Tag Archive for: surviving covid

How I Quickly Recovered From Covid Pneumonia

I found that Traditional Chinese Medicine was very effective in treating my severe case of Covid 19, very quickly. They have many ancient, proven effective herbs and remedies that act as an anti-virulent, as well as ones that target and strengthen certain organs and organ efficacy like lung function. Here is my personal experience and what helped, and in no way am I offering any professional medical advice, please always consult medical experts.

I went in for my first Pfizer vaccine, but my daughter had tested positive for Covid 19 a week before. I left the house when we were first diagnosed and went to a hotel suite alone, as to not catch it, as I was at higher risk than my husband as he is a few years younger. Sure enough, I started to get sicker and sicker and you may guess, after a year of vigilant quarantining, masks, Purell and social distancing, I was… Covid-19 positive.

Variants- A Warning from the Health Department

Everyone who tests positive for Covid 19 gets a call from the Public Health Dept. in Colorado for contact tracing and quarantine purposes. The counselor said part of why we are seeing a slight uptick with Covid cases on the rise in certain areas, is the new P.1 variant strain, which I did not have, thankfully. She was so sorry to report that even people who are fully vaccinated can get this (since like any annual flu shot, vaccines help to prevent, but these have only a 90% effective rate) or unvaccinated people who had Covid before might even get reinfected. What? I thought.

People are relaxing now with a false confidence when indeed we should not completely, as we see second waves worldwide. However, our national vaccine success helps to mitigate that possibility as long as we keep taking them and not be so afraid of the exceedingly rare side effects. I know it’s one dire thing after another these days, and we all wish it were different, but I beg everyone to remain super vigilant in public places for awhile longer and please please please, GET VACCINATED!!!! You do not want this virus, I barely survived it, even with no underlying condition!

To the Hospital after Fainting

I came home and my husband created a sealed quarantine room in the house. We sealed the room completely with tape and tarps torn from black contractor/ leaf bags so my husband would not become infected. We had a Hepa filter fan in the room and turned off the whole house fan as to not circulate the aerosols of the virus. I did not leave the room for any circumstance whatsoever and gratefully had an attached bath, windows with sunlight, a roof to sunbathe and a hot water heating element teapot. I had found an urgent vaccine appointment for my husband a few days before I returned home. I started to cough so hard that I was getting a mild concussion, and pushing on my pelvic floor, miserable. My fever was steady at about 101-102. I was very tired and my lungs were filling up quickly with congestion. I could not eat, barely sleep and had these coughing bouts, whooping and dizzying. My resting pulse ranged between 98-121, tachycardia, and I felt like it was a fight for each and every welcome breath. Even binge watching 57 hours of Downton Abbey and feeble attempts to meditate provided no solace.  At times, indeed I thought I might not make it, really- and had to fight for hope, for my very life.

Dawn in the hospital bed with an EEG test.

Do Not Suppress Cough or Mild Fever!

I went to the ER one morning after I nearly fainted, I began to not see or hear and almost called for an ambulance. It is only day 4 of my fever and symptoms. They did a CAT scan to rule out a blood clot, yet saw covid pneumonia in one of my lower lung lobes, with a “webbing” of infection spreading which can be fatal. My oxygen was at 90, BP ok, so they sent me home to recover. They gave me a breathing spirometer to increase lung capacity that I was supposed to take 10 deep breaths every hour. This was very powerful as the nurse said that it “pops” the infected nodes in the lungs and can prevent fatality. They did rule out anything really dangerous but was there for an hour and 1/2 in Boulder and the bill was over 18 thousand dollars! This is why we must cap medical costs, have transparency and not a for-profit system, criminal! The saline drip costs about $1.40 a bag and they billed me $1,187. Now my insurance paid most of this for me, but still, we need a not-for-profit system. I am however grateful to have access to privileged medical care, and would only wish for that same access to everyone, worldwide.

I bought a finger based O2 and pulse monitor to check every hour, and was told to return if my O2 got below 88 where we live at higher altitude.

