Learning to Live With Long COVID

"I am able to do what I need to do. My workplace allows me to adapt. If I worked at Tim Hortons or was a nurse working 12-hour shifts, there is no way I could do it. I can't even imagine."

"This is really about pacing yourself  and learning to live differently. A component of rehab is talking about adapting to new realities and new limits."

"It was like a bad cold, not the worst illness I have had in my life [COVID], to be honest."

"It [Long COVID] was almost a surreal lack of energy and lack of ability to do anything. [Even walking around a grocery store] brought me down."

"My hope is I continue to be able to manage well within some new boundaries. I consider myself pretty fortunate. Compared to some people, I live a really good life."

Monique Stone, 41, Anglican priest, Julian Norwich Church, Ottawa

The Ottawa Hospital General Campus. Since the hospitals’ long COVID rehab program began last year as a pilot, 41 patients have been through it. There are another 53 people waiting to get in. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia

A rehabilitation program has been set up at The Ottawa Hospital for patients suffering from Long COVID. Most of the participants are in their prime years accustomed to a busy, active life before they had developed Long COVID. Following a bout with the disease during which they had only mild symptoms, its aftereffects has left them struggling to maintain themselves with basic everyday tasks. 

 

Once their therapy has been completed, a long line-up of others suffering similar symptoms awaits the opportunity to sign into rehabilitation.

This is a program that offers physical, psychological and social support, in teaching people new skills and insights to help them live with Long COVID. The demand for these services is expected to grow even larger as more people are being exposed to new subvariants of Omicron that are more contagious even than it has been. These are not yet in-person programs, but are conducted virtually, through a week-long immersion in learning to live with their disability.

Most of those participating in the program had another issue in common aside from contracting COVID; they had relatively few symptoms, but rather mild cases of COVID-19. The lingering effects, however, seriously affecting their capacity to function as they once did with daily life's tasks, great and small, including work. Among participants the most common symptoms are extreme fatigue that increases with activity; cognitive difficulties; brain fog and problems with breathlessness, anxiety and fear, and chest tightness.

It is believed that Long COVID affects between ten and thirty percent of those with COVID. Published recently, a Canadian study has identified microscopic abnormalities affecting the way oxygen was exchanged from the lungs to red blood cells in those with Long COVID, as a possible cause. Recent research points as well to an increased risk of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease for people testing positive for COVID-19.

No actual treatment for the condition has yet been devised. Some people with the lingering effects may be able to return to the workplace and eventually see their baseline health and energy levels return. Others may have to resign themselves to living with these long-term alterations to their health and impaired physical capabilities.

Most program participants are women with the average age of 44. Among them are many health workers, or people in leadership roles through professional work. They may have positions they will be unable to return to, perhaps not full-time. However, patients who have been exposed to the program state they feel better able to manage their symptoms, which has enabled them to have an improved quality of life.