Covid-19 One Year Later
Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the day my doctor told me (virtually, of course) that it sounded like I had Covid-19. Because I didn’t need to go to the hospital and couldn’t verify that I’d been in contact with anyone with a confirmed case, I didn’t qualify for testing at that time. But the symptoms made both of us confident I had it.
It’s been a long year for me because my symptoms didn’t stop after I ‘recovered’ five weeks later.
I wrote earlier about how I likely got it and my experience of the disease so I’m not going into it here. You can read about it here.
The past year has been an up and down one. I have Long Covid, now officially designated as PASC (Post Acute Sequellae of SARS-COV-19). For me that has meant almost constant, low-level breathing problems and bouts of exhaustion, particularly if I try to exercise too hard. I also have periodic relapses of symptoms that seem to occur at irregular intervals and last anywhere from three to ten days.
I’d planned to make this a little report on how much better, finally, I am. Because my symptoms have improved and I’ve had only two very minor relapses over the past few months, one of which came after getting the first dose of the vaccine.
However, two days ago I started coughing again, my chest hurt, and my head was pounding. It was worse when I woke up yesterday and persists this morning. Not only do I ache all over, but fatigue is sitting heavily on me, so here I am with another full-blown relapse. I hope this one won’t last long.
I’m also hoping this is the one step back in the two-steps-forward, one-step-back trajectory that has characterized my slow recovery.
The good news is that I’m back to writing and mostly managing to live my life as I want (under Covid protocols, of course), and feel reasonably well most of the time. And I’ve learned how to deal with some of the issues. I’ve found that I can exercise as long as I pace myself carefully. I can keep going for a long time as long as I don’t push too hard. If I try to walk at too fast a pace, I start having serious breathing issues. My walking mileage has gradually increased but I can’t do it at the same pace I used to. I don’t know if I ever will. But I’m grateful that I can walk