TRIGGER WARNING: there's a brief mention of self harm in this episode.

It's Long COVID Awareness Month and we are talking silver linings and counting all the ways that we are #hashtag# BLESSED! Or something like that. In reality, Dr. Amy and Lance talk about what they've learned from their experience with Long COVID, share lessons from others from whom they've learned (shout out Patient-Led Research Collaborative & Brain Damage Diaries on Substack!), and consider how and whether the concepts of silver linings and bright-sided thinking are useful when dealing with the horrors of never-ending illness. It's a roller coaster of emotions, folks. Hold on tight!

SILVER LININGS

It's hard to know what color to pick when you've run out of silver.

I've always been a silver linings gal. Nothing in the fridge but a grapefruit, garlic, stale buns, and a leftover burrito? Operation Stump the Chef it is. Love that show! Case of strep keeping you from that weekend with your BFFs? If ever there was a more legit excuse to indulge in the trashiest of trash bag reality TV, I've never heard it.

But this Long COVID thing? Oof. I tried. Lord knows I tried. Even did my white lady with no actual real problems duty and posted as many damn silver linings as I could think of on ALL the socials.

I have time to nap!

I've learned how to knit!

I like crafting now!

I bake bread!

My husband is the BEST. SO supportive. #blessed

My friends are the BEST. SO supportive. #blessed

My colleagues are the BEST. SO supportive. #blessed

If you didn't know better, you might have thought I’d been #BLESSED with Long COVID. SO many silver linings!

What a goddamn crock of shit. What a steaming pile of poo. Fuck. That.

I am done with silver.

But what color now?

From https://amyblackstonephd.substack.com/

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Mentioned in this episode:

Patient-Led Research Collaborative

Brain Damage Diaries by Christina Van Dyke

Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich

How do we mark the passage of time when we're in limbo? That's the question on Dr. Amy's and Lance's minds in this episode of NEVERTHELESS, PERSISTING. We consider how our perceptions of time have changed since Long COVID, how we mark time, how we pass time, and how all this has changed since the Before Times. Time, time, time... it's a hazy shade of something out there.

A YEAR IN DOODLES

I've been resisting writing an acknowledgement of the new year. Another year of illness. Another year of no cure. Another year of fighting with bureaucrats (which initially auto-corrected to buttercream which I'd much rather fight with).

It's also been a year of acceptance. A year of gratitude. A year of slowing down on purpose, with purpose. Of stopping to notice and appreciate. A year of deep breaths in and slow, intentional breaths out. Trust me. It helps.

Continues at https://amyblackstonephd.substack.com/p/a-year-in-doodles

Isn't Episode 4 the standard introductory episode in every podcast series? No? Well, GOOD because "standard" has never been our way! It's our Behind the Podcast episode! Dr. Amy presents her vision for NEVERTHELESS, PERSISTING. She and Lance then go on to think together about the ways and contexts that individuals do and don't have power in society, how the collective we persist through the crap we encounter, how we resist, and there may be a Peter Cetera tangent somewhere in the middle there.

Welcome to NEVERTHELESS, PERSISTING

Have you ever looked back on a moment and known that’s when everything changed? Now in my 5th decade on earth, I’ve learned that several such moments occur throughout life. For me, a fateful decision to honor a commitment is simply the latest.

On March 10, 2020, I boarded a flight bound for Des Moines, Iowa. I boarded that flight despite the fact that mere minutes before, my employer had banned employee travel due to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic. I boarded that flight with my boss’s blessing because I’d made a professional commitment and I intended to honor it. I boarded that flight and along the way, picked up a companion I haven’t managed to shake: a virus described by some as innocuous, nothing more than a nuisance, a cold, no reason to change business-as-usual. I boarded that flight and I’ve been suffering from Long COVID ever since.

Continues at https://amyblackstonephd.substack.com/about