With more than 200 possible symptoms, long Covid isn’t easy to treat and diagnose. Rolled-back federal funding has led longhaulers to ask: is this all in my head?
I
am 30ft below the surface of the Blue Grotto, a crystalline diving hole in central Florida. Between the water’s embrace and the restriction of my wetsuit, my blood pressure finally stabilizes. The long, deep breaths I pull from my respirator keep my heart rate nice and low.
I feel lighter than I have since April 2022, when I first contracted long Covid. I feel childlike at the fact that I can do this at all – get scuba certified – when on land I’m often confined to a wheelchair or a walker.
But when I tuck my fins away for the day, reality crashes back down. I’m a 34-year-old woman who was forced to move back in with her parents, had no choice but to retire from her dream career as a literary agent and a lecturer at the University of Minnesota, and had to cash out her retirement savings to cover the medical expenses that keep her in a chokehold.
