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What's been up with us?
So you might have noted that we more-or-less went radio silent when we got to Edinburgh. You may not have noticed. You may have assumed it was the usual mid-vacation slump of forgetting to update the travel blog, or you might have assumed what happened.
Yup, we got Covid. We were half expecting it, even with taking what precautions we did, especially since the new vaccine didn't come out until we were already in Scotland. I assume we got the new strain. It was mild as these things go. It felt like I was speedrunning a cold, really, as the symptom occurrence was so compressed. One day I started feeling drainage, and the next I woke up with sneezing and coughing.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
myrialux felt fine, so I sent him to Boots (suitably masked) for meds and a Covid test, which confirmed my suspicions. I started isolating in the hotel room that day. myrialux masked up and walked around the Old Town and the outside portions of the castle, but started feeling symptoms the next day and stayed in with me.
We notified the hotel, which was glad to give us room service on breakfast (they don't offer it normally) and deliver extra towels, tissues, tea and coffee, etc., and to stay out of the room. We kept the windows open for both ventilation and to cool the room down as the hotel was well-insulated to keep warmth in. I discovered that the Deliveroo app (food delivery service) would take our US phone number so we explored the vast cuisines central Edinburgh had on offer for delivery. I'd lost my sense of smell and taste by then, so I went for textures I thought would be nice.
If we had to get sick, the timing was perfect: we had the hotel room for 6 days, and the NHS said to isolate for 5. And then we moved for 2 nights to the Ocean Mist, a small docked yacht done up as a 1920s gentleman’s yacht. It’s had a long history, including being used in war and being a nightclub, and was a nice place to hole up in for a couple more days. I'd already been to Edinburgh twice before, so not getting to see it wasn't the blow it could have been, though I most regret having to cancel the class where I’d get to learn about and fly a couple of birds of prey. I can’t find anything comparable here in my area.
Anyway, the theme of the vacation was mostly “waiting.” Waiting for trains, waiting for ferries, waiting for check-in times, waiting to feel better.
And of course I got home and had to reschedule three medical appointments and a massage thanks to Covid.
One of which I did today. Medical foo, skip if you're needle-phobic.
I have a thyroid that loves to have cysts that wax and wane in size, which I need to get scanned periodically. The week before we left it got larger than ever before, so it got scanned, I got referred to an ENT who looked at it, said it was a 4 on a 1-5 scale where 5 meant cancer, so not to cancel the vacation but to biopsy as soon as we got back. That was supposed to happen the day after we flew home. I called them, and the very nice scheduling lady said yeah, let’s push it off a week due to the Covid, and if I was still experiencing symptoms, call and we'd reschedule again.
My coughing got worse in the next couple of days—but this is an absolutely typical thing for me when I have a cold and don't have access to a humidifier at night (humid Edinburgh air was good, dry airplane air was not, I forgot my humidifier existed when we got home). I consulted my doctor, whose opinion was that it was my reactive airways (meaning they sometimes act like asthma when I don't have full-blown asthma), and gave me prednisone and benzonatate pills (numb the airways a little; codeine doesn’t work on my coughs). That's calmed my coughing a lot, and when I called the hospital I was to do the thyroid biopsy at, the scheduling lady said it was fine, but did ask us to mask up since it,s in the oncology wing with immunosuppressed people. Which we would have done anyway. I know hospitals have been upgrading their ventilation systems to filter out a lot more stuff in the past couple of years, which is why they're not enforcing masking now, but STILL I WILL NOT TAKE MY POST-COVID SELF INTO A HOSPITAL UNMASKED.
ANYWAY. So I got my throat scanned again, numbed with orange-tinted lidocaine so I looked like I had an accident with self-tanner, and got a needle stuck into my throat five times. FNA, fine needle aspiration, is exactly what it sounds like. The physician's assistant doing it asked if I wanted to see the ultrasound monitor as she did it, and I said yes, because I mitigate anxiety with knowledge, so she told me what she was doing as she did it. There was a lot of fluid in the cyst and a tiny little mass that they needed to get cells from. She ended up having to drain the fluid to get at the mass, then used the subsequent four needles to stab at it and collect cells. They got sent to the oncologist, who determined that she (I think she?) had enough cells to evaluate, and then we got sent home. We'll know in about a week if there's anything to be concerned with.
The worst part of the whole thing was the injection of the lidocaine, which burned for a bit before things went numb. It’s of course weird to feel poking about in your throat, and once a needle pinched when going in, but watching the monitor allowed me to dissociate from what I was feeling.
Now my throat is of course sore, and coughing disturbs it a bit. I look like I’ve been bitten by a mosquito five times in the hollow of my throat, but I got the orange tint off, at least. I’ve finally taken some Tylenol, since it hurts a little when I stretch my neck back, and I figure I iight do that while sleeping.
End medical foo. Summary: got a thyroid cyst biopsied, will know in a week if there's anything to worry about.
