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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2020 10:16 pm 
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bbarry wrote:
At that time I decided to trade my 2008 Chevy Silverado pickup for a new 2019 Ford Ranger Lariat pickup with all the electronic gizmos and safety features.

You should've bought a Volvo if you want safety features :lol:


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2020 9:26 am 
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Not sure why you say that. The Ranger Lariat has a five-star crash-test rating and a multitude of safety features which easily match the Volvo. Plus the Ranger is a pickup, which is important to me. Plus the Ranger is American made, which is important to me.

That said, the one Volvo that I did like was the sports model P-1800 that was around during my college days. I would drool over that car but could never afford one. 8-)

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2020 1:45 pm 
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Just got a 2020 Ranger a couple of months ago, could have paid cash but took the 0%. Was driving a 2003 Dakota.


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2020 2:13 pm 
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David, the 2020 models were just coming out, and the Ford dealership was making great deals on the remaining 2019 models. I love my Ranger, although it took me a month to learn how to use everything on it. So many available voice commands that I ended up typing and laminating a couple of 'cheat sheets' that I keep on the sun-visor.

I've had two reportable accidents in my life. The first was 20 years ago in Wyoming when a big doe came out of a ravine and T-boned my Dodge Durango. The 2nd was in my own driveway last week. The repairman was there to put new liners on the bottom of my garage doors. When he got ready to work on the door directly behind my Ranger, he asked me to back out of the garage so he wouldn't damage my truck. I was looking at him standing in my garage and I failed to see his truck parked at an angle across both garage pathways. So before either of us realized what was happening, my rear bumper pushed against his passenger door......put a small crease in his door without breaking the paint.

On my Ranger, the slow impact put a rub mark on the side of my rear bumper AND put a small crack in the rear tail light assembly. I though no big deal.....I'll just replace the red plastic shield. Nope, the assembly is a totally sealed unit that contains expensive LED bulbs AND a Blind Spot Information System (BLIS) radar camera. Total cost of this assembly is $1100. And right now there is a national back order on this part. Luckily, this tail light assembly still works. :oops:

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2020 9:19 pm 
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bbarry wrote:
I'll just replace the red plastic shield. Nope, the assembly is a totally sealed unit that contains expensive LED bulbs AND a Blind Spot Information System (BLIS) radar camera. Total cost of this assembly is $1100. And right now there is a national back order on this part. Luckily, this tail light assembly still works. :oops:


Oh, my! Could you seal the crack with some clear epoxy perhaps? I know I'd want perfection, so would be ordering the new assembly, but that's a crazy price!

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2020 9:41 pm 
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Yea, Steve, that's exactly what I did. Then I covered it with red duct tape. Many of the vehicles in Arkansas are held together with duct tape, lol.

Luckily my AAA auto insurance will pay for the damage to both vehicles (less my $500 deductible) and not raise my rates. Since I've been with AAA for 12 years without a claim, I qualify for their 'accident forgiveness' program. So I will live with the epoxy & duct tape until the new tail light arrives.

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2020 7:29 pm 
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bbarry wrote:
Not sure why you say that. The Ranger Lariat has a five-star crash-test rating and a multitude of safety features...

It was meant to be a flippant remark about how safety might be great for the occupant but probably not so much for a pedestrian should you, god forbid, hit one.

With hindsight i likely shouldn't have posted what i did.


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2020 7:41 pm 
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bbarry wrote:
Nope, the assembly is a totally sealed unit that contains expensive LED bulbs AND a Blind Spot Information System (BLIS) radar camera. Total cost of this assembly is $1100.

WOW!! I'd get that BLIS tested, it clearly didn't work unless you ignored whatever warning it gave you?


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2020 7:42 pm 
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Doddie wrote:
bbarry wrote:
Not sure why you say that. The Ranger Lariat has a five-star crash-test rating and a multitude of safety features...

It was meant to be a flippant remark about how safety might be great for the occupant but probably not so much for a pedestrian should you, god forbid, hit one.

With hindsight i likely shouldn't have posted what i did.


