{"id":3632,"date":"2023-05-12T02:45:52","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T19:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/what-is-long-covid-like-one-writer-shares\/"},"modified":"2023-05-12T02:45:52","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T19:45:52","slug":"what-is-long-covid-like-one-writer-shares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/?p=3632","title":{"rendered":"What Is Long COVID Like? One Writer Shares"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p> <span class=\"drop-cap__first text-dropcap \">I<\/span> attended a friend\u2019s wedding last year knowing that, in a middle of a pandemic, any social situation would come with a certain level of risk. But I didn\u2019t expect that I\u2019d be one of the folks still dealing with COVID-19 almost a year later.<\/p>\n<p>When I first caught it, I was frustrated that my COVID seemed to be different than friends&#8217; even though they&#8217;d gotten it at the exact time I did. Most of them had no symptoms. My fever lasted the full two weeks and beyond. I can\u2019t recall ever being that sick in my life (except the brutal 24 hours after I was vaccinated). I\u2019ve never even had the flu. Luckily I didn\u2019t require hospitalization, so I figured that, like most people, once I finally tested negative, it was over.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly a year later there are good days, bad days, and really bad days. I\u2019m one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/pressroom\/nchs_press_releases\/2022\/20220622.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-vars-event=\"body text\" data-vars-click-url=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/pressroom\/nchs_press_releases\/2022\/20220622.htm\">19 percent of adults<\/a> who struggle with long COVID months after contracting the virus. Now that I\u2019m familiar with the symptoms, I can gauge what I\u2019m dealing with as soon as I wake up. On really bad days, before I open my eyes, I\u2019m dizzy and, this part is weird to describe, but I can actually feel the energy my body is using just to breath and function.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll be honest: I\u2019ve never been a particularly athletic person. But in my previous life, I took workout classes and loved LA hike-walks with my girlfriends. Now I can barely make it around my block without gasping for air. It\u2019s a short block. I often work laying down because I can work a little longer and with a little less brain fog if I\u2019m not using the energy it takes to sit up at my desk.<\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content \" style=\"\" data-module-init=\"related-content\" data-module-immediate=\"\" v-cloak=\"\">\n<div class=\"related-content__wrapper \" v-cloak=\"\" :class=\"{'is-loaded':isLoaded}\">\n<p> <span class=\"inline pr-6 text-seafoam-dark\">Related Stories<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <related-content class=\"related-content__links\" parent-article-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.wellandgood.com\/what-long-covid-is-like\/\" current-title=\"Here\u2019s What It\u2019s Actually Like Living With Long COVID\" current-image=\"GettyImages-what-long-covid-is-like-1-425x285.jpg\" v-on:parsely-posts-loaded=\"onPostsLoaded\" start-date=\"2022-11-11\" tag=\"div\" inline-template=\"\" url=\"https:\/\/www.wellandgood.com\/what-long-covid-is-like\/\" secret=\"w5ztterVB03LGZJLfXS0hf3EvQBuFFIWew9hmVQxthU\" apikey=\"wellandgood.com\" limit=\"3\"> <\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"related-content__card mb-[10px] sm:mb-[20px]\" :class=\"{'related-content__card--full':posts.length === 1}\" v-for=\"(post, key) in posts\"> <a v-on:click.prevent=\"trackLinkGA($event, key)\" :href=\"https:\/\/www.wellandgood.com\/what-long-covid-is-like\/post.url\" data-url-source=\"related-content\" class=\"related-content__link\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-vars-event=\"body text\" data-vars-click-url=\"\"> <\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content__card--image bg-tan\" :style=\"{ backgroundImage: 'url(' + post.image_url + ')' }\"> <img :src=\"https:\/\/www.wellandgood.com\/what-long-covid-is-like\/post.image_url\" :alt=\"post.title\"\/> <\/div>\n<p> <\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> <\/related-content> <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>My mother loves to tell the story about the time I went to cheerleading camp in middle school and was so exhausted that I fell asleep with a cheeseburger in my hand practically mid-bite. It\u2019s a funny family legend, but now it\u2019s a mental barometer for my state of fatigue. Am I too tired to eat? Take a walk? Meet my friend for dinner? Drive a car? And maybe I\u2019m not exhausted in this moment, but if I do take that walk or meet my friend, am I sacrificing my workday tomorrow?