In the Trenches with Long Covid
Patience with my humanity. It’s a new gift I’m giving myself.
Three months ago, I got Covid. Again. The first time was during the Delta variant, and I lost taste and smell. Strange but manageable. Overwhelming fatigue kept me down, though. No energy. No desire even to watch tv. Just do a necessary task and go back to bed.
Now, we’re in the BA series. I managed to get this one from work. I was careless and didn’t wipe down the desk where a sick coworker had been, an oversight I’ve paid for.
I endured initial symptoms of fever, body aches, weird dreams, and congestion for several days. It felt like a bad case of the flu, and then, I started feeling better.
I tested negative so I began catching up on things I’d postponed. I relaxed. Covid wasn’t fun, but I had endured, and I was seeing The Other Side.
Then, three weeks later, the symptoms resurfaced.
I still tested negative, but I had a rapid heart rate, fever, and a whopping headache — what a headache! — and, of course, life-stopping fatigue.
Walking into another room raised my heart rate, and my head felt like it was trapped in a vise. I had trouble understanding conversations, and, more than once, I nearly left the house wearing slippers instead of shoes.
I didn’t expect the relapse. Paxlovid, a prescribed anti-viral drug, sometimes causes rebound Covid, but I hadn’t taken it. I was up to date on vaccinations. I was off from work long enough to heal. Seems Covid didn’t check my recovery plans, though.
What is Long Covid?
Those who “know” do not completely agree on the definition of Long Covid. The American Medical Association and the Center for Disease Control agree Covid symptoms have to be present four weeks after the initial infection. The World Health Organization has declared three months to be the magic number.
Not knowing you had an infection doesn’t win you brownie points: you might still have Long Covid. At this point, there are no clear indications you’re going to be laid up more than a month after the infection. I’m sure there is some type of agreement among the virus cells, but we haven’t decoded that puzzle yet.
The long symptoms are, in some ways, worse than the initial infection.
Not necessarily in severity, but in their ability to wreck my plans. My brain says, I’m going to get all of these tasks done today! My body says, Um, I don’t think so. My body wins.
I wake up each day thinking I’m going to feel better, but I don’t. Sometimes, I’ll have a bit of energy and start a task, but then I crash quickly. Things which previously took ten minutes to complete now take an hour because of the resting. If I don’t push myself to get back up and continue, I might quit completely.
Sometimes I should quit completely.
Expectations amplify the problem.
Other people expect me to be well. So do I. It’s not true, though. I may be through with Covid — but Covid isn’t through with me.
Before Covid, I might have seen five clients and than had energy for errands or exercise. Later, I’d have seen another three clients. These days, I see one client (preferably by video) and then rest for awhile. I lie down between each of the two or three I have scheduled. Active listening is hard.
As for my house, I watch dust collect and mail pile up. This will bother me at some point, but I’ll care about it later. Later. When certainly I’ll feel better.
There’s not much information for obvious reasons: no decades of data like with the flu. When I research, I find educated guesses and lots of wishes. Sometimes, it’s hard to know who to listen to so I end up listening to everyone or no one.
I’ve had to re-think how I spend my time each day because of the new restrictions in a valuable commodity: energy.
I make a list of all the things I need to do, just to get it out where I can see it. Then, I’ll probably rest.
I mark the top three things I need to do. If that feels overwhelming, I mark the top thing.
I break that task into very small steps.
For example, if I need to do laundry, I might make a list of six steps:
· Sort the clothes
· Choose one pile
· Take the load to the washer
· Load and run the washer
· Put clothes into the dryer
· Put them in the clothes basket and hope for the best
I’ll do the first step and then decide if I can do the second. It sounds silly, but the ability to make decisions has gone away along with the energy. I might sit down to decide which pile to choose.
Once I get that task accomplished or to a stopping point, I’ll rest and then break the next task into small steps.
I don’t use all the energy I have.
Before, I would work myself to full tiredness, go to bed, and wake up refreshed the next day. I can’t do this anymore. Exhaustion carries over to the next day like an unwanted sandwich from yesterday’s lunch.
Where once I could count on being refreshed by a good night’s sleep, I can count on neither a good night’s sleep nor on being refreshed. Either insomnia or overwhelming sleepiness might show up. What arrives seems arbitrary, but I’ve found I need to be careful not to use all my expendable energy. If nothing else, I need to save enough energy to get out of my chair and move to the bed.
Long Covid has lessons to teach me.
I choose to look at this as a time of education rather than defeat. This helps me not feel so helpless.
· I have decided to take this time to practice better self-care skills. I have not done this well in the past so Covid presents “an excellent opportunity” to enhance these skills.
· I can (almost) look at this as a game: pick up all the things which need to go to the room I’m headed to. Points given for efficiency! The reward might be an extra round of phone games. It might be the energy I’ve saved. This is better than feeling sorry for myself, and it promotes brain activity. The brain fog clears a bit when I’m creative.
· I practice being more patient with myself. Maybe it’s because I don’t care, but I am allocating more grace for what I don’t get done. I recognize more quickly when I need to rest because the shortness of breath and fatigue demand I take notice.
· I pace myself better even though I still tend to overestimate my stamina. Taking breaks is new. In the past, I criticized myself for resting. Now I take a break in resting to do a bit of work.
Choice is important to me.
Long Covid is debilitating. I would be lying to say it’s been a time of renewal and rejuvenation. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, and I’ve been encouraging others to be careful with these new variants.
On the other hand, it’s easy to look at difficulties as “bad things which happen to me.” I’m not minimizing the seriousness and frustrations, but I try to remember such times bring growth and new perspective if I choose to look at them in that way.
A lot of how much I grow has to do with how my perspective. I have times of complaining and feeling sad, but I give myself only ten minutes to mope. Then, I look for advantages to the situation.
I don’t know how long this will last. I’ve tried to hurry it along several times, and I suspect I’ve prolonged it. Easing my way to more activity is better than getting angry and pushing myself to complete tasks. That sets me back several days.
I’m decreasing my client load. My doctor has been very direct about this, a quality I need. It’s too easy for me to minimize what recovery looks like. My job right now has to be taking care of myself, regardless of whether I enjoy it. Whether I believe I’m good at it.
My original idea may have been to recover quickly, but this virus has changed that. It requires me to slow down and assess true importance. I can use this assessment as the impetus to change things I wanted to change anyway.
Change. Growth. The choice is mine even though the circumstances are not.
C. J. Clinton is a Licensed Professional Counselor who is on her own journey with health and self-care.
