Reading everything you've written about your experience with COVID so far, including how much you've pushed yourself and how brain fog has interfered already, I want to beg you to please rest.
Pushing through all the fatigue and fog can make them chronic... I speak from experience, and unfortunately know quite a lot of others who have had the same experience. It tears a soul completely up to lose ...words. I have actually lost them enough that even right now, I had wanted to say something else but I can't remember the right phrase.
Public health has been bad at advising about how to avoid Long COVID, so those of us who have already been through post viral chronic illness try to share our lives as cautionary tales. Caution number one: mental exertion is basically as exhausting as physical exertion, but I bet you probably have already felt that.
Anyway, you're a treasure and I hope that you can give yourself the same care you would give one of your own loved ones. Really be gentle and kind to yourself and really truly rest. More than you're used to, more than you think is required, more than you want to. Even more than all that. Radical rest. Rest as hard as you possibly can.
Cause, we do want you back! But not quickly. Quality over, uh, quickness. Fully, wholly recovered!
Ok sorry for unsolicited advice. I just worry like a mother hen when I read the type of things like you've written in this last missive. Cluck, cluck.
Thanks Julie. I really do appreciate your concern. I’ll do my best to rest. (Though, as we have an extremely energetic three-year-old, that’s not always easy!)
Julie has already said much of what I wanted to say (thank you, Julie!) but I can't help wanting to comment all the same.
I think I've told you some of what I struggle with daily with my disabilities, but it all started as a post-viral chronic illness 12+ years ago and I've continued to go downhill since then. And I worry so much now whenever anyone I care about gets Covid, because Long Covid is so horrible, and it is SO EASY to think one is feeling better and then over-exert and make things worse.
Like Julie, I don't want to come across as a mother hen either, but please do rest, all of you, as much as possible. ❤ post-viral chronic illness is 0/10, do not recommend. would give it a score in the minuses if I could.
really hope you're all feeling better soon. but I think we all want you to rest far more than we want you to feel obliged to update your substack. take care!!
Thanks Cassiel! It's a few weeks later now, and I think (fingers and toes crossed) I am OK again. I have huge sympathy for your situation, though. The thought of years of that, good lord...
Well, I think the Covid itself had a little bit more to do with it than the vaccines! But thank you for the best wishes. We are back on our feet again, after a rough few weeks.
Oh man, my comment on your last post seems rather insensitive. I had no idea you've been sick on top of it all. I know how Covid finds new ways to ravage a healthy body, and I hope you and your family recover fully soon. I think that most who support you do it because we know that life happens, and you are passionate about seeing this through - no need to feel guilty for not having produced for a while. At least I am supporting the greater effort, rather than individual posts.
Michael, sorry, I haven't got back to you. Will do so soon! I'm feeling much better, and beginning to clear the backlog of messages and emails and comments from the past month or two. Thanks for your good wishes.
Thank you. Yeah, the vaccines are not a magic bullet. (And the early messaging, that they essentially would be, has unfortunately done significant damage to the credibility of the medical community.) But I did better than my friend Robert, much younger than me, who was hit by the first wave (pre-vaccines) and hospitalised. He went from climbing mountains to not being able to climb stairs for several months. It's a real beast of a virus, and I am glad they developed vaccines, however imperfect they are in the face of such a rapidly mutating threat. Thanks for your good wishes...
Thank you for letting me know what's going on. To be honest: I hadn't noticed. I'm signed up to so many different inputs that posts that come more often than two weeks are rather a nuisance - even when I like the author's style! So for me personally, three weeks of your silence don't feel like the eternity of not having talked to the people I'm obliged to please - as one might with the substacker's hat on. Happened to me a lot and I also decided to suspend paid subsriptions. But a paid subscription - and now I'm putting on my consumer's hat again - as NOT a reward for a post I've read. It is a funding to receive posts in the future. To make it all possible. I don't perceive it to be a virtue to say no to funding in a time where you are not in the condition to provide it yourself. Funding is also not about the present, it's about the future. Like that insurance money we pay for the what-ifs of the future.