This weekend: a local writer's conference that I’ll be going to since I got the Covid all-clear from my doc. Woo.
Yup, we got Covid. We were half expecting it, even with taking what precautions we did, especially since the new vaccine didn't come out until we were already in Scotland. I assume we got the new strain. It was mild as these things go. It felt like I was speedrunning a cold, really, as the symptom occurrence was so compressed. One day I started feeling drainage, and the next I woke up with sneezing and coughing.
myrialux felt fine, so I sent him to Boots (suitably masked) for meds and a Covid test, which confirmed my suspicions. I started isolating in the hotel room that day. myrialux masked up and walked around the Old Town and the outside portions of the castle, but started feeling symptoms the next day and stayed in with me.We notified the hotel, which was glad to give us room service on breakfast (they don't offer it normally) and deliver extra towels, tissues, tea and coffee, etc., and to stay out of the room. We kept the windows open for both ventilation and to cool the room down as the hotel was well-insulated to keep warmth in. I discovered that the Deliveroo app (food delivery service) would take our US phone number so we explored the vast cuisines central Edinburgh had on offer for delivery. I'd lost my sense of smell and taste by then, so I went for textures I thought would be nice.
If we had to get sick, the timing was perfect: we had the hotel room for 6 days, and the NHS said to isolate for 5. And then we moved for 2 nights to the Ocean Mist, a small docked yacht done up as a 1920s gentleman’s yacht. It’s had a long history, including being used in war and being a nightclub, and was a nice place to hole up in for a couple more days. I'd already been to Edinburgh twice before, so not getting to see it wasn't the blow it could have been, though I most regret having to cancel the class where I’d get to learn about and fly a couple of birds of prey. I can’t find anything comparable here in my area.
Anyway, the theme of the vacation was mostly “waiting.” Waiting for trains, waiting for ferries, waiting for check-in times, waiting to feel better.
And of course I got home and had to reschedule three medical appointments and a massage thanks to Covid.
One of which I did today. Medical foo, skip if you're needle-phobic.
I have a thyroid that loves to have cysts that wax and wane in size, which I need to get scanned periodically. The week before we left it got larger than ever before, so it got scanned, I got referred to an ENT who looked at it, said it was a 4 on a 1-5 scale where 5 meant cancer, so not to cancel the vacation but to biopsy as soon as we got back. That was supposed to happen the day after we flew home. I called them, and the very nice scheduling lady said yeah, let’s push it off a week due to the Covid, and if I was still experiencing symptoms, call and we'd reschedule again.
My coughing got worse in the next couple of days—but this is an absolutely typical thing for me when I have a cold and don't have access to a humidifier at night (humid Edinburgh air was good, dry airplane air was not, I forgot my humidifier existed when we got home). I consulted my doctor, whose opinion was that it was my reactive airways (meaning they sometimes act like asthma when I don't have full-blown asthma), and gave me prednisone and benzonatate pills (numb the airways a little; codeine doesn’t work on my coughs). That's calmed my coughing a lot, and when I called the hospital I was to do the thyroid biopsy at, the scheduling lady said it was fine, but did ask us to mask up since it,s in the oncology wing with immunosuppressed people. Which we would have done anyway. I know hospitals have been upgrading their ventilation systems to filter out a lot more stuff in the past couple of years, which is why they're not enforcing masking now, but STILL I WILL NOT TAKE MY POST-COVID SELF INTO A HOSPITAL UNMASKED.
ANYWAY. So I got my throat scanned again, numbed with orange-tinted lidocaine so I looked like I had an accident with self-tanner, and got a needle stuck into my throat five times. FNA, fine needle aspiration, is exactly what it sounds like. The physician's assistant doing it asked if I wanted to see the ultrasound monitor as she did it, and I said yes, because I mitigate anxiety with knowledge, so she told me what she was doing as she did it. There was a lot of fluid in the cyst and a tiny little mass that they needed to get cells from. She ended up having to drain the fluid to get at the mass, then used the subsequent four needles to stab at it and collect cells. They got sent to the oncologist, who determined that she (I think she?) had enough cells to evaluate, and then we got sent home. We'll know in about a week if there's anything to be concerned with.
The worst part of the whole thing was the injection of the lidocaine, which burned for a bit before things went numb. It’s of course weird to feel poking about in your throat, and once a needle pinched when going in, but watching the monitor allowed me to dissociate from what I was feeling.
Now my throat is of course sore, and coughing disturbs it a bit. I look like I’ve been bitten by a mosquito five times in the hollow of my throat, but I got the orange tint off, at least. I’ve finally taken some Tylenol, since it hurts a little when I stretch my neck back, and I figure I iight do that while sleeping.
End medical foo. Summary: got a thyroid cyst biopsied, will know in a week if there's anything to worry about.
This weekend: a local writer's conference that I’ll be going to since I got the Covid all-clear from my doc. Woo.
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Fingers crossed for the biopsy results!
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Hope the cyst is okay.
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