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s energy Tetris and mostly I lose. If I do this thing, I can\u2019t do that thing. If I attend that event on Saturday evening, I\u2019ll need a nap before and to clear the next day\u2019s schedule entirely. If I go to the baby shower and the friend dinner in the same day, forget about being upright tomorrow. And God forbid if those events don\u2019t have a place for me to sit down. Nowadays, my work rarely requires me to be on my feet for any length of time, but when it does, I\u2019m prepared for two to three days down with a fever afterward.<\/p>\n<p>A fever is good news though! I\u2019m grateful when I have a fever. The fatigue, the brain fog, post-exertion malaise, shortness of breath\u2014those symptoms all feel so subjective. In the unkind story I tell myself, they are all in my head, and I\u2019m simply lazy, dumb, and old. But a fever is tangible, believable, and shareable! That\u2019s a symptom I can feel confident about.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t expect the people around me to have fully digested what\u2019s happening to me. I\u2019ve always struggled to ask for help even when a task is wildly out of sync with what\u2019s reasonable\u2014evidenced by the black eye I gave myself when I tried to mount my television alone several months pre-COVID (I did it though!). For years, \u201cshowing up\u201d was a part of my personality and it\u2019s painful that I can\u2019t be that person anymore. I\u2019m ashamed that I\u2019m too tired to attend baby showers or birthday parties. When I <em>can<\/em> show up, I certainly don\u2019t want everyone to know what a challenge it was to prepare or the consequences I\u2019ll experience after. It\u2019s not their problem. I\u2019m there, and to them I seem fine, and those experiences are not about me.<\/p>\n<p>If this ever ends, there are lessons I\u2019ll carry with me. Ironically, my productivity has gone up in the face of my symptoms. I don\u2019t have the luxury of procrastinating since I can\u2019t depend on my body and mind to be able to work tomorrow. I take advantage of the energy I have when I have it, which allows me to be gentle with myself on days that I might not be able to accomplish everything I\u2019d like to, not to mention the days that I can\u2019t accomplish anything at all. I can\u2019t waste energy on false urgency. And boundaries are easier to stick to.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve spent my whole career believing that if I didn\u2019t answer an email as soon as I received it, I was failing. It turns out that very rarely is anything legitimately urgent. Panic and anxiety can literally suck the life out of me, so I\u2019m forced to find the quick route to solution and serenity when I\u2019m confronted with disruption.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s taken time and support to hone this approach. I was first diagnosed with depression at 17 years old, so I\u2019m no stranger to the dark place. But two to three months post-COVID, I hit a new low\u2014a therapy-twice-a-week, stay-away-from-edges-and-ledges kind of low. Prior to my COVID positive, I\u2019d just experienced a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wellandgood.com\/sobriety-during-pandemic\/\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-vars-event=\"body text\" data-vars-click-url=\"https:\/\/www.wellandgood.com\/sobriety-during-pandemic\/\">transformational couple of years<\/a>, and for the first time in my adult life I was waking up with energy and purpose. COVID stripped that from me in a way that felt so unfair.<\/p>\n<p>For the most part I\u2019ve kept my long COVID to myself because other people suffer from \u201creal\u201d illnesses, so who am I to complain about being tired and foggy? I\u2019m also afraid that if someone hasn\u2019t had this experience, they might not believe me.<\/p>\n<p>But the truth is, I don\u2019t need everyone else to believe this is real and awful. <em>I<\/em> need to believe it. I am, in fact, not lazy, dumb, and old. I\u2019m sick. Sure, I\u2019m not at death\u2019s door, but the Kristin who existed a year ago doesn\u2019t anymore and as I trudge through the cycle of grief around that, I\u2019m slowly coming to terms with who I am right now.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1675549\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I attended a friend\u2019s wedding last year knowing that, in a middle of a pandemic, any social situation would come with a certain level of risk. But I didn\u2019t expect that I\u2019d be one of the folks still dealing with COVID-19 almost a year later. When I first caught it, I was frustrated that my &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}