In February of last year I made a graphic about the vascular nature of #covid (scroll my feed to see itđŠ¸), and while the graphic came a year after us patients were shouting it from the rooftops, I felt compelled to create this second graphic because people STILL arenât listening.
These same people are the ones that still think the virus is like a bad flu, that death is the only tragic outcome of infection, that #longcovid is psychosomatic, and that age, prior health and a âgood immune systemâ will protect you from the virus, despite Long COVID being statistically more common in the young, previously healthy, and in those with mild acute cases. And despite many #longhaulers initially feeling âbetterâ only to find themselves with new and serious health complications months after their ârecoveryâ. Many arenât privy to this information, and many are not connecting their new health issues to their prior infection.
As a patient and advocate itâs frustrating that weâre still up against this misinformation, and largely because we sacrificed so much of ourselves while severely ill to prevent the situation that weâre now in: a minimum of 40 million Long COVID patients globally, all without treatments or a cure, and all in need of specialized, holistic care in a time when the pandemic is still progressing and our healthcare systems are taxed and prioritizing the acute.
If the pandemic were to end tomorrow and the millions of chronically ill Long Haulers were to seek care, very few doctors globally would have the medical knowledge and expertise to truly help, as chronic illness and the medical innovation needed for it has been an after-thought or all-together absent thought from our medical schools, organizations, and authorities for centuries. Because #ableism says that chronic illness is too mortality-triggering or complex or unworthy of awareness, when the acute is faster and easier to treat. Itâs laziness, elitism and ableism all rolled into a snowballing economic and societal crisis, and all because the experts (patients) werenât believed or recognized throughout.
My hope is therefore that youâll share: no one should have the excuse of not knowing any longer. No one.