Day 5: So far, so good, but then, I’m still lolling in bed. I awoke at 6AM, bummed that I didn’t sleep in. I am both restless and exhausted, a lethal combination. I decided to wait out the side effects of the Moderna vaccine at a friend’s trailer, as I was feeling far too weird to drive home. I’m totally spaced out—like being high—without the munchies. I have no appetite at all, and I’m trippin’ without the Grateful Dead.
I’ve spent the past few days dozing while listening to audiobook CDs in my car; the warm winter sunlight amplified by all those windows is heavenly—I must be morphing into a cat. Barb’s cat is jealous of my new digs, she wants in. At least I'm not snoozing on the hood of my car in front of God and the neighbors who were already craning their necks as it was.
Yesterday I slept in, which helped enormously. Nothing like a full-night’s sleep to make you right as rain, as my grandmother might say. But when I went to my care giver job, I was easily overwhelmed and distressed by mid-afternoon. Not quite ready to burst into tears, but close, I felt so out of sorts. Thickheaded.
The first few days after the vaccine I was freezing, cold as the morgue, a place I’m actively trying to avoid like the plague. I just couldn’t get warm. The first night I crawled out of bed and took a long hot shower to raise my body core. I was hovering at 97° flat. I was one cranky human popsicle. I took more showers during those first three days than the past month. If only I had access to a hot tub. I began to fantasize using a small horse trough as a hot tub. I even priced them out on Amazon. Totally doable.
It doesn’t help that I was born under the cranky sign. When I was a child, my granny said she couldn’t wait until I was old enough to drink coffee. Yesterday’s weak coffee didn’t help, it was limp-wristed milquetoast. I was still cranky as fuck. I needed a quad latte, only I wasn’t fit to drive over the hill into town. Driving while under the influence of Moderna is a real thing. The thought of double-clutching around wild curves, staying within the double yellow lines and avoiding entitled cyclists was too much. Stop signs and nuns didn’t count.
Multi-tasking was completely out of the question. Even mono-tasking was problematic, so attempting to do my caretaker job was painfully hilarious—especially the laundry. I was ADHD. Oh look, shiny. It took me three different attempts to finish one afternoon’s worth of work. The concept of pacing myself was not working out. I had no stamina, and it seemed as if my brain was having a three-martini lunch elsewhere, say, Victoria’s Station, ca. 1976, without me. Those everyday autopilot tasks were overwhelming as I had to actually think about how to do them. Sequential was not in my daily arsenal. My little gray cells were definitely on strike. For all I knew, they were probably calling their union rep for gross misrepresentation.
For example, I had three simple tasks, to check the laundry, maybe start a new load, and bring in the dry clothes. I managed to accomplish one task at a time, sequentially, replete with three separate trips to the laundry room, forgetting to carry over the new load twice.
You know how when you retrace your steps to the last place you were, in order to retrieve an escaped thought? Well, I had to return to the kitchen three times in order to finish the laundry. I don’t think memory foam shoes with homing pigeon instincts would’ve helped much, I was willing to consider it after my third trip back to the kitchen to remember what I forgot. What is it with the kitchen anyway? Why does it becomes the hot thought spot in the universe of forgotten tasks? Please don’t tell me the answer is 42. That reminds me, I forgot to wash the towels.
The rest of the afternoon followed suit in a similar crazy pattern of random memory breaks. Clearly multi-tasking, something which I am particularly adept at—one might even say I was the reigning champion of multi-tasking—was simply not in my domestic arsenal.
I was also easily fatigued which exacerbated the problem. And I was restless, niggling about like a homeward horse worried about the state of the barn. I couldn’t seem to rest. An odd combo of adrenaline rush compounded by fatigue and an absence of thought. Finishing sentences and following trains of thought was not on the agenda. I kept thinking, so this is what dementia is like, wanting to apologize to my dead grandmother for not understanding.
I am rather dogged, and tend to finish my tasks—no matter what. But yesterday was a challenge. I left many things undone. Time was an odd, if fluid concept. I was in a quagmire located in the land of forever, so just to make chicken soup and do the dishes was like being caught up in a domestic Godot walkabout. I dumped the pot of chicken soup I was making on the floor.
Driving home to Sonoma Co. from W. Marin was a more of a challenge than I had anticipated, I just wanted to pull over and sleep by the side of the road. I did pull over by Nicasio Reservoir to gather my wits. It didn’t work. They were off with the fairies. I should’ve just stayed over another night in W. Marin, but I wanted to be in my own bed. It was too difficult to be a guest, in a strange bed not my own—especially when I felt so out of sorts.
I fell asleep while listening to an audiobook, practically in my dinner plate. At least it was Blue Willow. I have no idea what audiobook. TG I was already in bed. Dressing for dinner during these Covid times revolves around which flannel nightie to don. So I was battle ready, girding my loins with plaid flannel. But at least I’m vaccinated. If I can make it through the next two weeks, I’ll be home free. No more masks. But now the scuttle is that Covid is morphing ahead of the curve. Hello mask.
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