I came down with COVID on November 1. I am mostly recovered at this time. I am still building back my stamina. I can do things, but then I need to rest. Like for example this afternoon, I will do the hydroponics. After that I will take a nap. (ETA: I actually didn’t have to!)

Due to COVID, I had to reschedule my eye doctor appointment. I did get in to see my new primary care physician. My old PCP retired. Fortunately, I was able to find a new, good, PCP.

I went to see the PCP for several reasons. One is because my hips have been bothering me. The other is because my right foot has been bothering me.

On the good news front, it turns out I do not have arthritis in my hips. There is only very mild degeneration. This means I do not need a hip replacement. Yay! What I do need is PT. So I will start that in the next couple weeks and that will hopefully help a lot in terms of hip pain.

The other, not so good news, is that I have arthritis in my foot. I have medium degradation of the cartilage between the bones of my big toe. Next week, I will make an appointment to see a podiatrist. I don’t know what they can do for me. We’ll find out. I suspect not much.

Prior to coming down with COVID, I had just gotten my thyroid medication adjusted, and was starting to see good results from that. Then I got struck with the plague, and so am still struggling with fatigue.

In addition, I had been trying to lose weight. Before I got the new thyroid medication, I had been largely unsuccessful. As soon as the thyroid medication kicked in, the weight started coming off. All that weight loss has been on hold while I’ve been sick.

Starting next week I am getting back to walking more. Hopefully between 6000 to 8000 steps a day. The following week I’ll push that up to between 8 to 10,000 steps.

I figure once I start walking again, and doing general exercise, the weight will start coming off again. Because of the arthritis in my foot, it’s really important that I lose that excess weight now and that I keep it off. Both my foot and my hips will thank me for it. As will my knees.

Close to the start of 2020, I had started dictating all of my nonfiction, the blog posts and the essays. I felt out of that habit, primarily because of the fatigue. I always dictate standing, and I could no longer do that.

You’ll be happy to know that I am dictating this blog post, and I will start dictating all my essays again. It is time for me to start standing when writing again. I am already starting to stand again while working in the afternoons. Eventually, I will have to learn how to dictate while creating fiction. I’m just not there yet.

I think that’s all the update that I have at this time. It is rainy and cold today. We’ve had a couple of little flurries of snow with the temperature has dropped. Fingers crossed that’s all we get.

I will admit I am spoiling my birds, because I now have a birdbath heater so they always have fresh water. Because it’s been so cold at night, I take the hummingbird feeder in every night. By 8 o’clock in the morning, they are at my window wondering where their food is if I haven’t brought it back out by then.

What have you been doing recently to spoil yourself? Or someone (or something) you love?