I haven’t talked about this for a while, so I think it’s time to update everyone on where I am in the recovery journey. This is probably the last time I’ll talk about it.

For those who don’t know, I got Covid-19 in March of 2020. I was an early adopter. But really, Covid is not a joke. I was sick for almost six weeks, bordered on needing to go to the hospital a couple of times, and even though I did get over it, my recovery has been bumpy, to say the least.

I also became an early member of the group of sufferers from the malady that has come to be known medically as PASC and more commonly as Long Covid. We’re coming up on the two-year anniversary of my initial battle with the disease. I am better, much better than I was for the first few months post-Covid, when relapses of symptoms every few weeks would lay me low for a while and rob me of any progress made during the intervals. But I am not the same person I was before Covid. At this point it’s unlikely I ever will be. I’ve mostly come to terms with that.

What has gotten better: The relapses are fewer, farther between, and not so severe as they were in the first year post Covid. Then a relapse would mean coughing, chest tightness and shortness of breath, headache, body aches, and profound fatigue, usually lasting a week to two weeks. My last relapse was a few weeks back, the first in several months, and was really just a bit of achiness and fatigue. I had an occasional cough but not the constant hacking I used to have. Between relapses I can exercise almost normally with one BIG limitation.

What hasn’t gotten better and probably won’t: I cannot push the intensity of anything I do beyond a certain point. I’ve always been a pretty active person. I work out on an elliptical regularly and do strength-building routines. My husband and I have for years enjoyed taking long walks.

But if I increase the resistance or speed on the elliptical, I get short of breath very quickly. The same happens when I try to walk too fast. Even going up hills can make me huff and puff like a steam engine. There is no pushing through it. And repeated efforts don’t result in any improvement, just collapse. Over the last year I’ve discovered (usually the hard way) where my limits are and how to avoid pushing them too hard.

Pre-Covid, I could increase my endurance or strength by gradually increasing the intensity of the activity. My main limitations in any activity were due to cranky, arthritic knees. Hills were no obstacle. Post-Covid, increasing the intensity of an activity means only that I will have trouble breathing and likely drive me into the kind of fatigued collapse that will keep me glued to the recliner for the rest of the day. (If I’m lucky, that is, and it doesn’t put me down for several days.)

I am back to walking and working out, thank goodness. I’ve learned that I can (very slowly) increase the distance I walk, but not the speed. I’m back to walking a mile to a mile and a half a day. Sometimes even a bit more if I’m very careful. I can handle hills only by taking them at a much slower pace. I can and have increased the time I spend on the elliptical or working with weights, but not the resistance or speed. In other words, I can exercise, as long as I do it very carefully, without pushing myself too hard.

I still have episodes of feeling short of breath. Times when I feel I’m not pulling in enough air. I have a pulse oximeter and use it regularly. It continues to assure me that my blood oxygen level is fine. My heart has been checked and a CT scan of my lungs showed no significant damage, so there’s no explanation for why all of this is happening.

But it is, and I’m learning to live with it.

And I honestly think that’s as good as it’s going to get for me. I’m grateful I can do anything at all. It’s been a long, sometimes difficult road to get to this point, but I’ve found ways to live with my new normal.

As I finished writing this, I found this article from the New York Times that describes the problem with Long Covid sufferers and exercise: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/12/well/move/long-covid-exercise.html

This is me, now.