I took Arwen — the dog! — for a walk last Tuesday for the first time since I got Covid. By ‘I’ I mean we, myself and P. And by walk, I mean the slowest stroll you’ve ever seen for five minutes before turning around and walking at an even slower pace back to the car. I’ve been wiped out by fatigue ever since.
Fatigue and I were not strangers before this. But we were having a well earned and welcome break from each other. Following a years-long arthritis flare-up, where chronic fatigue featured prominently, I was slowly getting my life back on track. As much as anyone could in the middle of a global pandemic. A global pandemic that is not yet over, despite the fact we all wish it was. Perhaps none more so than the government who essentially said ‘pandemic, what pandemic?’ by ending almost every preventative measure that we had in place. We are not all in this together anymore.
It’s just over three weeks since the onset of symptoms, meaning that it is well within the expected time frame for experiencing fatigue. I know this, yet it worries me anyway. What if this triggers an arthritis flare-up? What if the fatigue lingers passed the you don’t need to be overly concerned about this period? What if this is the beginning of Long Covid?
That’s a lot of what-ifs, which feels like a good description of living with a chronic illness. The answer to the what-ifs is that I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out should any of them become true. In the meantime, I focus on the things I do know. Or, more specifically, the things that the HSE recommend for people recovering from Covid.
I’ve written about this before, but unrelenting fatigue is the aspect of chronic illness I struggle to describe the most because it is so much more than simply being tired. Jeanne Sutton captured what I couldn’t when she wrote about washing hair being difficult because her “hands feel like concrete.”
P mentioned he finally understood what I meant and my response was that I wish he didn’t because I wouldn’t wish fatigue on anyone.
I took a class recently on writing personal nonfiction about the body and one of the exercises was to explore an amorphous experience of the body. This was my first draft: Fatigue snakes its way behind my left eye and disrupts my vision until there is no doubt about who is in control of my body.
An acquaintance asked during a Zoom call whether I regretted living in a version of level 5 lockdown for two years when I caught Covid anyway. I knew they were asking out of curiosity rather than judgement, but I was still taken aback. Of course, I don’t regret it. Having Covid in February/March 2022 is much better than having Covid in March 2020. Vaccines and the precautionary measures (most) people continue to take mean that my worries about the fatigue becoming something more are likely to remain as worries.
Has my mental health been negatively impacted by the pandemic? Yes. How could it not have been? I can count on two hands the number of people, I am not related to, that I have spent time with indoors since March 2020 and four of those people were at the inquest into my dad’s death, which wasn’t exactly a social occasion.
But, as I said on that call, I would do it all again in a heartbeat because a mild case of Covid now is nothing compared to how bad things could have been. How things continue to be for too many people.
The pandemic isn’t over.
Read, Watch, Listen
Positive (Sky Documentaries) - A three-part docu-series about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Britain told through the stories of some of the earliest HIV patients, healthcare workers and activists.
Against carceral feminism (Aeon) - A thought-provoking read about why police and prisons are not the answer to gender-based violence and criminal law should be a last, not first, resort.
Kip Kinkel Is Ready To Speak (HuffPost) - At 15, he shot and killed his parents, two classmates at his school, and wounded 25 others. He’s been used as the reason to lock kids up for life ever since.
Is It Possible to Fix True Crime? (Jezebel) - On whether there is an ethical way to make, or consume, true crime stories.
'A Loveable Anarchist': The Oral History of Mr Blobby (Vice) - I didn’t know I needed an oral history of Mr Blobby until I read this article. Maybe you need it too!
Writing My Life Story For The New York Times (I Remember Eternity) - Lisa Marie Basile on the aftermath of writing about her time in foster care for the New York Times.
Asexual Romance Readers Are Finally Getting Their Happily Ever Afters (Bustle) - Lily Herman writes about the rise of asexual and romantic characters in romance novels.
Harm, Punishment, and Abolition with Mariame Kaba (Finding Our Way Podcast) - When I shared this interview with Mariame Kaba on Instagram I said that I thought it had rearranged my brain in a good way. And weeks later that’s still true! Especially the discussion around the fact that we often get pleasure out of punishment.
My Penis, Myself: I didn’t need a penis to be a man. But I needed one to be me. (Intelligencer) - This is a breathtaking essay, by Gabriel Mac, about having gender-affirming surgery.
all the television I have watched in the last however long it's been: taskmaster, series twelve (Griefbacon) - One of the things that made me smile during lockdown was seeing people tweet about discovering Taskmaster. Helena Fitzgerald writes beautifully about her changing relationship with the show and its silly little tasks.