"My Quarantine Story" - The Time Between Times

As the tile says... it is like living in limbo for me.

I had a six year chronic illness called SIBO, that I've written about before and was on a strict ketogenic diet for 3 months prior to this insane world pandemic.

For anyone who doesn't know, the ketogenic diet shifts your body into ketosis, a state where you burn fat as your major energy source rather than glucose converted from carbohydrates. This causes a huge loss of weight, initially through stored water leaving your cells as the system used for carb/glucose energy conversion needs large amounts of water to function.

Then after about a month or two in full ketosis your body levels out and you are meant to see a slew of health benefits, especially improvements to cognitive function and energy levels which are both symptoms that my chronic condition caused lack in me. I saw no such benefits, but did lose over 2.5 stone in weight.

Then boom. Covid-19 hits and everybody starts panic buying in the UK leaving me with no choice but to wean myself off the ketogenic diet for fear of ending up without the foods I needed to maintain it.

Around 2 weeks ago I became sick. Fever, cough and a general sick feeling. So I did the right thing and self isolated to see if any other symptoms would manifest. After about 10 days of them slowly tailing off I felt fine and needing food, as well as just wanting out of the 16/16 foot bedsit that has become my world, I ventured out on my bike for a bike ride (check out many more pics below).

Maybe not the best idea. Fast forward four days to now and I've got a much worse fever, intermittent cough and my breathing is a little off, but not too bad.

What is intensely frustrating for me is that having to rapidly crash off the ketogenic diet could well have been the cause of the first round of illness. The lack of any effect on breathing hints that it was either that or a combination with a cold maybe. I just don't know!

This time round I'm feeling more ill and sure there is something else going on.

I read somewhere that similar to the flu, CV doesn't like the heat and sweating it out can help if you're healthy. So I'm giving that a go with the fire raging and plenty of hot showers. My biggest worry is that I was/am far from a healthy person with an underlying gut condition that the experts have never been able to help me with despite 4 years of trying.

But life goes on.

I worry more about my mother as she is on the high risk list.

She was diagnosed with cancer late last year and through a miraculous turn of events she was among 1% of cancer sufferers with a genetic mutation called ROS-1. This basically means no Chemo, and the medicine that she has to take for the rest of her life has mild to no side effects. But this doesn't take away from the fact that she is immune-compromised through her cancer and the action these meds have on her body.

At the moment I am finding the act of self-isolation of nearly 4 weeks with only one trip out further than my local shop quite difficult psychologically.

So I'm going to share the bike ride I took on Sunday before these symptoms struck again. I am a big believer in risk vs reward, and possibly I took a risk going out (the UK are still telling people it is OK to go out for food, medicine or daily exercise).

But what value can you put on actually living your life?

If I die in a week at least I will still have that memory of the salt breeze whispering past my ears, speaking to me of ocean currents and the gulls flight over Irish seas. All sparking memories of diving with seals in azure waters.

I will still have the memory of the cherry blossoms in bloom at festival Gardens, the park where I helped develop a community volunteers project in 2015/16.

Sun on my face and that whispering breeze cold in its embrace. These are the things that make life worth living for me! These types of things ring the bell to call of prayer of this poets soul. Nature and her gardens, cruel though she can be, bring the honeyed mead of poetry to my life.

Seeing mothers with kids, jumping in joy as the waterfall at festival gardens thundered to life.

The Yellow water-lily peaking their heads from murk of lake in the spring time awakening.

@theycallmedan asked a few specific questions in his challenge post, many of which have been answered generally in this post. But I'd like to address these two which I don't think I've really covered.

Have you used this time to strengthen bonds with loved ones, do you feel you'll come out of this a better person?

Yes, I speak to my mother (never knew my father) daily over the phone and certain life long friends who I rarely spoke to have now become regular zoom-ers. Don't know if that is the right word 😂 We're having video chats using the zoom ap on our mobile phones. This will make me a better person. All challenges of this level plant seeds that can sprout into acts of greatness.

Do you have any photos/videos to share of where you're hunkering down? Show us how you spend your 24 hours as a prisoner xD

Ha ha, I live like a student still and my bedsit is so tiny that I kinda wanted to duck out of this but I guess I can show you all the room where I basically live, breath, write and do most of my daily activities.

Warning to clean freaks out there... look away now!

And so I'll leave it with that poem and the view of my man-cave. I'm going to take a wee break of 3-4 days from anything hive related, including The Ink Well creative writing community I built. I've left it in safe hands of some wonderful friends and writers who've taken staff roles.

This post is exclusive to hive blockchain.

Thanks for reading.

Anyone interested in creative writing on Hive blockchain, or any type of poetry or fiction, please do check out the new community I created with @stormlight24 called The Ink Well.