Apart from that, I feel you losing the recording! All the pleasure of listening to a great conversation once again, maybe even understanding some aspects of it differently - Lost! Mein Beileid, as we say in German. And as we say in English: This, too, shall pass. 🍀
Sorry you were so unwell. It sounds dreadful. We had it a year ago, but seem to have got off comparatively lightly.
And unless I have amnesia, I didn't know you and Solana had a child! It's hard to believe that almost a whole four-year-old's life has passed since I saw you. Congratulations.
Oh, and congratulations too on being right about the universe.
Sorry to hear of you covid problems, no fun at all. Good idea to suspend subscriptions to take the pressure off. Delighted that the James Webb images are confirming this beautiful theory and that the mainstream scinetists are beginning to reassess things. Hope you can soon get a response to that paper together. But I agree with Julie, more important to rest.
So sorry to hear about your struggles and i highly encourage you to remember herbal steams (the old bowl with a towel over your head) that are so helpful for lung recovery - thyme steam is my fav. As reliable as the hot water bottle! And please, to keep on doing the vital and wonderful work you're doing maybe consider not getting anymore covid boosters. they dont seem to help and we dont know what else they do.
I just signed up after reading the text about the End Poem. I received this in my inbox before I even got confirmation that I've signed up to receive them.
Reading everything you've written about your experience with COVID so far, including how much you've pushed yourself and how brain fog has interfered already, I want to beg you to please rest.
Pushing through all the fatigue and fog can make them chronic... I speak from experience, and unfortunately know quite a lot of others who have had the same experience. It tears a soul completely up to lose ...words. I have actually lost them enough that even right now, I had wanted to say something else but I can't remember the right phrase.
Public health has been bad at advising about how to avoid Long COVID, so those of us who have already been through post viral chronic illness try to share our lives as cautionary tales. Caution number one: mental exertion is basically as exhausting as physical exertion, but I bet you probably have already felt that.
Anyway, you're a treasure and I hope that you can give yourself the same care you would give one of your own loved ones. Really be gentle and kind to yourself and really truly rest. More than you're used to, more than you think is required, more than you want to. Even more than all that. Radical rest. Rest as hard as you possibly can.
Cause, we do want you back! But not quickly. Quality over, uh, quickness. Fully, wholly recovered!
Ok sorry for unsolicited advice. I just worry like a mother hen when I read the type of things like you've written in this last missive. Cluck, cluck.
Thanks Julie. I really do appreciate your concern. I’ll do my best to rest. (Though, as we have an extremely energetic three-year-old, that’s not always easy!)
Julie has already said much of what I wanted to say (thank you, Julie!) but I can't help wanting to comment all the same.
I think I've told you some of what I struggle with daily with my disabilities, but it all started as a post-viral chronic illness 12+ years ago and I've continued to go downhill since then. And I worry so much now whenever anyone I care about gets Covid, because Long Covid is so horrible, and it is SO EASY to think one is feeling better and then over-exert and make things worse.
Like Julie, I don't want to come across as a mother hen either, but please do rest, all of you, as much as possible. ❤ post-viral chronic illness is 0/10, do not recommend. would give it a score in the minuses if I could.
really hope you're all feeling better soon. but I think we all want you to rest far more than we want you to feel obliged to update your substack. take care!!
Thanks Cassiel! It's a few weeks later now, and I think (fingers and toes crossed) I am OK again. I have huge sympathy for your situation, though. The thought of years of that, good lord...
Be well. Take care of you. As a paid subscriber, I appreciate the head’s up as I would’ve been wondering why the payment didn’t go through
Thanks Patricia.
Damn vaccines 🤢 Unfortunately no unvaccine is available 🥲Hope you and your family will be well soon🙏
Well, I think the Covid itself had a little bit more to do with it than the vaccines! But thank you for the best wishes. We are back on our feet again, after a rough few weeks.
Talking from experience: that Covid-brain-fog is one hell of a trip on its own... Take care please and I wish you and your family a quick recovery.
Thank you Manolo.
