I just have to vent, because I live alone. Two weeks ago, I came down with covid — for the fourth time. I didn’t know it was covid until the second week, when I started getting chills. Until then, it just seemed like a bad allergy week, with a runny nose and lots of sneezing. (I never sneeze. I should have known.) I wear a mask everywhere, I have no idea how I caught it. Maybe at physical therapy, I don’t know.
Anyway, then the long covid symptoms came roaring back.
Now, here’s the thing. After a year of struggling with long covid from the last infection (you might remember last summer when someone ran a red light, totaled my poor car, and the non-mask-wearing tow truck driver gave me me covid), I was finally starting to feel like myself again. I was so damn happy. No more falling asleep all the time, no more crushing fatigue where I can’t even bring myself to load the dishwasher. I was getting shit done.
I felt like I had my life back. That lasted maybe six weeks.
And now, I’m right back where I started. The neurological symptoms aren’t fun; it takes me maybe five minutes now to figure out the name of the familiar politician I’m posting about. (“Let’s see, he’s a Republican, is he a senator? I think he’s a senator…”) And the weird smells that follow losing my sense of taste! I keep smelling something burning in my apartment.
At least my tongue didn’t swell up this time. Because then you keep biting it in your sleep, and it hurts all the time.
But I’m so, so tired. This time, even though I’m sleepy all the time, I CAN’T SLEEP. I go to bed early but the longest I sleep is five hours. I tried several times to take a nap today, and finally gave up.
An estimated 17 million adults currently have long COVID. There are roughly 250 million adults in the U.S. population, 43 million of whom report ever having had long COVID and 27 million of whom report having had it in the past but not having it currently.
I frequent an online chat for people with long covid, and I consider myself relatively lucky. There are young, previously active people who are confined to bed, or a wheelchair. People who have lost their jobs, have no money, and go from couch to couch, just trying to survive.
And always, the desperate search for some magic supplement that will relieve any of the symptoms. (My desk is covered with supplement bottles. I can’t even remember why I take half of them.) Only one supplement was a slam dunk — one of my doctors, who also had long covid, recommended it for the chronic chest pain. I forget the ingredient, but it’s an epithelial plaque stabilizer, and it works. (It’s also $40 a month. Self-treatment adds up.)
Anyway, short version: I’m back in the long covid cave. It makes me angry that no one is paying attention to this.
Yeah. So much for people being motivated by self-interest.
In any even part-sane world, people would avoid a disease we’ve only had a few years to learn about.
And where ALL the signs in these early years are that it destroys life for too many people as time goes by.
I really really hope it goes away sooner for you this time than last time! And that the research finally turns up a solution.
Thanks. It’s weird to have an invisible handicap.