That's what the bed of the truck is for. Hit them with the front bumper, they fly up in the air into the bed in back. Drive on like nothing happened. :rofl2:


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2020 7:48 pm 
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dvair wrote:
That's what the bed of the truck is for. Hit them with the front bumper, they fly up in the air into the bed in back. Drive on like nothing happened. :rofl2:

:rofl2: :twisted: <-- enter-- :auto2: :rofl2:


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2020 8:35 pm 
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Doddie wrote:
bbarry wrote:
Nope, the assembly is a totally sealed unit that contains expensive LED bulbs AND a Blind Spot Information System (BLIS) radar camera. Total cost of this assembly is $1100.

WOW!! I'd get that BLIS tested, it clearly didn't work unless you ignored whatever warning it gave you?

Doddie, BLIS has two limitations:
- It does not work on sharp bends.
- It does not work when the car is reversing (which is what I was doing)

It is primarily intended to give you warning as you are driving (forward) and a passing car enters your 'blind spot' on either side. When this happens on my Ranger, I get a flashing yellow light in the appropriate outside mirror.

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2020 8:39 pm 
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Doddie wrote:
bbarry wrote:
Not sure why you say that. The Ranger Lariat has a five-star crash-test rating and a multitude of safety features...

It was meant to be a flippant remark about how safety might be great for the occupant but probably not so much for a pedestrian should you, god forbid, hit one.

With hindsight i likely shouldn't have posted what i did.

Agreed. :mrgreen:

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2020 7:13 pm 
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Bringing this back on topic.

This week has been a bit up and down as well but by the standards of the previous two months this has been an excellent week.
I'm by no means back to my normal self but the signs are encouraging.

Yesterday and the previous two days 'felt' good but i was apprehensive to try and do anything,... experience has taught me that over-reaching almost always results in a crash.

So today when i woke up, and because i still felt almost 'normal', i thought i should at least try and do some chores around the house... my amazing wife has been left to do everything which i've been feeling incredibly guilty about... normally the housework is split between us because we both work full-time and we do what we can, when we can.

It may not sound like much but i was able to get dressed, wash the dishes, vacumm, and do some dusting all in one session...
To put that into perspective, most days over the last two months simply meant getting dressed would leave me feeling wiped out and ill.
I still felt wiped out at the end of it, and a little nauseous, but it was (for me) a huge step forward.

So now i've been off work for 8 weeks and heading into the end of the 8th month since i suspect i contracted Covid-19 i've just re-read this thread to see what if anything might have changed...
[Guilty --- Along with attempting to raise awareness about Long Covid, i used this thread as a record for my own symptoms.]


I'm glad i did because with hindsight much has changed.

So far i no longer suffer from:
Pain in my knees (other than the early signs of arthritis i was previously diagnosed with in one knee), other joint pain, muscle pain, sciatica etc
No recurrence of skin complaints, e.g. Hives etc.
Loss of appetite.
Headaches.
Brain fog.

Improving:
Nausea, very very slowly improving... this is hard to describe or explain... i still regularly feel nausea but it rarely includes my gut now, instead when i feel nausea it feels like it's only in my chest and throat.
Extreme fatigue... hard to quantify because most nights/days i still sleep at least 10-12 hours, but it's less than the 16+ hours i was sleeping two months ago.
Exhaustion... i struggle to understand what the difference between fatigue and exhaustion actually is so for this example i'll class exhaustion as how tired i feel after having completed a task (or tasks).... this is improving but painfully slowly.

The above said i have set myself some goals, for me it's embarrassing to admit them because they appear so simple, but this is the position i find myself in....

1. Get out the apartment to street level and get back up again, i live on the third floor... i haven't left the house for two months.
2. Check on the car to see if it'll still still start, or for vandalism.
3. Get my life back.
4. Report here that this thread can be closed.

Irony, my all time favourite song is Pink Floyd Comfortably Numb... my wife bought me a framed picture of the lyrics for xmas 2019 with the caveat that i stopped singing it when i wear headphones.

Little did we know at that time that i'd soon be living the song!!
https://youtu.be/QrWZNAQrkf4


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:26 pm 
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Glad to hear that you are improving so as to get your normal life back. Also hope that your car starts and was not vandalized.

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2020 6:20 pm 
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Thanks Barry.

Actually there was one element i didn't include in the above, my bodyclock... i've ignored that so far because i figured that if my body needs space/time to recover i should just accept it and go with whatever it needs (e.g. If i'm not feeling tired then don't sleep, if i do then it's the time to sleep for as long as it takes).

