Last week I got an invitation for a grand reunion at the Guam Covid Recreational Park (GCRP).  The door prize was a free Covid vaccine.   And, if you got a reaction you earned a chance to play for a bonus prize.  Got my vaccine on Tuesday last week and spent the next day at the local reverse spa. (Here they give you body aches rather than take them away and rather that put you in a tub to heat you up they put you in a bath to cool you down).  The reverse spa was great--my temp reached 102.5 and I really ached all over!  It took a day or two before the therapeutic benefits of the treatment wore off.  Then I was notified that I had earned a chance to play the bonus game.  This was one of those things where you swing a sledge hammer and hit a lever to make the ball shoot upward to ring a bell.  Well I was feeling a little weak so I let Glenda swing the hammer and she put her all into it--not only hit the bell but shattered it to pieces.  We won the grand prize--a multiday pass to GCRP to enjoy the experiences that are hard to get in one place elsewhere.

So here I am.  Some things I have endured so far are a trip to the very highest point in the park to get radiated and take a selfie; a visit to the swamp where the leeches are, to see how many leeches you can catch with each arm.  I think I had 8 bites but two got away before they got any blood.

Then there is the water machine.  The goal is to put the right amount of fluid in the top of the right kind to get the right amount of fluid out the other end.  This one is tricky.  First they keep changing the rules as to whether you want more out than in or more in than out.  Second you can put fluid in through the "orifice" on top or you can you can make a hole in the machine on squirt the fluid in directly.  Third there are multiple ways to get the fluid out,  There is a drain on the far side of the machine, or you can heat the whole machine up and it will drip fluid all over, or you can simply put the fluid in the garbage and it goes out with the trash.  Last there are different fluids you can put in, each one good for something or bad for something or both, either or neither.  And if you don't get it right there is always the special chemicals you can add to magically change what happens inside the machine.  This thing is very frustrating, haven't quite mastered it yet but they say if you get it all right the machine comes to life, hops and dances and sings songs (like at Chuckie Cheese).

Next is what I call the "Spastic Contraption".  This item is "wired up".  There are two versions, one has about 12 wires and the other 25 or thirty hanging out.  Then they find all these "magic spot" on one's body sort of like eastern medicine pressure points or acupuncture and "wire you up".  Then some innate energy flows out of your body and into the wires and tells what is going on in your brain and heart.  I think it is a conspiracy to steal your thoughts and harness your emotional energy.  I played that one (the simple one) four times and so far I have been able to keep them from finding out much about my insides. But there is the OTC version that only has 5 wires.  All it does is take your energy from the wires and counts and make funny tocks, whistles and if you are really clever it will ring a bell for you.

They have a novel way of making you stronger here.  Rather than you squeeze the arm muscles to strengthen them, they put this ring around the arm and squeeze the muscles for you.  To begin with it does this exercise every 10 to 30 minutes but after 12 hours or so you only get the treatment once every 4 hours.  Usually they only do one side over and over again so I am having them do my right arm so I can punch harder with that arm.  

There must be some rich people here at GCRP because I keep hearing them page for the butler, the maid and the chauffer.  Except they call them by different names--the porter, the housekeeper and the courier.  I think it has something to do with political correctness and diversity. 

My pass expires today but they may extend it for several more days depending on the scores I achieve on each "ride" .

By the way, they have updated the park since I was last here.  They discovered that only older people were visiting so the got rid of all the amusement rides and are concentrating on less thrilling but more challenging experiences now.


OK.  November I got out of hospital with severe compromise of cardio-pulmonary function with scar tissue in my lungs from covid pneumonia (fibroses) and damage to my heart from two small heart attacks.  Did two months of rehab and got back about half my function.  I used to walk 5 miles on weekdays in just about an hour and 8 miles on weekends in 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  Now (before this last week) I can still walk 5-8 miles but it takes just about twice as long.  Any real exertion (steps, lifting or carrying heavy items, etc.) and I get winded easily.  Cardio pulmonary exercise test in February shows still considerable damage both heart and lungs but still some room for improvement, with lungs being the limiting factor.  Cardiologist working on medicating my heart to help it recovery more.

The severe reaction to the covid vaccine (first the early "viral" phase, followed by the "late" phase which is cytokine storm) has set me back an unknown amount with my heart and is now limiting my function a lot.  Cytokine storm is the body's overreaction to the immune response to Covid and the main cause of severe covid.  The research indicates that about 10% (give or take) of people carry a genetic defect in the immune system that takes the brakes of the inflammatory reaction and those are the people that are prone to a more severe coarse of disease.  As I really have no other risk factors for severe disease, I suspect I may carry this gene.  It is particularly involved in the reaction of the heart to viral infections.  My father died of a viral cardiac myopathy at the age of 41 and I may have inherited this gene from him.  (Daughters beware of severe viral illnesses.) 

[For you medical techies, cariomyopathy is a known complication of coronavirus, influenza, cytomegalo virus, and others. Cytokine storm may be implicated in autoimmune disease such diabetes, Kawasaki, covid multisystem organ disfunction in children and who know what else.  This research is just being published in the last several months and involves one of the interferon's function (or disfunction).  Don't ask me for details because most of the stuff I read is over my head--but this my take on it.]

I had returned to work several weeks ago--4 hours a day 4 days a week.  Two in the clinic and two with the epidemiologist at a desk in the office.  It will be several weeks before I start working again.

Thank all of you for your prayers and concerns.

Lee