Long covid diaries: Good news.

It’s been a month since my last covid diaries update. (For my official "covid diaries" see here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; and here.) It’s been a month of teaching and invited talks including a quick trip Stateside this past weekend.

This time around I have almost only good news to report. Let me start with the crucial one: I have had not a single migraine episode. This is quite amazing because only four months ago, I was having multiple a week. My quality of life has exploded. I can socialize again. Last week, I worked in a cafe—something I had not done for almost four years. At public events, I am not instinctively looking for the quietest corner anymore. I haven’t had to take anti-inflammatory medicine for over five weeks now. (This had been going down rapidly since I started to take blood pressure meds during the Summer.)

The only remaining evidence of my long covid is that I find that I do still get cognitive fatigue from even relatively modest exercise (say, speed walking). So, I am still hesitating whether I should try to swim daily again. Or stick with long walks through town. Before long I’ll try cycling again. (I stopped cycling when I realized that each time I did I had cognitive fatigue—turns out cycling in Amsterdam is a lot of cognitive multi-tasking even for a native.)

Anyway, as you can imagine I am quietly ecstatic, and increasingly optimistic that (ahh) the corner has been turned. This is not something I expected anymore.