Right now my bodyclock is so far out of sync it's bordering on sublime, i'm somewhat used to that being a night worker but after two months of not working it should be on daytime by now but it isn't even close.
Most likely because when i stopped working my body was in night mode and hasn't been allowed to readjust?
The number of days i've been awake before midday i could count on one hand in the past two months, the number of nights i've been in bed asleep before 4am could also be counted on one hand.

Now that my symptoms appear (hopefully) to be waining i've been thinking that now would be a good time to try and get my bodyclock back into sync... i'm not sure how i'm going to manage that because normally it just happens, maybe it will still do that but i don't know.

In an attempt to put the above into some sort of perspective:

When i was forced to stop work in August it was dawn at circa 5am and dusk well after 8pm.

I've noticed the nights drawing in but i was woken this morning by my wife at 7am because i'd fallen asleep on the couch (under normal circumstances falling asleep on the couch wouldn't be unusual for me but this was a first since i had to stop work), i simply couldn't believe the time was 7am because it was pitch black outside and i hadn't been awake at anything close to that time of day for two months.

It feels as if someone has stolen two months of my life...
Think of it like... somehow the planet has time shifted around the sun by two months and no-one told you until you wake up!

My focus over the last two months has been not about what is happening to me, it's been tying to understand why it's happening to me.
I'ts clear now why it's been happening, Long Covid, but at the start i had no idea and it was very scary.

As i continue my recovery i hope there will be no more as yet unknown setbacks.

To date there are no reported cases of anyone dying from Long Covid so hopefully it's only onwards and upwards from here.


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:29 pm 
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Doddie wrote:
To date there are no reported cases of anyone dying from Long Covid so hopefully it's only onwards and upwards from here.

Sadly what i said above no longer appears to be true.

Long Covid: St Annes man dies after cardiac arrest
Quote:
A man who was the last patient to leave Blackpool Victoria Hospital's intensive care unit during the first wave of Covid-19 has died.
Roehl Ribaya, 47, of St Annes, Lancashire, spent 60 days in intensive care is thought to have died from the long-term effects of the virus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-54597619


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:38 pm 
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:-(

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:57 pm 
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As if i didn't have enough to deal with, my employers HR dept contacted me today via email to set up a tele-conference call to discuss my absence, set for 20th Oct at 14:30.

Part of me is like which part of a medic has signed me off work and this is a new virus that no-one understands let alone know how long my recovery might take don't you understand?

Part of me understands why, because it costs the company money... but really, do they honestly believe now is the right time to be doing this?

Given that my bodyclock and sleep pattern (and more) is all over the place just now i've asked my wife to call the home landline repeatedly from 13:30 until she gets an answer so i'm awake for the call... she'll be at work when she has to do that.

My line manager knows this but HR don't seem to care... rescheduling was an option but what's the point when it'll just put off the call for another day when i may or may not be able to take the call.

Fwiw, my work place and employer are not the same people.


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 10:21 am 
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Doddie wrote:
As if i didn't have enough to deal with, my employers HR dept contacted me today via email to set up a tele-conference call to discuss my absence, set for 20th Oct at 14:30.


I am hoping that the call works out okay...

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:08 pm 
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sboots wrote:
I am hoping that the call works out okay...

The call never came and i can't tell you how angry i am about that, if i was to express my anger i'd probably be banned from this forum, and sacked from my job if i spoke to HR right now.

As planned, my wife phoned me at 13:30 yesterday, it took two calls of the phone ringing out before i woke up.

As soon as i woke up i had that (if you suffer from this you'll know) awful feeling that this was going to be another bad day, sure enough, by the time i got out of bed and got to the phone (the phone is at the foot of the bed on purpose, so if i need to get up i actually do) my head exploded into brain fog with dizziness and my body felt awful, especially my gut which was new to me.

As soon as i answered the phone my wife knew i wasn't good but i said to her don't worry i'll be fine, i'm going to make a coffee and chill on the couch until the call comes because i need to get it out the way.

14:30 came and went, i stopped waiting on the call at 17:00 but by now i was really struggling to cope with the stress, i had no energy to do anything, i hadn't eaten since 19:00 the day before, i still wasn't dressed or washed... and i had no energy to do anything about any of that.

