Commentary
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Emergency departments aren’t trained for Long COVID — and patients are paying the price
What do you call a system that doesn’t believe you’re sick until you’re dying? While emergency clinicians are trained to handle acute medical situations, many lack even a basic understanding of Long COVID and related diseases, such as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).
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Illinois could become the first state in the country to ban mask bans. Here’s how we created the bill to do it.
Anti-mask laws are discriminatory and dangerous, and so I and other disability advocates across the country are stepping up to counter criminalizing with codifying: our bills would enshrine the right to mask in public spaces in state law.
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I want a Long COVID language revolution — not language imposed onto my sick, disabled body
I wondered: Might there be a way to alter ableist language about disabled Long COVID lives and bodies? Or, at the very least, my own disabled body? So I talked with disabled experts who’ve written about disability and language and surveyed The Sick Times readers about their feelings around the language often used for our…
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Avoiding caregiver burnout: Wisdom for the ME and Long COVID community
Many caregivers spend so much time caring for their loved ones that they neglect themselves and burn out. Having experienced burnout myself, I encourage all caregivers to take intentional actions to strengthen their resilience. Over the years, I’ve learned invaluable mindset, emotional, physical, and spiritual strategies to strengthen my resilience so that when challenges arise,…
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How volunteering to become a lab rat paid off
When I signed up for a clinical trial, I expected it to be thought provoking at best and onerous at worst. I didn’t expect it to change my life.
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COVID-19 triggered a life-threatening pulmonary embolism that led to long-term lung damage. It took two ER trips before doctors believed me.
It started with chest pain. I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I couldn’t take a deep breath. I immediately pulled up the internet to search my symptoms. It turns out, anything with the search terms “chest pain” and “trouble breathing” leads to the same advice: go straight to the emergency room…
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Letter to the editors: The University of Washington’s Long COVID clinic
In February, The Sick Times published a story highlighting how educating primary care doctors about Long COVID could help address some of the challenges people face in finding healthcare for the disease. The story focused on the University of Washington (UW)’s Long COVID clinic as an example of a center working to train doctors, and…
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Missives from the dismissed: Still COVIDing without community
Combining my experience building COVID-safe communities online and interviews with over a dozen COVID-cautious people who are “still COVIDing” despite a lack of community, family, and/or peer support, I learned that many are stuck in situations that make living a normal life difficult or impossible because of widespread COVID-19 denial. This essay is a collection…
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A timely book of poetry chronicles a mother — and her daughters’ — experience with Long COVID
Breath / is not something / anyone would dare / to hold right now, / even for luck, Ann E. Wallace wrote on the 33rd day of her acute COVID-19 case, during the first wave of the pandemic in spring 2020. Half a decade later, breathing still doesn’t come easy for the Poet Laureate Emeritus…
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An international emergency task force is urgently needed for Severe Long COVID and ME crisis cases
Without one, Severe advocates are putting themselves at risk. It’s time for advocacy organizations to step up. Writer’s note: In this essay, I deliberately capitalize different categories of ME in order to give each the weight and dignity they deserve. I also choose to distinguish between the Sick and the Well to highlight our status…
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