The last thing I thought before I smashed, face first, into the New York City sidewalk, was, Dang, my wife’s going to want me to start taking my cane with me everywhere I go.
The second-to-last thing I thought, naturally, was, Oh god, my mouth is going to touch this disgusting pavement where every dog in the neighborhood contends in the Astoria Pee Wars. But mostly, I was worried one of my neighbors would watch me tumble over and go limp. My backasswards hope, as my knees collided with the asphalt, was that witnesses would think I was drunk, even though I haven’t had a sip of alcohol in years. Maybe anyone standing nearby could write me off as sozzled or clumsy, rather than thinking I was sick or weak. Or any of the other descriptors I’ve spent the last five years internally combating: delicate, feeble, frail.
I have Long COVID-induced postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a form of dysautonomia, so I’m no stranger to fainting; I just usually do it inside my house, onto a clean floor, and wake up with my cat guarding me.
This was my first time going down out in the wild, and, by far, my grisliest fall. Before I even sat up, I could tell I had road rash running from my chin to my cheek, a sprained shoulder, and that all the skin was ripped off my knees. My jeans were already soaked with blood. My jaw smacked the pavement so hard I was afraid it was broken. And my nose, too. They’d somehow hit the sidewalk separately and made completely different comic book noises: WHAM! And then: THWACK!
But, no. I wasn’t in a comic book and I certainly wasn’t a hero. I grew up idolizing Batman, pledging at the end of every episode to fight bad guys and make the world a little bit safer for people who couldn’t defeat evil-doers by themselves.
But Long COVID took so much from me, including that ever-burning childhood dream. I never expected to reclaim it, and certainly not by letting people watch me fall and bleed. But that’s what happened. Not on this nose-dive, but the next — thanks to one single bigot walking around New York City in one of those devil-red Make America Great Again baseball caps.
Before I got COVID-19 and developed Long COVID in the first wave of the pandemic in New York City, I was simply a butch lesbian existing in the world like all the short-haired, masculine-presenting, highly-competent gay gals who came before me. A failure at straight femininity and a success in every other way. If you’re queer too, you likely know: If you walk into a room and spot a butch, it’s going to be okay.
If you’re not a queer person, let me explain. I’m not beautiful or fashionable or super-fit. You’re not going to want to stop me on the street to flirt or ask about my non-existent earrings. But if you need something, anything at all, I will appear to you as if by magic.
Don’t know what kind of battery pack your drill requires from The Home Depot? Wondering how to navigate the subway to your desired destination? On a plane where both pilots are suddenly incapacitated? Baby, you’re looking for a butch.
I was the toughest, most confident, most capable person I knew. I used to ride my bike a hundred miles. Now I’m lucky to be able to wobble a few blocks from my house, my eyes trained on the ground, looking for even tiny obstacles that could knock me over. I once owned big, stompy boots. Now I’m wearing basketball shoes with smiley faces on them, for ankle and arch support, their sneaker-squeaks accompanied often by the thud of the cane I use to keep myself upright.
I used to be a blazing blue star of strength. Now I’m perpetually woozy with fatigue and mast cell overactivation and autonomic dysfunction.
People used to ask me for my help almost every time I left my house, seeming surprised I had appeared before them just when they needed a tire change or assistance choosing a novel at a bookstore where I did not even work. Now they gawk my cane and my circus-colored compression socks and yell at me to speed it up as I’m slowly crossing the street.
And it’s not just strangers. Long COVID introduced falling into my life, both literally and metaphorically. I fell out of favor with colleagues when I was forced to start saying “no” to keep my physical baseline in check. I fell off personal and professional invite lists when people realized they’d need to have COVID-19 mitigations in place for me to attend their events. I fell in the esteem of friends and family who could not (or would not) accept that what was happening to me was very real, and that it could happen to them too.
And then — when testing, getting vaccinated, and masking stopped being the norm — I fell out of public life altogether, because airplanes and movie theaters and sports bars and basketball games and even the homes of people I love became aggressively unsafe for me.