I called the CDC and a tele-health nurse, and they told me to *allow the coughing and slight fever!*

If you think about it, what are the two ways that the body has any chance of successfully fighting viral pneumonia? That would be a fever and the ability to cough out and expel any type of infection in the lungs. This made complete sense to me so I decided to not take any cough suppressant, cough drops, Mucinex or fever reducer if my fever stayed under 103. I did find these powerful TheraBreath Zinc lozenges since Covid drys your whole respiratory system out. I wonder if so many people are dying because they try to suppress symptoms and go against the body’s own healing attempts, taking too much OTC medicine and lay flat where the pneumonia can take over?

Every other night I would break down and take two baby aspirin or some acetaminophen to get to sleep but never any ibuprofen because there have been a lot of fatalities with that particular medicine, and it’s never used in our home. There have been some studies that aspirin helps to mitigate severe symptoms and prevents blood clots. I’d have intense night sweats, altering from cold to hot and it was impossible to get comfortable and feel ok. I did prop some pillows up or sleep “prone” on the belly and that worked. I tried to connect and listen to my body I could actually feel the congestion in certain areas by consciously trying to move/ cough up lung congestion to help my immune system and its recovery. When I could I got up and walked around, and did some light yoga and some postural drainage. I took steam baths with a towel over the head, with Vicks or Thieves (eucalyptus, clove oil) and had a steam humidifier going on full blast in the room 24/7. I rubbed tiger balm on my chest, but could not smell a thing! I drank plenty of water, tons, diluted fruit juices and steaming ginger tea with honey every couple hours.  I forced myself to eat healthy foods that my husband prepared to rebuild my strength, and we even had Meals on Wheels come for a few days!

Traditional Chinese Medicine

I contacted a very well noted and respected acupuncturist, Doctor of Oriental medicine, Dr. Jake Fratkin, who has been perfecting a tested Covid formula from China for over a year and did a Zoom tele-medicine call. He prescribed these three tinctures, with a foundation of Minor Buplerum or Xiao Chai Hu Tang. The night, actually the hour where I started on this protocol along with Vitamin C, D, Zinc a food based multivitamin and amino acids, I began to recover, and did so very quickly thereafter. When I was feeling better, I’d go out of the window onto the rooftop and sunbathe, the fresh oxygenated air did wonders! It took about 8 full days to recover with no remaining fever, some cough remained for another week, but I stayed inside under the strictest of home quarantine for 10. My husband helped me with postural drainage and gently beating my back called percussion.  My husband did not get Covid, thankfully. I think it is amazing that TCM has so many protocols for antivirals!

 

 

Covid Fast Remedy Checklist

 

Here is my personal Covid checklist if God forbid anyone in my family gets this again:

  • Vitamin D, C, Zinc, Multivitamin, Amino Acids and if prescribed by a TCM Doctor, Chinese anti-virulence herbs
  • Diluted fruit juices, green juices like Kale and Cucumber fresh nutritive foods like soups, broth, protein, vegetables and watery fruit like kiwi and oranges
  • TheraBreath Zinc lozenges
  • Fresh or Powdered Ginger Tea with Honey, nonstop
  • Vics Vapo Rub, Tiger Balm or Eucalyptus based Essential Oils like Thieves (I make it myself) that they used during the Black Plague
  • A Neti Pot to moisten and clear nasal passages
  • A Room Humidifier
  • Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and Baby Aspirin
  • A Spirometer
  • An O2 and pulse monitor

 

Wellness wishes to all, I’m 98% recovered, and it’s been just over a month. Some reduced lung capacity and tiredness and some slight paresthesia, as covid can have odd residual effects, but indeed, I’m so very grateful to have overcome it and happy to be alive.  I have my second vaccine on Saturday and will take it without hesitation. My heart to all of the many lives lost and their families, the unbearable anguish of our time. Please everyone still stay safe, and moreso, please make every moment meaningful- love well, live with integrity and joy with such a magical, fleeting, colorful and beautiful world we have. ♥️

 

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
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Apocalypse Now- A Visit from My Ancestors During Covid’s Fever

the fifth trumpet

Is Corona Virus the infamous plague predicted in the Book of Revelations? Well, having lived through it, I’ll give it a resounding yes.

