My life with Long-haul - Part 9
Some reprieve and Italy!
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Link to previous post in long-haul series - Part 8
Forgive the long break from writing in this series since June 2024. I needed yet another long break from thinking about this illness and its difficulties. But, I am picking this up, dusting it off, and picking back up where we left off. Refresh yourself at link above to the last post in the series.
We left off at the part of my story that took place in April 2022, when I was hurt by judgments I was receiving from people I thought were my friends. Losing a so-called “friend” in a stupid dramatic way due to these unfair judgements. And was really struggling with my spending addiction—that was activated because I trying to overcome all the depression I was dealing with. Depression about not having a job or being able to work, not having income, living with my parents at 39, feeling like shit all the time, no medical help, no independence, and just all the crap I have written about in previous posts in this series.
A quote I pulled from my previous installment, that I think is really important to reiterate is:
This illness doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything ever. It means you can’t do everything. Really, you can’t do much. But, you can do some things. Especially if you plan properly. And, I would advise that you do occasionally do fun things, otherwise the depression from having this illness and never doing anything fun will be unbearable.
I did get some reprieve after the events of the last post. I was gearing up for a trip to Italy! If you read the last piece, then we can all agree that this part of the journey of my life actually really was truly “glamorous”. Good thing that “friend” didn’t stick around to see this. LOL!
I had moved home Dec 2021. I did almost nothing but rest—almost every single day—all day—from Dec 2021 to mid-March 2022. Then, as the weather started getting better in March, and I had been almost non-stop resting and doing nothing but taking care of myself for 3.5 months, I was feeling slightly better. This was good because I had a non-refundable trip to Italy that had been booked a long time ago and was already pushed back once because of this illness. I was not going to be able to push it back again due to ticket restrictions.
I was determined to make this trip happen. It had been my dream to go to Italy since I was 18 years old and almost all of the girls in my Senior English class got to take a senior girls trip there—and I didn’t. There had been several “almost” opportunities and empty promises to go to Italy in my life since that time. And it never worked out. Then, after all the years of almosts, a very dear friend of mine gifted me a trip there. I got the non-refundable plane tickets in early 2021 for early 2022. I knew I wasn’t well at that point, but I wasn’t in as bad of shape at that time. And I didn’t realize yet what my illness was. My Long COVID symptoms were getting ready to kick off HARD not long after I bought the tickets.
I’d already made a lot of travel arrangements, booked places to stay, and I was determined to make this trip happen. I had one opportunity to reschedule the trip, which I did. I rescheduled it from March 2022 to end of May/beginning of June 2022. I really hoped the extra months bought me enough rest time to make this trip work—because that was the only rebook I had available, and that was the end of the available time frame I could go.
I then spent every day doing everything I could to make myself better. I’d nonstop rested for 3.5 months, and now I was slowly building up my tolerance to be fit enough to travel. I went on a mini-trip to Chicago (as detailed in last installment), I paced myself in terms of social events and activities, and I took daily walks.
Starting out, these walks ranged anywhere from 5 minutes to 25 minutes for the most part. It was mid-March, the weather was getting better, and I was able to get outside. Some days, it was halfway around the block in 5 mins and done. Other days it was around the whole subdivision in 25 mins. But I did what I could, and took what I could get from my body.
I didn’t know this then, but now that I am 5 years into this illness, I can tell you that the warmer months are always much kinder to my symptoms than the colder ones. So, this made sense as to why I was doing a bit better at this time. Moving into April and May, in Southern IL’s warmer weather (compared to Chicago), I was starting to see a little progress.
Eventually, I got to a point where I could walk up to like 50-60 mins (with a small break). I was walking all the way out of my neighborhood, 1 mile to a local park, sitting on a bench and taking a break, then going once around the small pond there, and then walking 1 mile home. Some days I would get to the park and knew I couldn’t make it back home from there, so I called my parents to come drive me back home. LOL. But, it was all really great progress.
I wasn’t seeing any doctors at this time, which in looking back and knowing what I know now, was a good thing because they usually just make me feel worse. I was just resting, walking, hanging out with friends occasionally, getting help from my family, and doing the best I could. As such, I decided that I would make Italy work.
I was booked to be in Italy for 2 weeks, and I decided to go for it. I promised myself I would go slow there, take it easy, and not put pressure on myself to see it all and do it all. It was daunting that I had arranged to be in 6 cities while there in that 2 week span (Rome, Florence, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and Genoa.) But, I planned to spend a few days before and after the trip resting at my Chicago bestie’s house since I was flying from there. So, it wouldn’t be constant travel from Carterville to Chicago to Italy and vice versa. I spent time in Chicago before and after the flight recovering.
When I got to Italy, I did take an initial hit with energy the first day and was barely able to do anything but get some food. Here was my travel log from that day:
May 26 -
Day 1- Rome
VERY slow and light day. My overnight flight was incredibly turbulent and rough. I got really dizzy and faint and sick on the flight. Couldn’t sleep at all. So did not arrive in great shape. Then my ride from airport to AirBnB made me more dizzy cause, as we all know, they drive like crazy people here.
Because of this I decided the best thing to do was get a lot of rest and sleep today, so I don’t push it and make the rest of the trip hard on myself. Hopefully, taking today easy will do just that. It’s ok. I’m not upset. I was expecting this. I think I’ll be better tomorrow after taking it easy today.
What I did do today was - I checked into my adorable and quaint AirBnB, as seen in pics. Then I went out and had a lovely and insanely delicious lunch - pizza, aperol spritz, and lemon gelato. It was all so freaking delicious. I saw a little of the neighborhood I’m staying in (Monti) and took a couple of pics of the flowers hanging above doors. There’s a lot of that and it’s beautiful.
Hoping, planning, and crossing my fingers to do a lot more tomorrow since I’m getting plenty of rest and sleep tonight! Please say some prayers or send out some good juju for me that I can have better days the rest of the trip. Thank you!!
Headed to bed now. Netflix has The Office here, so gonna fall asleep to the sounds of Michael Scott being amazing.
I’m not going to recount all of Italy in this post, because I already have posts with the whole Italy trip recorded in them. Here are links to those posts from the entire Italy trip and all of its glory. I haven’t re-read them in a while, but I’m assuming they also include some accounts of how I was feeling, getting by, what my symptoms were like, etc.
I flew back to Chicago on June 8, 2022. I spent a few days with my friend in Chicago getting some rest. Then I headed back home. After some more rest at home, around mid-June, I knew it was time to start looking for a part-time remote job. I’d been able to make this trip work, so I felt that I was getting better enough. I was not feeling completely better by any means, but enough to work part-time from home.
As such, I started the process of job hunting. Which turned out to be so much harder than I’d imagined, led to so many unexpected dramatic twists and turns, and eventually ended up turning my life upside down once again. In the next installment of this series, I will go into more details on all of that. I hope you enjoyed having one installment in this series that wasn’t full of disappointing and depressing events. This was a period that was looking up. The next chapter, not so much…
Stay Tuned!
Link to next post in series - Part 10.
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