It took me so long to realize that I was gay, then realize that I’m butch. Even longer than to come out and stand tall and proud in both of those truths. But I did it! I never felt more me than in the years leading up to the beginning of the pandemic. Then — poof! — gone in an instant. Long COVID didn’t just steal my health; it robbed me of the identity I’d been slowly building my entire life.
Long COVID didn’t just steal my health; it robbed me of the identity I’d been slowly building my entire life.
Confronting an asshole in my neighborhood helped me begin clawing my self-image back. It was his MAGA hat that tipped me off. I live in Queens, the most diverse county in the United States. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district, in fact. You don’t see a lot of vocal Trump support around here.
I caught a glimpse of his hat and the combative way he was moving and I knew he was looking for trouble. I sped up, my cane clunking along beside me, and came to a stop just as he did, right in front of my corner produce stand, where a young Latina woman was selling full-size candy bars with one arm and holding a baby with the other.
Without preamble, he screamed at her, “Get a real job!” And then, “Go back to your country!”
When he lifted his hands, I thought he was going to shove her. I didn’t stop to think. I just lunged forward and thrust my cane between the two of them. He froze and she froze, and then everyone on the sidewalk froze, too. There was a burning fury inside me like nothing I’d ever known; even my bones felt hot beneath my skin.
I was also dizzy as heck. I’d walked too fast, I’d gotten off-balance, my cane was doing the opposite of supporting me, and I definitely hadn’t drunk enough electrolytes to be getting into a street fight.
I nudged the MAGA guy with my cane and said, “Step away from her!”
When he didn’t, I nudged him harder and he tripped backward off the curb. It embarrassed him and made him even angrier.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he demanded, trying to smack my cane away as if it were a fruit fly.
He could never know what an astute question that was.
My childhood dream was to be Gotham City’s beloved masked vigilante, and here I was, wearing a KN95 mask on the New York City street, fighting fascism. I’d spent my childhood imagining I’d one day wield a Jedi lightsaber — and here I was, with my walking stick hoisted in front of me like a sword. I was… I was… exactly who I’d always been?
I should growl, I’m Batman, I thought.
But what I said instead was: “I’m sick! I’m gay!”
And then I toppled over and crashed into a giant display of fresh fruit.
My electric blue translucent cane clattered to the ground when I fell, and the MAGA man kicked at it like an angry mule.
“It’s always the cripples and the dykes,” he screamed as he left the sidewalk.
The small crowd finally closed in around us.
“Are you okay?” I squeaked at the woman from my place on the ground in the pile of Cyber Sweetz Fresh Organic Bananas.
“Are you okay?” she whispered back at me.
The MAGA man stomped off.
I never expected to have a revelation about my identity sitting in a nest of fruit in the middle of the sidewalk, but that’s what happened. All that therapy, all those self-help books, all the mental agony of worrying people would think I’m useless if I’m sick in a way they can witness.
But the MAGA man’s screech was clanging around inside my brain like a marching band getting warmed up. If it was “always the cripples and the dykes,” I wasn’t the first visibly disabled queer person this man had come across. Someone else just like me had stood up to him before. Maybe even stood up like me, and fallen down just like me, too.
Maybe a bisexual POTSie with spiky hair and Doc Martens. Maybe a nonbinary wheelchair user. Maybe a Spoonie in drag. I laughed with giddy relief at the wildly unexpected reminder that I am very sick, but I am not alone.
Who the fuck do I think I am?
I’m a butch lesbian with Long COVID.
And I’m not the only one.
I’m a butch lesbian with Long COVID. And I’m not the only one.
Heather Hogan is The Sick Times’ engagement editor. Her work has been featured in “The Best American Science and Nature Writing” and “The Long COVID Survival Guide.” She has been living with Long COVID since March 2020.
All articles by The Sick Times are available for other outlets to republish free of charge. We request that you credit us and link back to our website.
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