worse, I reached out and asked for prayer with this request: "I am not feeling well. I don't think it is Covid but please pray.” Even though deep down in my heart I knew. But my denial only grew even as I read about a lot of other peoples' first symptom experiences with covid and it lined up perfectly with how I was feeling. I finally gave in one evening as I knew it was covid and it was time to stop denying and start trusting God. I think the main reason I struggled with this deep denial was because I was scared. This virus is so unpredictable and I was frightened.
I know everyone seems to have their own unique experience with Covid, but here was mine:
My first symptom was actually my tooth/ jaw/ neck started throbbing. It felt like someone had taken a sludge hammer to the left side of my face. The pounding was nearly unbearable. The went on for a few days until I got a new symptom added on. This one was my eyes started hurting so bad. I couldn't move/ roll them around. If I tried to look at something without moving my head it felt like someone was stabbing the side of my eye with a pen. It actually hurt to even have them open as they were also insanely dry. Thank God I had brough Visine from the US. I had to reapply every couple hours. This symptom persisted for about a week. But in the meantime, every day it seemed a new symptom would surface. I started getting insomnia. When I tried too sleep my heart would beat so hard and so fast that it was useless to even try. I was so tired all the time. Partly because I couldn’t sleep at night and partly as a symptom of fatigue. Just walking from my bed to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee took so much out of me it felt like I ran into a brick wall (of tiredness) and I had to rest for a few hours before recuperating enough to do anything. This happened when school was still in session (online due to the strict lockdowns) but nonetheless, I was still teaching and I really did not want my students to know I was feeling bad. There was a lot of sick people in Nepal and the last thing I wanted to do was scare them. So I slapped a smile on my face and taught from my bed. It was not so simple when the next symptom came, the brain fog. I heard people talking about this symptom but I had no idea what it would be like. Imagine with me, if you will, a literal stormy cloud inside your head. Everything felt stuffy and confusing. It was so hard to comprehend or process even the simplest requests. Another symptom that came right around when the brain fog came was this feeling like there was water stuck in my ears and my nose (yes I am referring to that stingy feeling.) Also, my taste and smell faded away slowly (starting around day 6.) I always thought that would be the first symptom of Covid but for me it happened later and it was very gradual. Every day I could smell and taste less and less until one day I couldn’t smell anything. I could taste certain strong flavors though (the whole time.) For example, if there was a dish full of flavors I might taste slight bitterness but that was about it. Of all the taste to keep, I kept bitter. Hah! Other symptoms that came and went throughout the 3.5 weeks of being sick were sore throat, ridiculous coughing that makes you feel like you are choking, low grade fever, shortness of breath, and on a few occasions I had to really monitor my oxgyen level. I honestly can see how people can die from this virus. It was awful and honestly scary.
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| I was on the mend in this picture but still felt pretty awful. |
So these were things that helped me get through it:
I prayed Psalm 91 over and over again. If I wasn’t saying the Psalm then I was listening to it on my app as I attempted sleep. Honestly, I prayed a lot. A LOT. If I didn’t know what to pray I would go back to scripture. I rested as much as I could. I Increased my vitamin intake (zinc, vitamin d, vitamin c, etc and I took Ivermectin.) One thing that was helpful when I was experiencing shortness of breath was to walk slowly outside. Some days it was difficult to even do that but when I could, it was super helpful.
Overall...
Thanks to Covid, I learned that there really are way more than 10,000 reasons to be grateful to God. I am so grateful for my breath and each day I like to take a big breath in remembering that each breath is a gift from God. I am thankful to each beat my heart gives me as it means God has given me life. I am thankful for each question I answer as it means my brain is working, which is a gift from God. I am thankful to have enough energy to interact with my children as I know this life and this energy is a gift from God. I am thankful to breathe from nose without feeling that stingy feeling because that is a constant reminder that I am healed.
God is so good.
Trust Him. He is above all things.
I pray that anyone who is experiencing or has experienced any of the negative effects of covid, that this experience will give you an opportunity to grow in God’s grace. If you would like to chat with me more about any of this please feel free to send me a message (or comment) I am happy to talk with anyone about this.
