There’s one thing people with long-term Covid should never say: “I’ve had Covid for a long time.” Most people don’t know what it is, a good percentage will think you have COVID yourself and have had it for a “long” time, and the rest will get up to offer you a seat on the subway.
People with long covids don’t want seats. What they want is a couch with plump cushions, a cool breeze in their face, Taylor Swift on low, and two hours of alone time.
As I, fully vaccinated, recover from a year of post-Covid syndrome, I have a dream. A summer in a Swiss sanatorium — they’re still there — hyperoxygenated air from breathing past Candy Tuft clouds over the Alps. A nurse brings in a restorative tisane, a posset.
You can’t get that kind of thing on the TTC. People will take you as a loon, or worse, a bore. I will now bore you with the plight of the long covid cohort, a club no one ever dreamed of or aspired to join. Someone has to.
People who developed the illness shortly after getting a short bout of COVID deserve only the best advice. But few journalists cover long-form COVID. When you mention it, the doctors get goosebumps because they are just as mystified as you.
But more than 1.4 million Canadians — about 15 percent of adults — contracted COVID-19. Symptoms appear three months or more after the initial infection.. This is a huge iceberg. Children get Men get it, though not as often as women. In various ways and degrees, It flattens them all..
Chronic COVID has a wide range of symptoms, including post-exercise restlessness (sudden and extreme fatigue), shortness of breath, cough, chest pain, brain fog, insomnia, muscle aches, headaches, and taste and The lack of smell that makes eating a chore. . The wine tastes like tar. Rex of meat.
My symptoms are milder than most people, but They wax and wane. You feel dizzy, then come back. Until now, there is almost no medical care for prolonged COVID, and The Ontario government does not yet have a strategy for this lull.. But there is some advice about managing the weight of the albatross.
You plan each day with Presbyterian care, hoping for productivity but pushing yourself, avoiding crazy ambitions like shoveling snow or carrying groceries.
It’s filled with quirky and entertaining concepts like Rep. Jorge Santos and Pierre “Skippy” Poulivar in an increasingly chaotic world, but you see political events unfolding from behind a thick pane of glass. You are distant and busy.
You can work from home, say, but if you overdo it, you’ll crash, sending you back into hibernation.
Importantly, long-haul travelers don’t seem sick. Just as people with disabilities are vilified for not having enough of a barrier for their free parking pass, it’s hard to convince people that you’re running on fumes.
The weariness within us is like a cave that no man has seen, a great hollowness. You are the thing that holds the weariness, yet is bigger than you.
There are many threads of ongoing research into causes and treatments. It could be that the mitochondria, the body’s power plants, are running out of fuel. Or that microclots, which don’t show up on a scan, are blocking blood flow. Or the virus is still inside you, or The immune system is constantly on high alert, causing inflammation..
One scientist calls it the “fake virus.” This means that just when we think we understand it, it keeps changing, surprising us.
Like all long haulers, I had many things planned for the year. I wanted to renovate the house (my first place), go back to work at the office (second place), find a local hangout (third place) and go to Japan (far away place). By limiting where I go, I’m slowly getting better. But at what cost? The status quo
What helps? Reading Comedy Pie. Work support. People, mainly young children. the norm.
Many long-term victims of COVID do not have the option of working from home, or working at all, or support from family and friends, or an emergency financial cushion. They have been accused of corruption, have lost tenancies and houses. They feel that they have no allies. Imagine being an aging or newcomer to Canada, already under-defended, and coping.
I’m writing this to let long-distance travelers know they’re not alone. Ask someone. They may have heard stories, they know someone, they will help.
After eight months, I was finally accepted into one. Virtual Clinic A series of Zooms joined our crowded lifeboat, offering bi-monthly weekly sessions to tackle prolonged COVID.
We all feel absolutely terrible. Although we have hope. It is one of the strangest things that has ever happened in our lifetimes and we, Canadians and scruples, talk openly about the dire consequences of being hit by a stray bullet from a long gun.
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