ABANDONED
By: Libby
I have Long COVID from one SARS-CoV-2 infection in August 2021.
For years, I have tried to tell my story. I’ve stopped and started more times than I can count.
So many unfinished drafts.
Abandoned.
That’s what Long Covid does.
So, I am sharing this, as imperfect and incomplete as it may be. It is the most I can manage now.
I’m not doing well.
The past few weeks have been worse than usual and it is still getting worse. Internal pain and/or intense discomfort from the bottom of my rib cage to above my waistline. It makes it extremely difficult to concentrate or care about the world when it’s intense.
And it is intense much of the time.
I’ve been awake about two hours, but I know as soon as I move I’ll have to contend with this internal hell in my abdomen. It’s calmer when I’m lying flat on my back and before I have consumed anything.
It scares the living daylights out of me.
I have lost 24 pounds in the past year, most of it recently. I’m consuming very little and I’m weak. My body is failing me.
In a different world, I would be seeking immediate care. But the last specialist I saw seemed dismissive. It left me, yet again, feeling alone,
Abandoned.
That’s what Long Covid does.
If anyone were to look in my diaries, they would see the cognitive decline, not only in my handwriting, but in my ability to write clear descriptions. I don’t know how to describe things anymore. I’m not articulate anymore. And I must write things down to document or I won’t remember.
I am dealing with many other issues, too, issues that I don’t know how to describe. I’m not describing anything properly. I just don’t have the words. My once scrupulous attention to detail, grammar, punctuation, and word choice in my writing is gone.
Abandoned.
So much has been abandoned.
None of it by choice.
That’s what Long Covid does.
.
