Fatigue
In early 2019, I went skiing for the second time in my life.
When I departed on the train for the Alps, I was in good spirits. It was exciting to take a trip with my friends. While I had a bit of a winter cold coming on, I didn’t want to let it ruin my holiday.
Alas, it did ruin my holiday. By the time we arrived at Val Thorens (altitude 2500m), I was feeling really grotty. I did a bit of skiing on the first day, but by the next day my illness had developed into full on flu. I had a cough, I had a pounding headache, I felt really weak and dizzy when I stood up. I spent most of the holiday lying on the sofa in our apartment.
One day, I tried to force myself out to do a little skiing. I managed to do one circumnavigation of the easiest green run, whereupon I just about managed to get back into our building and collapsed on the floor of the ski locker room. I tried one other time that week, and managed to get down the first hill, had no strength in my legs to control my speed or stop, and fell over twisting my knee.
I didn’t do any more skiing that week.
When I finally got home and saw a doctor, I discovered that the pain in my lungs was actually full on pneumonia. Antibiotics sorted it out, but my left lung still crackles when I breathe to this day.
The other permanent change this experience left me with is some kind of fatigue condition. I’ve got no formal diagnosis, but ever since that trip I’ve had crippling bouts of fatigue. It comes in phases, I’ll be fine for a month or two, then I’ll have a month or two where it’s really bad. When it’s bad, I have to spend between three and seven hours a day lying down unable to move (in addition to my regular sleep and relaxation!). It’s physically painful, my entire body aches, and I often can’t manage to even lift my arm. I can’t really use that time to sleep, and I certainly never feel rested afterwards, but my mind zones out and can’t focus on anything, and I just have to wait for time to pass in a semi-conscious state.
As you can imagine, for someone who previously was hyper-busy with loads of side projects and creative hobbies, this is quite a change. I now have to really ration what I commit to.
While Covid-19 did not exist at the time I went skiing, this is what I imagine Long Covid feels like. From descriptions written by sufferers, it seems to have a lot of similarities to my experience (of Long Influenza maybe?). So even if you’re young and healthy, get a Covid vaccine. You don’t want this.