I was sick for three weeks (and took another six weeks to fully recover) when I caught West Nile fever a year ago.
Do not recommend.
I was sick for three weeks (and took another six weeks to fully recover) when I caught West Nile fever a year ago.
Do not recommend.
I was bitten by a mosquito this morning. My first thought:, “Well, I had West Nile Fever last year, so I probably won’t catch it this year.”
Now I see this:
“… at least one person in Central Illinois is reported to have dengue fever….
There is currently no antiviral medication to treat dengue, but most cases subside within a week or two. Severe cases … can result in death.
Source: WCIA
I’ve had a draft post that was originally called my “fall workout plan,” and then called my “late fall workout plan,” but that I never posted because while I was sick I couldn’t work out at all, beyond walking the dog. I will post it. Perhaps not until it makes more sense to post a “winter workout plan.”
In the meantime though, I am, finally, back to doing workouts, and thought I might talk about what I’m doing, because my workout plan is to do workouts very similar to what I’ve been doing over the past week or so.
Back at the end of September I came down with West Nile Fever, which made me pretty sick for a long time. The only time in my life before I was that sick for that long was when I had Mononucleosis when I was a freshman in college. That time I was sick for most of the term, and it took several weeks of the Christmas vacation to fully recover.
With West Nile it took about three weeks to recover from the acute phase of the illness. That is, I had a fever constantly for three weeks. Then it took another three weeks to get my energy levels back. For that period I could walk the dog, fix breakfast, and then do one thing, after which I needed to go back to bed and take a nap.
As of a couple of days ago, I think I’m back to full health. I’ve been doing workouts—not as frequently as I’d like, but often enough that I’ve been able to start pushing the weights up again, although not up to what I doing before I was sick. I’ve been for a couple of runs, both of which were harder and slower than I’d like, but were okay—I didn’t feel like I was sick, just like I hadn’t been running enough the past few weeks.
On Sunday I got a Covid booster, so I felt slightly less energetic Monday, but that has already passed.
After too many weeks, I finally feel back to normal!
As someone who just spent five weeks recovering from West Nile Fever, this article spoke to me:
climate change will result in the infectious disease dengue becoming endemic in parts of Europe and the United States,
Source: WHO chief scientist warns of endemic dengue in Europe, US – POLITICO
(Dengue and West Nile virus are both in the same family, along with Zika and Yellow Fever.)
Via Bruce Sterling.
About three weeks ago I developed a fever and moderate flu-like symptoms. It felt like a virus, so I mostly just treated it liked one—sleeping extra, drinking extra fluids—and waited to get better.
It was kind of frustrating, because it just went on and on. For a brief period there in the middle of week two, it got a bit more exciting: I starting having trouble finding words. (I sounded exactly like my dad when his dementia made it impossible for him to say stuff. Pretty scary.) At about the same time I started suffering from double vision.
At the prompting of my mom and brother, I went to the emergency room for the word difficulty. They did a whole workup for a possible stroke: CT scan, chest x-ray, and and MRI.
I was not having a stroke.
Once I was released from the emergency room I made a follow-up with my regular doctor, who was kind of groping for possibilities, and put in an order for a few tests. The blood was draw on Monday, and today I got the results: positive for West Nile virus.
The related illness, West Nile Fever, does sound exactly like what I had. (That’s actually kind of a scary link. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to have any of the longer-term consequences. I was just sick for three weeks.)
Anyway, I think I’m on the mend. I’m resuming normal activity as each thing seems okay. It’s taking a while feel up to swordfighting, but I think I can finally do everything else on my usual list.