Last St. Patrick’s Day, my luck ran out.
After being exposed by a roommate, I tested positive for COVID-19. After a full year of masking and distancing and following all of the rules, I was laid up with the virus that had changed the world and upended every facet of modern life.
At first I just felt sick– pretty sick but nothing extraordinary. I had all the flu-like symptoms, chills, body aches… but I followed my doctor’s orders and I felt like I would be fine.
I even took advantage of New York City’s COVID Safety Hotel program. By calling 311, the city sent a car to pick me up and I was able to stay in a hotel room in Times Square during the duration of my contagious period. I was determined that the strain of the ‘rona that had infected me would end with me. I didn’t want to infect anyone else. The hotel was both wonderful and horrible. Wonderful because it was free, I got three meals a day, and it gave me the tools to ensure that I could stop the spread with me. But horrible because, well, have you ever spent six days isolated in a small square room? Plus the wellness checks every six hours (including in the middle of the night) could be grating, although I understood their necessity.
The worst moment during my hotel stay was when I lost my senses of taste and smell. I had a little bottle of peppermint essential oil in my backpack. One day, I went to smell the calming/cooling fragrance… and I got nothing. Just like that I was unable to smell anything— even hyper-concentrated essential oils. A terrible feeling of dread and defeat overcame me. I felt weakened, depleted. It felt like part of me died or was destroyed. The feeling of losing your senses is just horrible, and I just had to try to not panic and hope they would come back. (They did, eventually.)
It was the day I lost my smell and taste senses that I started to feel like something else was wrong, something in my lungs. I figured it was just the virus working through my body, and tried not to panic. Eventually, I timed out of my contagious period and went back to my apartment. I still couldn’t smell or taste, but my flulike symptoms seemed to be receding. I was hopeful, but there was a feeling that I couldn’t shake that something was wrong.
On day ten, I couldn’t breathe. When I would try to inhale, I just couldn’t catch my breath. It was a terrifying feeling. I told my doctors, and they told me to keep trying, monitor my oxygen, and that it would get better eventually, but it might take time. (Shoutout to the Production and COVID teams at Succession and HBO for making sure that I had the best care throughout this entire ordeal.) It was when I was unable to catch my breath that the little feeling that something was wrong was confirmed and it expanded into a full-blown, overwhelming pall: I was going to be sick for a long time.
My breathing started to make small improvements, but on my first day back to work after quarantine I had to go to the emergency room. I guess “not being able to breathe at work” is a bit of a liability. At the hospital I got an EKG, lung scans, and all sorts of tests and prods. Thankfully, my tests revealed that my vitals were okay, I just had long-COVID. I was in for a rough journey.
One of the weirdest things about COVID is that it isn’t linear. It isn’t like most viruses in which you get sick then get better. With COVID, the worst of the disease can come after other symptoms subside. That is just one part of the confusion and uncanniness of this dang virus. My long-COVID symptoms can be divided into three general categories: brain fog, fatigue, and breathing issues. I have now spent a year treating all of these, and on a good day I’m back to about 95%.
The brain fog was probably the most debilitating. It’s a horrible feeling when your brain stops working. Brain fog really is aptly named, because it was like a fog came in and settled over my head, impairing my cognitive abilities. I usually describe it like this: I’ll try to think of something (a name, a place, an idea, a way to solve a problem) but instead of the usual turning gears, there is instead a blank slate, a white board with nothing on it. I couldn’t remember anything, and I couldn’t figure things out. I’d try to problem solve, but just get that blank white board. This was particularly difficult at work, when I needed my brain to not only function normally, but at a high speed! The brain damage I incurred from COVID shattered my confidence in myself. I lost my faith in my ability to think, figure things out, to do.
The fatigue was also pretty debilitating. Some days it would be omnipresent– I’d wake up tired, be tired all day, and go to bed tired. But it wasn’t like a sleepy tired, it was just a total lack of energy, like my battery was drained or I was running on empty with no way to refuel. And the breathing issues persisted as well, with the inability to catch my breath worsening the fatigue. One of the things I learned, as silly as it sounds, was “don’t stress.” Easier said than done! But stress makes COVID (and long-COVID) worse, because of the way the virus and stress both cause damage to the parasympathetic nervous system. So that was one of my first long-COVID treatments: trying not to stress about the fact that a novel coronavirus had fucked up my brain, lungs, and entire body… But it actually does work! Lowering stress and cortisol levels made a noticeable difference in all of my symptoms.
As spring became summer, it became clear that my long-COVID symptoms were not going away. Once we wrapped Succession for the season, I decided to take some time off to focus on my recovery. I now was working with an entire team of doctors and specialists. My breathing improved with the help of my pulmonologists and specifically two breathing methods: pranayama and diaphragmatic. I still have several reminders set on my phone to do these breathing exercises several times a day. They help. Plus I now use an inhaler to help my lungs. For the brain fog and fatigue, my doctors gave me a three-pronged approach: supplements, diet, and time.
The supplements seemed to really make a difference, and I’m still enjoying my daily dose including turmeric and CoQ10, which is an enzyme that helps cells create more energy. Perhaps the most important thing (and the most annoying) is sticking to an anti-inflammatory diet. Again, because of the damage the virus was causing to my nervous system, brain, and lungs, my body became hyper-sensitive to inflammation. If I ate anything inflammatory, my energy would be lower than Jeb Bush. But if I could stick to an anti-inflammatory diet (and take my supplements, and do the breathing exercises, and not stress!) then I could feel somewhat okay, sometimes.
Throughout this strange journey, I was able to get some boosts from getting my vaccine (and booster!), sticking with all of my treatments, and the last ingredient: time. Around November, at the 8-month mark, the brain fog started to recede. It was tangible– I was able to think again! I could remember things, I could figure things out… I am so grateful to have my brain working again. Today I can keep the fatigue at bay if I stick to the anti-inflammatory diet and keep up with all my treatments.
As I reflect on the last year on another St. Patrick’s Day, I know that I actually am pretty lucky. No, I wasn’t lucky to get COVID or to be a long-hauler for a year, but so many people had it so much worse. While COVID took a lot from me, it didn’t take my life, and I’m very lucky for that. And while I was out of work for a few months due to the virus, I’m lucky to have had a great employer that took good care of me, and lucky to have a wonderful team of doctors who have helped me get back to working health. On my first day back to work in January 2022, I felt the most incredible wave of relief when I was able to use my brain for critical thinking and problem solving. You don’t realize how much you appreciate being able to think until you can’t! And by following all my treatments, I was able to get my lungs up-and-running and kept the fatigue at bay enough to properly function. It’s the little things!
A year after that positive test, I’m still not fully out of the woods. But with a lot of help, I’ve been able to regain so much of what the virus took away. And I’m hopeful that by next St. Patrick’s Day I’ll be even better.
And for that, I’m lucky. ☘️
Connecting Art 