2311 – Sunday Digest: The Week in Review

This is the first time I have put pen to paper on Greg’s Blog this week. This was not the plan. It was going to be an active week while I was compiling last week’s Sunday Digest. It was March Break here and my son was already with his Nonna, Nonno and Zia. Freedom I thought, he wanted to see his grandparents and we’d get a short break from a wonderful but very active seven-year-old. Even better I was only scheduled at work a couple of days during the week.

It seems nature had other plans…

Monday, I woke up with a sore throat, low-grade fever and a pounding headache. Even the sensation of my heart beating like a hammer felt like it was driving a stake through my temples, the light from my device screens like daggers through my eyes. Lots of fluids and a few trips to the loo were all this broken body could muster for the next four days. The good news is it does not appear to have been COVID-19.

The stress points that registered on my Garmin watch were crazy. I don’t know how accurate these devices are at determining heart rate, sleep, stress, etc… but I know that some universities have used the results from these devices in long and short-term studies. I actually participated in a sleep study run by Harvard in conjunction with sleep (CPAP) specialists in the field. Either way, once the watch has established your baselines it is a great comparative health tool. For example, my resting heart rate jumped from an average of 50 to 52 bpm before the illness to 60 to 62 bpm starting late in the day Sunday, the evening before the symptoms appeared. That is eight to ten beats more per minute. The other interesting measurement is the one looking at stress levels. It uses heart rate variability and other factors to determine physical stress levels in the body.

The image above shows a timeline for March 8th, a sample of my normal stress response over a typical 24-hour period. Although the graph does vary from day to day this is a reasonably accurate depiction of a normal day for me going back through at least three months of data.

As you can see stress levels were through the roof during the illness. Monday to Thursday looks almost identical to March 15th shown above and Friday through Sunday start moving towards normal although even today is still elevated compared to the March 8th graphic.

This week’s song link is a Metric classic that fits right in with my heart beating like a hammer…

All of this spells disaster on the blog front. Ignored, neglected and forgotten are the best descriptions. Not much to highlight that is for sure.

Five Word Weekly Challenge

Four Line Fiction Challenge

More highlights from Greg’s Blog…

💤ip,
💤ilch,
💤ero!

Around the Blogosphere…

Lots of great stuff I’m sure but I’ve read none of it! playing catch-up this week for sure!

Next week…

Another Five Word Weekly and Four Line Fiction challenges are on the way and I hope to get some writing and reading done before next Sunday’s wrap-up.

Have a great week,

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