Laurie
Laurie is 59 years old and is White American. She is married with two children and is a professor of music and a musician.
Laurie caught Covid early in the pandemic, which then developed into long Covid. The worst symptom for her was brain fog, which interrupted her ability to work. When she had her first vaccine this helped with her Long Covid symptoms. Laurie was interviewed in September 2021.
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Laurie went to Italy in early 2020. She remembers feeling quite calm as the majority of Covid cases were on the opposite side of the country. As she put it, “I didn’t think about it too much.” Soon after, one of Laurie’s colleagues who had also travelled with her to Italy felt unwell. Laurie’s colleague thought that this could have been Covid.
After a few weeks, Covid cases in the USA started to rise. Laurie started to worry for her son who was attending an American university. Her son travelled to the UK and a few days later started to get Covid symptoms. A couple days later Laurie also started to feel unwell. They both had high temperatures, sore throats, and felt low in energy. As she puts it, “I was shaking, I was feeling so unwell by this point, I was really running on fumes.”
Laurie was not overly worried about potentially having Covid at first. She says that she is generally very healthy and has no conditions that could make her recovery harder. However, when her symptoms persisted for several months she realised that she might have Long Covid. The worst impact for her was the ‘brain fog’, which meant that she struggled to continue her work as an academic and musician. Her symptoms improved after taking the vaccine.
Laurie preferred the name Long Covid because people are “experiencing a long, long, long, long illness”, with a bigger wilder pool of symptoms.
Laurie preferred the name Long Covid because people are “experiencing a long, long, long, long illness”, with a bigger wilder pool of symptoms.
That’s why we were so certain that the term Long Covid still is valid, because we still don’t know whether we’re post-anything you know. Post Covid syndrome has no validity to me because we don’t know that we’re post anything [laughs], we really don’t and post-acute. Now I feel I feel that I am post because I think the vaccine dealt with whatever viral remnants were continuing to aggravate my immune system. I feel post, but that’s my feeling, right? That’s just something that comes from me.
But the quality of knowledge and the confidence that I have in my argument about Long Covid and having Long Covid does come primarily from the strength of the shared experience and although I realise that the more people that you have in any in in in any parts that you’ve got. I mean I’m in an N equals one study, and the whole Long Covid community is at N equals, I don’t know how ever many million people who believe that they are suffering from Long Covid, and the more people you have in that in that patient group, the wilder you are going to, you know, the 200 symptoms or whatever that have been clocked up as being as being evidence of Long Covid. You know that that pool is just going to grow and grow, the weirder things are going to happen. So, I still you know, I suppose what I’m saying is that you can’t start to name something post, post-acute or yeah I think that’s the one that’s stuck isn’t it, post-acute Covid syndrome, syndrome that’s a syndrome.
Can’t put a name on it because we still don’t really know what it is and also syndrome is one of those words that, that signals to me that [laughs], that it’s just something that happens. So Long Covid still has validity for me, because it is what we’re experiencing, we’re experiencing a long, long, long, long illness after an initial phase of infection. That’s all we know.
Laurie said her headaches felt like someone “bashing nails into my head” and “like lightning strikes in my head.” It felt to her like she had “the worst teenage hangover ever.”
Laurie said her headaches felt like someone “bashing nails into my head” and “like lightning strikes in my head.” It felt to her like she had “the worst teenage hangover ever.”
And the pains in my head, I would have I would get neuralgia, and I called them the neuralgia gnomes, because it was like having gnomes bashing in my head. The things that that got me through actually were the metaphors that I was coming up with to discuss things with other, you know with people on social media. Obviously, I wasn’t getting any other kind of contact but other sufferers and other people, so the neuralgia gnomes were, you know, almost the humorous way to discuss what was going on in my head, like somebody literally bashing nails into my head it was so painful and it could happen up to three times a minute it was just, you know just like lightning strikes in my head. Another one that stuck was the gaslighting jerk virus a Twitter conversation very early on with some of the some of the earlier doctors that have become friends.
