Lava lamps are hypnotic, fun objects you stare at as the gelatinous coloured blobs of stuff gradually float up and down in the glass tube. I'm not entirely sure how they work or what the goo inside them is made of. All I know is that for a week, I had something similar in my head.
I'm lucky really - this was my first experience of Covid despite the virus being around in the UK since 2020. Being in my 50s, getting Covid back then, pre-vaccinations, might have been far more serious. It certainly sounded horrendous, and the idea of being hooked up to a ventilator unable to breathe - it's enough to terrify anyone.
My Covid tale is rather less dramatic - but perhaps familiar to many who are getting the virus now - with our better prepared immune systems. Prepared, that is, but not armed to the teeth. This virus still has bigger guns and it's prepared to use them. My body's natural protection will hopefully win out in the end, but I'm the battlefield, and I'm feeling it. You can get more health news and other story updates by subscribing to our newsletters here.
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I started feeling a little odd on the Saturday - scratchy throat, that sort of thing - hints, but no real read flag, of what was to follow. Sunday was a different story. It was full-on, headache and tiredness. I tried paracetamol, but I may as well have been swallowing Tic Tacs for all the good it did. It felt like lying down, standing up, sitting down - nothing could make me feel any better, and no pill or potion could make a jot of difference. But, unable to stand up for long or focus on anything sitting down, and with an irresistible urge to rest and close my eyes - trying to sleep seemed the best of a bad bunch.
'Trying' was the operative word. It was when I tried to sleep that Covid switched to its new tactic - keep the subject awake, make it more tired, and therefore more susceptible to its attacks. This involved making my body leak saliva into my mouth like an annoying dripping tap in the night. I had to keep swallowing to stop myself drowning, but every swallow was harder than the last one, leaving my throat muscles aching, and sleep a distant hope. Once again, this may seem paltry to anyone who has been seriously ill with Covid, but it was still unpleasant and draining. I tried to prop myself up a little with my pillows, change position, get up and stumble around for a bit, drink some water - none of it worked. Eventually, sheer exhaustion meant I must have got some sleep, but I didn't feel the benefit of it.
So, bring on the next day, a little more tired, and another revolution on the vicious circle. But Covid was not done with me yet - time to throw another symptom bomb my way. Now it was the turn of something more traditional - the runny nose. Niagra Falls is a bit of a cliche - but think Niagra Falls. Let's just say, it was lucky we had over-ordered on the boxes of tissues - for we would soon be needing more. It was like a pipe had burst somewhere - I couldn't fathom where all this fluid leaking out of me had been hiding all this time. To help it on its way, I started sneezing near constantly. Wales has extended access to free lateral flow tests after a rise in cases - you can read about that here.
Then, as quickly as it had arrived, and having filled an Olympic-sized swimming pool with snot, it seemed I was emptied of fluid. Bizarrely, despite Covid being associated with coughing, that particular symptom troubled me little - I was coughing, but it was not out of control. My throat felt at times as if I needed to cough, but the resulting bodily reflex was a little pathetic sounding, a singular, 'eh-heh', not a raucous fit of chesty, noisy, head-shaking convulsions. I almost felt embarrassed.
This cycle basically continued for seven days. Covid for me was like Forest Gump's box of chocolates - I never knew what combination of symptoms I was 'gonna get'. And through it all was the tiredness, the lack of any real energy - and one other thing - the lava lamp thing.
Lava lamp does not entirely hit the spot as a description - but the gloopy, slow-moving contents are what comes to mind when I think of how my head felt. Bend down to pick something up, and it felt like everything at the base of my skull slowly slid as a single, lumpy entity through a slightly less thick fluid down to the top of my skull. Stand upright again, and everything would hover in mid-air for a moment, before gradually sinking down to where it was. The sensation felt a bit like vertigo. I understand from the NHS website it's something to do with the virus affecting the vestibular system – the link between your inner ear and your brain - but whatever it was, it felt weird, and made moving about at anything above snail's pace a challenge..
At one point, it felt like it was all coming out of my ears. I started having that sensation like when you've been swimming and you still have water in your ears that trickles about inside when you tip your head.
I'm now on day nine, and although I feel better than I did, I still feel the urge to cough on occasion, and some of the other symptoms are still there, albeit not as bad as they were. My head also still feels a little lava lamp-like at times, once again, not quite as disorientating as it was.
It doesn't feel like I've beaten Covid 100% yet, although I tested negative on day seven. It feels, rather, that Covid has changed me - like my body is still clearing away some of the bodies left behind by the biological warfare that's been taking place in my tissues. And every now and then I think I hear a shout or a scream - like Covid is locked up somewhere inside me, beaten, for now, but trying its damnedest to get out - revenge on its mind.
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