April 3, 2020 - Day 22 of Social Distancing
Today is day 22 for me in my social distancing journey. I still have a fairly high fear of becoming infected with the COVID-19 virus. Since I am just restarting this blog, I will share how my routine and physical/mental state change throughout this chaos.
First, I'll start with my employment. I am one of the few lucky people who has not lost my job, as I am able to do pretty much everything from home. One of the good things that has come out of this is that it made me motivated enough to clean out one of my spare bedrooms and turn it into a makeshift home office. It's not the perfect setup, but it is adequate and comfortable enough to get the job done. I wish I had a nice desk and office furniture, but of course, I will make do with what I have. I am still on a Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 schedule. My regular schedule before the virus and stay-at-home orders was waking up at 7:45a, getting ready for the day, and driving to work. Nowadays, I wake up about 10 minutes before my scheduled shift, roll out of bed, head to my home office and clock in for the day.
After checking my emails and any critical cases, I head downstairs and feed my cats and find something to snack on (my eating habits of full meals is very poor, I really need to get better about that!). About once a week, I make a quick run to the drugstore down the street to grab some drinks, snacks and any basic supplies I think I will need. Unfortunately, disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer and toilet paper are still practically impossible to find. Luckily, I rarely leave my house, and have enough cleaning supplies and toilet paper to last for a while.
Work....is just work. Same thing I do throughout the day that I would at the office. However, I have noticed that the days do seem to go by faster, because I am able to take mini-breaks as frequently as I want. I have found that there are definitely pros and cons working from home, but my personal opinion is that I am not quite liking it as much as I thought I would. One of the things I found that probably makes the time seem to go by faster is that I get to watch news or other streaming content at the same time I am doing work. My productivity is about the same as it was when I was working in the office, even with all of the little breaks. I could most likely get much more work done if I didn't take frequent breaks, but I feel like taking on too much work will make me even more stressed and anxiety ridden, so I have just kept a steady pace.
Once I am done with work, I usually head back to my bedroom, where I spend most of my time, at my personal computer for the rest of the day and night. I have found myself getting more interested in the politics of this pandemic. Most of my days are filled with watching news about the virus, politics and some gaming streams - all of which I will probably be writing about in the days to come.
Meals have been very irregular. I have been having health issues, which have caused major weight loss over the last year. I do feel hungry, and I want to eat, but eating more than a small meal does cause me some discomfort. I did have a bunch of tests performed before the virus started to spread rapidly, so my doctor does have some idea of what I am dealing with. I was prescribed medication a month ago, which I have seen no improvement, so yesterday, I messaged my doctor and he was able to call in new prescriptions for me to try. I still am waiting for one to be authorized by my insurance, so I am not going to start medicating until I receive the second script, which should be early next week. I hope it is effective, because I have lost 30lbs since the pain started. I would love to start eating some good meals soon, and gain a little weight because all of my clothes are too big now, and my doc is also concerned about my extremely low BMI.
Mentally, this social distancing has taken a HUGE toll on me. I have been taking more anxiety medication than I normally do. I often cry, not knowing when I will be able to physically see my family, friends and co-workers....and just get back to a normal life without fear of catching a virus with no known cure. I do have a therapist appointment next week through teleconference, so hopefully I can receive some good reassurance that what I am going through is normal. My sleeping schedule is very sporadic. Some nights, I can't fall asleep until after 4am or later, and only get about 3 or 4 hours of good sleep. I often take naps and most of the time, I have no idea what time of the day it is, except for when my alarm clock rings for work. I have some good days, but most are depressing. I actually had to print out a harshly worded sign that I posted in a few of my rooms today to try and keep me motivated to keep my spirits in a somewhat positive mood.
More to come tomorrow. What are some of the things you are doing to help keep your physical and mental health in shape? I am curious to know what others are doing. I have deactivated my mainstream social media, except for Twitter, because I feel like I have been posting so many negative opinions.
Stay safe everyone, I hope you are all practicing safe measures to keep yourself healthy. I am hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst, especially since I am in one of the hotspots in the USA. I desperately need to make a food run sometime soon. I will try and be more active, as I feel this is a super important time in history, something unprecedented, and no one knows what the future will bring.
Until next time - take care.