You’re probably looking at the title, and the title of the last post, and wondering what happened to the week five report.

In a word, COVID.

Last week I battled COVID, starting sometime Saturday or Sunday (17 or 18 August). I had a follow-up appointment that Monday (19 August) with my regular doctor. She was very happy with my blood work. My A1C level had dropped down to 6.4 from a prior level of 7.8. I’d also lost weight so that I was down to 250 lbs. I didn’t feel good in the office, and I told my doctor I’d tested for COVID at home with both tests in the kit and they came back negative. She gave me an up-to-date nasal swab. By the end of the day it came back positive, but “abnormal.” Nobody has yet explained what that meant.

The doctor’s office immediately sent out a prescription for Paxlovid to my local pharmacy, so that I started taking it that Monday. I had enough for seven days (at two doses/day), so I took the prescribed doses through to the following Sunday. During that period I plummeted from mildly annoyed to deeply sick by Wednesday morning. I didn’t want to eat. All I wanted was to crawl up into a ball and be left alone. The best I could do was to keep hydrating, so I had a big 48 ounce insulated mug next to me that I kept filled with ice water.

By Friday I was back to the same mildly annoyed feeling I had Monday. I kept taking Paxlovid until it was finished by Sunday.

The impact on my surgery recovery was profound. I couldn’t finish my last two physical therapy sessions. Now that I’m catching back up to all the time I lost last week, I’ve noticed that I lost more than just a calendar week in time, I lost needed PT workouts. Fortunately COVID did not affect the incision or left knee replacement. In fact the incision is just a thin pink line now; all the puckering along the incision is completely gone. So is the swelling above the knee. But I can still feel that the left knee is weaker than it should be.

I’m very thankful that my wife didn’t get COVID, or if she did, it was so mild as to not be a problem.

So what are the other results of my finally catching COVID? In no particular order:

• I’ve grown paranoid again about going out into crowds, such that I’m back to wearing a mask. I intend to keep that up at least through the end of this year.
• As soon as the next COVID booster is available my wife and I are getting ours. We’ve always gotten the boosters, but this year even more so than ever.
• I managed to dodge COVID from the time it first showed up in late 2019 until this past week. I have no clue where I might have caught it.
• I’m so thankful for Paxlovid. It wasn’t available until late 2023. I’m 70, and COVID can still kill someone my age without proper care.
• COVID hasn’t altered my sense of taste.

And because my appetite dropped the way it did last week, I’ve lost another six pounds of weight. Absolutely not the way I wanted to lose weight.

It’s now four weeks after full knee replacement surgery. My left leg’s range of motion is officially measured from 0° to 115° last Saturday. One key metric indicative of healing is range of motion, and healing is considered nominally complete when it reaches 120°. I hope I reach that either this Saturday or next Wednesday when the physical therapist comes to visit.

Mobility continues to improve. I can walk unaided across uneven ground, which means I can garden around the house and walk around the neighborhood. I started to drive on my on yesterday, when I drove from home to a local Publix to pick up a few items. I didn’t take a an electric cart, but use a regular push cart to walk around the store.

Not all is sunshine and rainbows. The swelling is nearly gone, which is a good thing. However I’m having “uneven” days where my left leg is tired and the area around the need feels sore. This is to be expected as the knee is still “settling back in” to a regular state. My physical therapist told me that there would be down days as well as up, which is to be expected. However, the overall trend is still upwards towards full healing. My only concern is not to perform any activity that would mess up the surgery. These periods won’t stop me from performing prescribed exercises.

One other interesting health metric is my weight. I’m now down to 245 lbs, which is still too high, but nowhere near what I weight when I retired in January 2020: 285 lbs. I’ve lost 40 lbs over 4 1/2 years, which is a great and sustainable weight loss. I attribute the weight loss, in part, to a massive dietary change. I’m now fully vegetarian (not vegan!). This means eating a healthy diet of greens, vegetables, and complex carbs. No red meat at all. When I do eat animal protean it’s a bit of chicken or some fish and shellfish. What I’ve dropped completely is eating heavily processed foods and I no longer eat out at any fast food restaurants. I’m hoping to keep this up, because I would like to drop another 15 pounds.