Wendy Nather on Nostr: For those of you not familiar with the medical term “fatigue,” let me describe ...
For those of you not familiar with the medical term “fatigue,” let me describe it. I experienced it while having mono, undergoing chemotherapy, and again now with #LongCovid.
Think back to a time when you were as tired as you’ve ever been. Not sleepy, but completely physically exhausted, to where you couldn’t wait to get into bed.
Now imagine that you’re in bed, but you don’t feel as if you’ve laid down yet. You’re still that tired. Hours pass. Maybe you sleep all night. You wake up, and you’re still that exhausted. The exhaustion is deep in your bones, and nothing can relieve it.
You can’t think straight. You can’t hold a conversation. You can’t read because holding a book or tablet is too tiring and you can’t focus anyway. You can’t watch anything.
You don’t let yourself cry because then you’d have to blow your nose afterwards, and you’re too tired to do that.
Maybe in a day or two you start feeling as if you can get up and do something, so you tackle the most urgent thing. Or you get a burst of adrenaline and manage to deal with a crisis. Then you’re back to being that exhausted. It goes on for days, or weeks, or months.
You feel as if you should just make yourself exercise a little, and then it’ll get better. You do something small, like a walk. Or you get online for a couple of rousing discussions. The next morning, you wake up exhausted again. You overdid it. Of course you hide this from your friends and colleagues, because nobody wants to hear the same thing every day: “I’m completely exhausted.”
This is what millions of people with #LongCovid are experiencing, and we don’t know yet how to treat it or when it will end.
Think back to a time when you were as tired as you’ve ever been. Not sleepy, but completely physically exhausted, to where you couldn’t wait to get into bed.
Now imagine that you’re in bed, but you don’t feel as if you’ve laid down yet. You’re still that tired. Hours pass. Maybe you sleep all night. You wake up, and you’re still that exhausted. The exhaustion is deep in your bones, and nothing can relieve it.
You can’t think straight. You can’t hold a conversation. You can’t read because holding a book or tablet is too tiring and you can’t focus anyway. You can’t watch anything.
You don’t let yourself cry because then you’d have to blow your nose afterwards, and you’re too tired to do that.
Maybe in a day or two you start feeling as if you can get up and do something, so you tackle the most urgent thing. Or you get a burst of adrenaline and manage to deal with a crisis. Then you’re back to being that exhausted. It goes on for days, or weeks, or months.
You feel as if you should just make yourself exercise a little, and then it’ll get better. You do something small, like a walk. Or you get online for a couple of rousing discussions. The next morning, you wake up exhausted again. You overdid it. Of course you hide this from your friends and colleagues, because nobody wants to hear the same thing every day: “I’m completely exhausted.”
This is what millions of people with #LongCovid are experiencing, and we don’t know yet how to treat it or when it will end.