Tag: fatigue

body, disability, health, Learning, long covid

Maintenance Required: Notes on a Crash

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Photograph of an old rusted out car sitting on a dirt driveway near a fence and some run-down houses. A cactus is growing next to the car.
Photo by Angelique Downing from Burst

In a Disney princess bag behind the passenger seat lives the crash kit. Here is what you’ll find inside:

  • One basic medium pillow
  • One fuzzy neck pillow
  • One blackout eye mask
  • One pair of Loop earplugs
  • One packet of electrolyte powder
Continue reading “Maintenance Required: Notes on a Crash” →
body, disability, long covid

Slow and Steady: Notes on PEM

smirkpretty
Shannon standing on the lookout of a mountain with a view of the sky and coast of Kaua'i. She has a goofy smile and has her hands turned up
A thousand lives ago on Nounou Mountain Trail, or Sleeping Giant (Kaua’i, Hawai’i, 2022)

Going through photos of the last trip before my life changed, I see her. That me is there, radiating all the pain and exhilaration of the little mountain she climbed with her partner on their first day in Kaua’i. 

I love that girl. She was hurting bad from a bum hip that would get replaced in a year, but she powered through it, sun-happy and heart-strong.

She started vanishing just a few short months later, replaced by a body-snatching invasion of Long COVID symptoms. 

The worst of those symptoms? Post-Exertional Malaise. 

Continue reading “Slow and Steady: Notes on PEM” →