Contemplating the Lingering Effects of “Long Covid” or Whatever-It-Is...

I find it rather fascinating how the narratives surrounding the current COVID-19 or whatever-it-is situation tend to be all over the map.

There's an awful lot of debate, rhetoric and infighting over this-that-and-the-other, but what I find really interesting is that a lot of most people who are having these debates haven't actually been sick, themselves.

"Well, of COURse they haven't doofus, because there IS no illness!"

Uh-huh...

What I know is that I had something in the spring of 2020 and then I had a very similar something — except considerably milder — In October of 2020 and it didn't feel like any flu I've ever had before, nor did it particularly feel like a cold.

The first time I had it I was pretty damn sick and eventually I got better after about two weeks. The second time I had almost identical feelings in my body and pretty much went through the same cycle... except it only took about 72 hours.

In time I fully recovered, or so it would seem.

Except, quite unlike ever having a cold or the flu in the previous near-60 years of my life, I had some lingering aftereffects that I've never quite been able to shake.

For example, sporadic and thankfully short lived (maybe 10-15 minutes) sense of shortness of breath — almost like there's too little oxygen in the air — which is accompanied by a temporary loss but my sense of smell. For example, the fact that I developed a rash that seemed like chilblains on my toes a few weeks after I got better… that went away after a few months. Nonetheless they were weird because they occurred not during the cold part of the year and I've never had chilblains in my entire life before two years ago.

It wasn't until six months later that I learned these are actually not uncommon side effects of something being termed as "long Covid."

I guess the primary reason I am even bothering with this is that so many "free thinking" people get on their high horses about this whole illness thing being fictitious and in people's imagination… I just kinda wanna pass along that you don't get to make declarative statements about this unless you've actually been ill yourself and have recovered, and speak from direct experience.

Not suggesting you can't theorize to your heart's content but unless you had the hands-on experience of having ”an illness that seems a bit like the flu combined with food poisoning but different” all you have is theory, not direct experience!

But hey, what do I know?

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!