[name] who actually spent quite a lot of time, you know, she’s done, did media things because she [audio cuts], open about what’s been going on with her. And she was just like ‘oh this virus is an idiot’ and I just said, “Oh it’s such a jerk, it’s such a jerk it’s gaslighting jerk virus because every time you think you’re getting better, you get worse again.”
It feels like I’m being gaslit by this, it’s like the worst ex-boyfriend ever [laughs]. And the idea that the like, it just felt like I had a constant hangover, and I had this conversation with [name] on Twitter, just like it’s just like, it’s like I’m 13 years old and I’ve raided my parents’ liquor cabinet and I’ve drunk all the Kahlua and Malibu and I just feel sick and my head hurts and I’m so dehydrated and it’s just this, just like the worst teenage hangover ever.
After her first and second vaccines, Laurie felt it “was like the sun had come out, like the cloud had gone from my brain and I suddenly felt like myself again”. Several of her symptoms have since improved.
After her first and second vaccines, Laurie felt it “was like the sun had come out, like the cloud had gone from my brain and I suddenly felt like myself again”. Several of her symptoms have since improved.
This would’ve been at the beginning of March, I finally had a referral to the cardiac clinic, prescribed me ivabradine, and I had my first vaccine. I went straight from the cardiac clinic to have my first vaccine. First vaccine felt like going through the whole thing, my entire year. And then suddenly I thought ‘oh, hang on.’ It was like the sun had come out like the cloud had gone from my brain. And I suddenly felt like myself again.
Stayed on the Ivabradine but I still felt you know something, there was a very concrete gear change, when I had, when I got the vaccine, first vaccine. Then it took about 6 weeks, then the vaccine bounce stopped, but by the time the second one came around again, and I had the second one in June, the same thing happened. And I was able to come off the ivabradine. And my heart rate is now normal, my blood… and I am able to do you know, kind of 5/6000 steps in a day, maybe even more. Cognitive effort still exhausts me, and I have a much lower threshold for becoming cognitively overwhelmed.
Laurie’s GP neighbour advised her to call NHS111 when she heard her blood oxygen levels were lower than normal. NHS111 arranged for a GP to call back and then a GP assessed her at home later that evening.
Laurie’s GP neighbour advised her to call NHS111 when she heard her blood oxygen levels were lower than normal. NHS111 arranged for a GP to call back and then a GP assessed her at home later that evening.
I can’t remember whether it was week three or week four, went out and saw my neighbour across the road, who’s a GP and she said, “How are you feeling?” And I went “Not great actually, but I’m supposed to be well, so you know, here I am, I’m not feeling very good.” And she said, “Do you have an oximeter?” And I said “Well, there’s one on my Garmin.” And she said so, “What are, what are you blood sats like on your Garmin?”, and I went “Oh, they’re alright you know, they’re still over 90 kind of 91 92.”
And she said “[name] I’ve admitted someone with those bloods today, that’s not where they should be.” And I went “Oh, really, you know, you know they might dip down into the 80’s you know, but they’re fine, they’re over 90 aren’t they, that isn’t that alright?” And she said “No, no that’s not alright.” [Laughs]. And this was you know, this was the point at which there were reports of this thing you know, this silent hypoxia. People being, feeling fine and then just collapsing, so she said, “I want you to go back inside, I want you to ring 111.” And I said “well why? I tried ringing 111, nobody answered.” She said “We’re a bit better organised now. We’re organised into a Primary Care hub, so I want you to go inside I want you to ring, ring 111 and they will take it from there.”
So, I did, and I spoke to someone, so this about, this would’ve been about quarter past eight, I spoke to the triage person, I was rung back within 45 minutes by the GP that was on call, and by about quarter past 10 there was a GP on my doorstep with a hospital grade oximeter. And he stood on the doorstep and waited for me to take my sats, to decide whether he needed to admit me, and they were at about 94 and so he said, “no I’m going to leave you at home it’s probably safer.” And from that point onwards I was monitored at home, rung twice a day by the by the GP hub.