This text was written as I learn to live with Long Covid and attempt to regain my creativity. All the posts and some more info can be found here.
This is not the post I wanted to write but I am flirting with post exertional malaise this week and this is the best I can do for now. As ever, done is better than perfect.
'Do you feel it more after you exercise?'
'Well... long covid,' I repeat for the third time. I have booked an appointment with a GP about a tightness I have been experiencing around my chest. It comes and goes, settling in for a day or a few weeks.
I take a breath and rephrase my answer. 'I don't exercise these days because of long covid.' She clearly does not understand this illness but I can see she is trying to figure out what is going with my chest. She takes my blood pressure, she has me blow into the asthma cardboard tube, she listens to my heart and lungs. She asks questions.
'Actually...' I continue as she pauses to take some notes. 'I guess I do feel it more after exercise. It's just... it's not exercise. If I step out of the boundaries of what is safe for me, then yes, my chest does get tight then.' It took a moment to understand what she was asking. Her vocabulary is not adjusted to my situation and we both know it. Still, I try to understand so she can try to help me.
Over the last two years I have grown very weary of my local GP practice. More than once they have told me nothing is wrong with me in spite of my list of symptoms and now my approach is defensive and distrustful. I have to remind myself that this GP in front of me is not one of those who told me I was fine when my whole body was on fire and my mind a blur of pain.
I can see the gears in her head turn as she rules out diagnosis and find potential explanations.
'It could be your asthma.' She runs through her logic and it makes an enormous amount of sense. So much sense that I am surprised I did not think of it, but I never think about my asthma. I've been carrying an inhaler since my teenage years but it's standard for me never to have used it before it expires.
'Thank you,' I tell her before I get up to leave.
I walk out of the appointment with clear instructions and a pathway to ease the tightness when it comes. Neither the GP or I know for certain that this is the root of the issue but it seems likely. It's a new symptom for me, one I am unaccustomed to. Normally my asthma, in the rare moments it kicks in, is a sharp blade in my throat that fills my mouth with the iron tang of blood without actual bleeding.
Back at home, I dig out my inhaler from my everyday bag and check the date. 2026. Good, I will not have to ask for a new one. I settle the inhaler by my bedside table ready for an added medicine to take before bed and upon waking.