My Story

A couple weeks after a mild bout of covid that began in February of 2020, I thought I had fully recovered. My work was newly remote, due to the pandemic, but I was working as long hours as ever as my team revamped their messaging in the midst of the evolving landscape. Thinking that I could get back to my previous fitness routine without issue, I went back to the same workouts I had done prior to my illness (hard runs, dance classes with a fair amount of both cardio and core work, newly remote full-body fitness routines from a local boutique studio). Puzzlingly to me at the time, I was struggling with the workouts much more than was typical. In addition to this, I was still having minor symptoms, even two months later, such as an irritation in my throat as though I was on the verge of a cold.

Ignorant to the potential consequences, I continued on with long hours, poor sleep, and strenuous workouts until something broke. One Monday in the third week of May, I woke up feeling as though I had been hit by a truck. My mild sore throat and shortness of breath following exertion had been replaced with tachycardia, shortness of breath at rest, and debilitating fatigue. It was then that my journey of understanding Long Covid began.

Since that beginning over 4 years ago, I have come a long way. I have gone from not being able to walk more than a block without shortness of breath to spending entire days out walking around New York City, logging over 15k steps in a matter of hours without worrying about an oddly elevated heart rate or a potential crash. I am able to swim, attend yoga classes, and dance salsa. I have gone from brain fog that led me to forget key details and prevented me from fully comprehending my work to working 40 hours per week in a demanding role without accommodations, attending week-long conferences at which I present to audiences of 200+, and managing 8 hours of screen time (including back-to-back meetings) without any issue. I have also been able to fully eliminate the paresthesias, debilitating trigeminal nerve pain, intermittent body odor, and burning feet syndrome that had arisen throughout my illness.

Throughout this time, I’ve read over a dozen books on chronic illness and recovery. In the days and weeks during which I could not go out, I pored through support groups and research journals alike, drawing on the wisdom of both fellow patients and scientific studies to develop an understanding of what was happening in my body and what I needed to do to get my health back.

As newly diagnosed patients joined these support groups and asked questions about topics which I had already spent weeks researching, I realized that it could be helpful to share what I had learned in these areas in a single place. Recovery stories are complex, and as I work towards mine, I hope to be able to point back to the full list of things which I did that were helpful and be able to guide others towards the same resources and answers.

I believe that all of us that have gone through this have wisdom to share. With that in mind, I hope you find this content valuable.