42 years perfectly healthy, 4 months of Covid: “I’m pissed off”

I’m in the fourth month.

No, I am not pregnant, I have Long Covid. Which is officially called Post Covid after the third month. So I’m in the fourth month of this disease that has no cure yet and I’m pissed off.

Angry because it just doesn’t get better. Because I have good days and that gives me hope to sit exhausted on the couch the next day. Angry because I keep having to move the little social life I have now to other dates because just two hours of chat wears me out. But most of all I’m angry because I can’t work properly and especially don’t know when I’ll ever be able to work fully again.

I was in excellent health for 42 years, I have never broken anything and then this. “Fortunately, like the rest of the world, I’ve tried the lockdown and I’m happy to be home, otherwise the blanket would really fall on my head”. During the past lockdowns I have isolated myself very much not to infect myself and others, I have been vaccinated three times.

I’m angry because the medical bills are piling up and not just them. My guilt toward my 80-year-old parents also piles up because they have to drive me to every appointment. They don’t mind, but I don’t like it. Trying to feel responsible and grown up again and make the short train ride to Zurich for therapy by myself is so physically exhausting that I relapse the next day. So it’s time to knock on the parents’ door again.

My doctor prescribed me therapy with an occupational therapist. She tells me on the phone that one of her patients is able to work 100% again after 23 (!) months. I only have 19 months left until I’m back in great shape. Warning: cynicism.

If you are looking for support among like-minded people, you can join a Long Covid group on Facebook, for example. However, reading the messages from the sick made me so depressed that I left the group after 24 hours. Same with newspaper articles, the experience reports are extremely interesting, it also helps to see that you are not alone, but it doesn’t help my mood at all and just makes me hopeless. It’s the same in my area. All you can do is wish me lots of energy and a speedy recovery. They say, “I can’t imagine how you feel,” and even after all these weeks, I can barely put into words what that kind of exhaustion feels like. But I want to try: like being on hunger rest, it also weakens you from head to toe. But there is also the weakness, one is worn out, in short: a zombie. So my WhatsApp status is also the zombie emoji, there is no better way to summarize and explain my post Covid.

Because lung and post covid are diseases that cannot be cured with aspirin or plaster. Only time and patience will do this. And yes, of course, various therapies that promote energy management.

Just writing this text strains my brain. I also notice this when I’m at work. What I now do or arrange from my home office for an (!) hour a day. Sometimes this works well, sometimes it doesn’t. However, every time I feel my brain overload and I have to take small breaks in between and a long break after the end of the day to avoid a so-called crash. (Crashes are caused by overwork and in my case mean exhaustion, weakness and having a screen. Every little thing, like taking a shower, is a physical and mental effort.) The thought of going back to work 50%, which in my case 3h 40 minutes would be unthinkable for me today.

Sick for four months. That means I spent a third of 2022 at home. While people sat outside in bars until late at night, went for a swim in the lake and enjoyed life. Sometimes I really have to do my best not to get bitter for a moment. I lost four months and I don’t even know if it won’t be five or even six months before I will be fully functional again.

I see a meme on Instagram about not wanting to work on Mondays. I wish I could sit at my computer on a Monday morning and roll my eyes because I have to work all day. People don’t know how good it is for them… Getting annoyed at work is a luxury, and I had to learn that the hard way too.

“How are you?” After 16 weeks of illness, I no longer hear this kindly question. Because I just don’t know how to answer that. “Up and down” is the honest answer. Every day is different, I never know how I will feel the next day. If I exaggerate, as with the train journey to Zurich, I immediately take the buses for it the next day.

After four months I still can’t understand and especially believe how little it takes to be incapacitated for work. It’s absurd to hear me say “I walked around the house and then had to lie down” or “every walk or shop I have to sit down somewhere and take little breaks.” I feel like I’m 80 and at 42 I have a glimpse of what old age will feel like. Every purchase can turn into a tour de force.

When people say, “The most important thing is that you’re healthy,” I’ve never dismissed that as a lie, but I’ve never really paid much attention to it either. Only now do I know how true it is. Pathos or not.

To health!