Text Me If You Can

Jennifer Senior is a 53-year-old best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. She looks to me to be in the peak years of a remarkable career, and she has long Covid.

She wrote a piece last week in the Atlantic about this, ostensibly to discuss etiquette around this illness. This was personal, I think; for most of my family and friends, I’m the only person they know with long Covid. Courtesy doesn’t feel like the big problem. The article was more of an elegant venting session, which I was happy to read. Sometimes ya gotta vent.

But she did land on an important truth, at least for the two of us – it’s not helpful to ask, “Are you feeling better?” We’re not, and we’re not going to any time soon.

I understand the question; I’d be asking the same one, because I’d want you to feel better. I get it, and honestly I’m happy to discuss my symptoms with anyone. I don’t mind any questions; it’s just hard to explain that this is not going to just go away.

It might never; there are people coming up on three years of this, although these mostly seem to be people who got sick in the early days, spring of 2020. I’ve never heard of a person with long Covid who felt fully recovered in less than a year, and for a lot it stretches to 18 months and beyond. Glacial progress.

That said, I’m not at the peak of anything. If this has forced an early retirement, it wasn’t that much of a push. On the other hand, I was taking multiple online courses before Covid, learning new skills for the next part.

And that’s on hold. I haven’t been able to watch a tutorial since Labor Day; I don’t have the brain for it currently, or apparently.

But none of this makes me miserable, at least not like the other people I read about, and mostly because of my stage of life. I’m not concerned with making a big splash. I just want to stay alive.

I can’t seem to write fluently at all, which creates a personal Catch-22: I’d love to tell you about how messed up my brain is, but I’d need to have an unmessed-up brain to do it.

If you’re curious, though, and while I’m still typing, a quick snapshot of life in the very slow lane.

Before Covid, I was obnoxiously proud of my ability to get a solid night’s sleep. I never woke up, rarely even stirred until I was awake.

Not so much now. I essentially sleep in 90-minute increments, even if I’m barely aware of waking up between bouts, which does not feel like good sleep. I end up rising around 8:30 most days, but I’m back in bed within an hour or so. I calculate that on an average day, during the first 18 hours (midnight to 6pm) I’m up and awake for about four of them. I’m usually good in the evening hours, no naps and decent energy.

This is worse than it was a couple of months ago, which is the unfortunate news for me. This is a crazy illness, with new symptoms popping up for a week or so, then subsiding as new ones come in, repeat and repeat and repeat. But the fatigue is always there.

So I feel like a ghost, able to see the world but not participate in it, and even for someone who enjoys solitude this is the loneliest I’ve ever been. I don’t know how not to be; I can’t be social because I can’t count on being awake. I don’t go more than a mile or two from home, and that usually when Julie drives me. I can’t hold my own in phone or video conversations (I lose the thread constantly, really disturbing), so it’s easy to drop off the radar, I get it.

On the other hand, I’ve been listening to lectures on subjects I’m interested in, particularly filling in gaps in the history I don’t know. It’s as passive an activity as I can think of, and it seems to work; ask me about medieval England and I have some things to say now.

I have things to say about a lot of things. I’m not disconnected from the world; I’m probably more aware of what’s going on that even before, just because I have more time to follow. I have opinions on a lot of stuff.

It’s just hard. My days are pretty similar but I’m very much aware that there’s a cumulative effect to consider. I’ve been sick for 5-1/2 months; that’s not nothing. My thoughts don’t really want to gather.

But yeah, could be worse. My mood is decent, and I try to stay upbeat and hopeful. Julie and John are kind and supportive, and I’m getting better at asking for help. I hoard the emails and texts I get from friends, wishing me well. After 2-1/2 years of pandemic life and then nearly six months of long Covid, I would hug strangers if I could stay awake long enough.

I could also tell them about the Hittites and Elamites, and how important beer was to society. Really important, I know that now. Just ask.