Oh man, my comment on your last post seems rather insensitive. I had no idea you've been sick on top of it all. I know how Covid finds new ways to ravage a healthy body, and I hope you and your family recover fully soon. I think that most who support you do it because we know that life happens, and you are passionate about seeing this through - no need to feel guilty for not having produced for a while. At least I am supporting the greater effort, rather than individual posts.
Michael, sorry, I haven't got back to you. Will do so soon! I'm feeling much better, and beginning to clear the backlog of messages and emails and comments from the past month or two. Thanks for your good wishes.
"Even though we were double-vaccinated, and boosted, it hit us pretty hard"
many such cases
get well soon
Thank you. Yeah, the vaccines are not a magic bullet. (And the early messaging, that they essentially would be, has unfortunately done significant damage to the credibility of the medical community.) But I did better than my friend Robert, much younger than me, who was hit by the first wave (pre-vaccines) and hospitalised. He went from climbing mountains to not being able to climb stairs for several months. It's a real beast of a virus, and I am glad they developed vaccines, however imperfect they are in the face of such a rapidly mutating threat. Thanks for your good wishes...
Hope you are all feeling tip top really soon. It IS important to rest. But I think it’s not something you are good at... x
Yeah, not my speciality. Although I HAVE always been fond of a midday nap, and I finally had a great excuse...
Good morning Julian :)
Thank you for letting me know what's going on. To be honest: I hadn't noticed. I'm signed up to so many different inputs that posts that come more often than two weeks are rather a nuisance - even when I like the author's style! So for me personally, three weeks of your silence don't feel like the eternity of not having talked to the people I'm obliged to please - as one might with the substacker's hat on. Happened to me a lot and I also decided to suspend paid subsriptions. But a paid subscription - and now I'm putting on my consumer's hat again - as NOT a reward for a post I've read. It is a funding to receive posts in the future. To make it all possible. I don't perceive it to be a virtue to say no to funding in a time where you are not in the condition to provide it yourself. Funding is also not about the present, it's about the future. Like that insurance money we pay for the what-ifs of the future.
Apart from that, I feel you losing the recording! All the pleasure of listening to a great conversation once again, maybe even understanding some aspects of it differently - Lost! Mein Beileid, as we say in German. And as we say in English: This, too, shall pass. 🍀
You are very kind. Thank you for your very supportive words.
Thank you.
Sending you all my best thoughts and wishing you rest and recovery!! It’s no joke.
Thanks Austin. Yeah, those were some weird weeks. Much better now though.
Sorry you were so unwell. It sounds dreadful. We had it a year ago, but seem to have got off comparatively lightly.
And unless I have amnesia, I didn't know you and Solana had a child! It's hard to believe that almost a whole four-year-old's life has passed since I saw you. Congratulations.
Oh, and congratulations too on being right about the universe.
Much love.
Thanks Richard! I'm delighted you got off lightly. It's so variable...
Yes, I didn't really do a proper tell-everybody-email because I was RATHER TIRED at the time, but yes, we have a lovely little boy.
Love back to you...
Sorry to hear of you covid problems, no fun at all. Good idea to suspend subscriptions to take the pressure off. Delighted that the James Webb images are confirming this beautiful theory and that the mainstream scinetists are beginning to reassess things. Hope you can soon get a response to that paper together. But I agree with Julie, more important to rest.
Didn't realise you have an Irish connection!
Thanks for the kind words. Yes, I'm almost alarmingly Irish! Loads of relatives buried on the Rock of Cashel.
So sorry to hear about your struggles and i highly encourage you to remember herbal steams (the old bowl with a towel over your head) that are so helpful for lung recovery - thyme steam is my fav. As reliable as the hot water bottle! And please, to keep on doing the vital and wonderful work you're doing maybe consider not getting anymore covid boosters. they dont seem to help and we dont know what else they do.
Thanks Natasha. Yes, a head full of steam is popular in our house.
I just signed up after reading the text about the End Poem. I received this in my inbox before I even got confirmation that I've signed up to receive them.
The universe isn't playing today.
Good lord! OK, that is pretty cool timing.
Er... welcome!