The Fifth Trumpet
…The star opened the pit of the Abyss, and smoke rose out of it like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit. And out of the smoke, locusts descended on the earth, and they were given power like that of the scorpions of the earth.  They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.…

Revelation 9:3

I ascribe more to the Vedic world view, that we happen to be in a destruction cycle, things change, we call this a KaliYuga. It is a bummer to have to live through as things fall apart with there being a lot of death and destruction caused by our karma, but as Gandalf reminds us: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

I lie awake at night alone, each breath a welcome struggle to live one more second as my inflamed lungs made me feel like I was drowning. My fever was 102, I had tachycardia, my resting pulse was getting over 120, Defcon 1– full body alarm intruder warning, I could literally see the oscillating matrix of red-tinted death in space, it was intentional, alive- nothing short of the seek and destroy, inhumane, ruthless, where could it find a vulnerability, and if I wanted to give up even for a second, death would have ever so easily welcome me. Yes, I survived Covid 19, and it was a hard fight.

In my semi-altered fevered state, I spontaneously began to pray into space as I often do in the mornings and evenings. Then, I had an Obi-Wan moment, a team of my ancestral protectors appeared in front of me, vivid, clear and real. It was a panel of wisdom beings before me, my Tibetan teacher Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, my loving grandmother who passed and my yidam, the lion headed goddess Simhamukha, and my exceedingly wrathful protector, I’d prefer not to say her name here now. I was awestruck to see them all there at once, but the quality was none-other than love, compassion and reassurance. We started to talk, or rather, they talked and I listened, the voice was my guru’s.

I asked how is it that they were appearing to me all at once and why? What I will share is now personal, but I checked in and have the green light to share here. He (my teacher) said, we are all here all the time, you don’t yet understand non-duality, so you have to practice much more. We exist as you do, all on the “same shore” behind the constructs of time and space, death and birth. We all exist collectively and are all made of the same substance of light and mind, and you thinking that you are you, and that there are “things” that are separate is just an illusion. He said that I had reached a turning point with the virus, that I was not dying from it and that I would be better in 3 days, and for me to not be in fear.

He said that I spent too much time believing that I exist and then consequently believing that others exist and this creates dualistic grasping. He said I and others waste our lives trying to remedy loneliness on social media by wanting to feel connected and “wanting something” from beings that have no one inside of them that is permanent, real and that my quest was childish and life wasting. Why would I chose to fill my life, chasing beings whose nature is empty as mine is? It wasn’t that they don’t care about beings, but my care had to now pivot from wanting something from others to clear seeing and feeling the fullness of giving. He wanted to remind me to do at least two meditation sessions per day, 2 hours in the morning, and 2 hours in the evening.

Why practice so much I asked if it is all a dream? He said that when you practice, you become a stable, open vessel for wisdom and compassion rather than blocked and “they needed me to do that.” He said that the universe was filled with love and compassion and they forgive me for my flaws. I asked them if I had harmed he Dharma or broken any vows by speaking out against women and child abuse, and they said “no, the things that you expressed concern about were valid and these teachers and monks had to simply stop their misconduct as that was harming the dharma.” I was supposed to work to continue to help to protect children who are harmed.

My teacher had very thick glasses and huge lips, and after our conversation he kissed my forehead like a loving parent, and the whole panel of my wisdom ancestors emanated love to me, took away my fear and reassured me that I would recover soon now. He said don’t sit inert, get up and move, do light yoga and practice and this will soon pass. They said that I always has access to them and that if I practice a lot more, someday all will be revealed. This is true “revelation” that indeed, inspires me most. I am alive today, woke that morning and my fever had resolved. I now tested negative for Covid and no matter how dark things seem, will start anew, giving with the fullest of hearts rather than grasping, and devote my life to the dharma, our own collective, awakened heart.

 

Photo The 5th Trumpet https://www.howarddavidjohnson.com/revelation.htm

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