Brain fog? Headaches? Fatigue?

Perimenopause or long Covid? You decide 

Me this week after trying to find an image to illustrate brain fog...

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And just like that… long Covid is making its presence felt. Again.

Regular readers will know I have history (Opens in a new window) when it comes to ignoring the messages my body tries to send me. No matter how loud it’s yelling, I have a startling capacity to put my hands over my ears, lalala I’m not listening. Wilfully ignoring the blindingly obvious is quite likely the only superpower I have.

It’s a superpower that wasn’t initially capable of withstanding the might of Covid. Almost exactly a year ago I was struck down by Covid (and I do mean struck) after nine days and 15 events at Cheltenham Literature Festival. For nine days, I burnt the candle both ends. If I wasn’t working I was socialising. I ate crap. I drank too much. I didn’t wear a mask (except travelling there and back). I hugged my friends. By the end I was knackered, stressed and probably suffering from malnutrition. In short, I brought it entirely on myself. I’d had two jabs after all. What was there to worry about?

Covid felled me. You have never seen a blue line materialise so fast and so dark. (Well, I hadn't.)  I spent the best part of the next two weeks in bed. For three months, leaving the house was a day's work and actual paid employment was a fantasy. Unpacking the Sainsburys delivery laid me out for hours afterwards. When I forced myself back to the screen in January – adamant that I had had enough of this rubbish and it was not going on a moment longer (can you say messiah complex?!) – a couple of hours on a computer gave me blinding headaches that lasted for days. If I paced myself, I could maybe get through three days work in seven. 

To cut a long and extremely dull story short, this went on for eight months. And then I discovered vitamin B12 jabs.