Not eating or getting dressed and washed hasn't been an uncommon occurence over the last two months but i thought i was recovering so i was surprised to find myself back in that state, i'm angry beyond words because i went out of my way to make sure i was able to take the call even though i'm ill, something the company knows full well... but i never got the call AND nobody has had the decency to explain why not, let alone apologise.
Whether or not allowing my body the sleep time it needed was a factor of this setback i doubt i'll ever know, but as a minimum i would've expected at the very least a courtesy call from HR or the line manager to say sorry.

By the time my wife got home from work my gut and head were all over the place... she cooked me a meal much of which i couldn't eat because i felt so ill... all i wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry wishing this damn virus would leave me alone.

22:00 is the time my wife usually goes to bed when she's working the next day so i decided to tough it out on the couch for the night so i didn't keep her awake all night, my gut was really playing up, i couldn't stay in the same position for more than 15 minutes... it was like there was something alien in my stomach being dragged down by gravity because if i lay on may back the rear of my stomach would hurt, if i lay on my side then the side of my stomach closest to the planet would hurt etc, turning around was the only way to alleviate the pain.

Fast forward to 05:40 this morning when my wife typically gets up for work... i was still tossing and turning on the couch having had no sleep.

I got up and went to bed... eventually at 08:00 this morning i think i managed to finally get some sleep because the next i knew it was 15:00 today.

Today i feel a bit better but i am so angry with my employer that they put me through this, at some point yesterday they must have known the call wasn't happening, a simple email or phone call would've allowed me to go back to bed... add that i've still not had an apology nor any contact... when i eventually feel better i will raise a grievance about this.


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:28 pm 
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That sucks big time! I hate waiting for appointments to begin with. So sorry that you are going through this. :-(

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:39 pm 
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sboots wrote:
That sucks big time! I hate waiting for appointments to begin with. So sorry that you are going through this. :-(

Thanks Steve, it is what it is and where i am, the good news is we can't blame Microsoft MVP's for not testing MS antivirus software thoroughly enough on this occasion though :rofl2:


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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:21 pm 
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Doddie wrote:
...the good news is we can't blame Microsoft MVP's for not testing MS antivirus software thoroughly enough on this occasion though :rofl2:


LOL! :rofl2:

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:24 pm 
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Bummer! You mentioned that your employer and your work place are different. Do you think maybe the people at your work place are acting in your defense and maybe shut down this teleconference? Or maybe your line manager, who I assume works for the same employer.....you mentioned that he understood the situation.....maybe he shut it down?

To help me better understand the situation, I have a couple of questions (which you are certainly not obligated to answer):
(1) Are you continuing to get paid during your absence, either as sick leave or short/long term disability?
(2) Who is performing your job during your absence? Did your employer supply a temporary replacement or is your work place making due with the staff they have?

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 Post subject: Re: My experience.
 Post Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2020 10:35 pm 
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bbarry wrote:
Bummer! You mentioned that your employer and your work place are different. Do you think maybe the people at your work place are acting in your defense and maybe shut down this teleconference? Or maybe your line manager, who I assume works for the same employer.....you mentioned that he understood the situation.....maybe he shut it down?

To help me better understand the situation, I have a couple of questions (which you are certainly not obligated to answer):
(1) Are you continuing to get paid during your absence, either as sick leave or short/long term disability?
(2) Who is performing your job during your absence? Did your employer supply a temporary replacement or is your work place making due with the staff they have?

Barry, my job is outsourced.

It is not an open discussion as far as i'm concerned.

I will only say this, in the past the CEO of the organisation where i work has offered to step in when i've had employment issues previously, i have always declined those kind offers because i don't want to start a war between where i work and my 'contracted' employer.

Any issues i have are between myself and my employer, the contractor should not be involved.
To do otherwise would be entirely unprofessional.

Re your bullet points:
(1): UK statutory sick pay.
(2): My understanding is another third party sub-contractor on a day to day basis.

For (1) this is painfully low and costing my circa £1000/month in lost income, as for (2) when i'm ready to return to work my job must be available under UK employment law.

This particular discussion about my work is now is closed as far as i'm concerned, i hope you understand.


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