Long Covid Heartbreak

My wife is on week ten of long covid. Significant weakness. Nausea. Headaches. Insomnia. She has become paralyzed with pathalogical anxiety and far more depressed than I've ever seen. She isn't working anymore, she can't focus long enough and doesn't have the energy physical or mental. I've assumed the role of nurse, therapist, cook (no, not chef, she is the chef) and anything else that comes up.

Setting almost perpetual heartbreak aside, I would struggle under this load in the best of times. She was very sick half a decade ago. Bedridden sick. I nursed and I convinced and I pleaded and even drank to get through dark nights without end. I still feel a closeness to a certain dark rum displaying one of my favorite animals. I never drank quickly as I couldn't afford the loss of focus but the sweet taste and minor blurring of time provided a necessary and otherwise difficult to obtain escape.

We got past those days. We don't talk about those days. I can but don't. She can't.

She is experiencing adrenaline spikes so bad her teeth hurt from chattering. This is followed by lows so low I'm regularly told by her to let go and that there will be no surviving this. I was very close to hospitalizing her. Meds are being taken. The seriousness of the situation inescapable. Saying "if it were me, what would you do?" hurt me maybe more than her but it worked.

Back in late 2019 when Covid became inescapable, I feared that it would be one of the older, near retirement diabetics who would be the family members affected by covid the most. Instead it's been the healthiest, most active member of the family. The health nut. The dancer.

She's had to give up work. Gave up most foods. Gave up leaving. Wants to give up. My heart is breaking.

I turn analytical. That trusty toolchest which can even be said to have saved her once before. I try to set aside the suffering which twists her so that I can focus on the specifics. I start taking notes. Time stamps of changes, medications, meals, symptoms. She gets better at night, is it something in lunch? Can I time it? Stomach responds to antacid but not entirely, step up to the next level of drug.

No one knows anything about the mystery that is long covid. Try anything even vaguely reported to help but she's resistant to being a guinea pig and they don't help anyway. Medical systems are an inscrutable maze. Even tele appointments are hard to get anytime soon. We were told by two doctors that if we wanted attention faster than a month to just go to the ER.

Meanwhile she suffers and time stretches on. She's getting better but it's incremental and, sometimes she isn't though I still tell her it is. She doesn't see any improvement at all. There are flashes and those flashes are starting to last longer. She returns to me but doesn't yet realize it's happening and I don't want to break down so I turn into a statue. It will come out later when she can sleep.

She's afraid that I'll leave her to go live a life away from this long covid heartbreak. I'll never leave her. Ever.