11 - "My partner has a chronic illness" - Iain with some tips

Episode 11 of the Long Covid Podcast is a conversation with Iain, who is a long time friend of mine from years back. Iain talks about some of the strategies that he and his partner, Cal, use in their relationship. Cal has Chronic Fatigue and for many years has dealt daily with many symptoms that Long Covid sufferers will be able to identify with.

We talk about the difficulties of chronic illnesses, but what shines through is the way that Iain and Cal are a team, and how they find ways to support each other. There are so many relationships where the dynamic has changed almost overnight as a result of Covid & Long Covid. Iain (who will openly acknowledge that all of his wisdom comes from Cal!) talks through some really helpful, and often very simple, things that can help.

If you'd like to contact Iain - please get in touch with me through the podcast and I will pass your messages on.

Useful links:
ME association: https://meassociation.org.uk
Mobility aids don't have to be boring: https://notyourgrandmas.co.uk/
Creative opportunities focused on illness & disability: https://drawnpoorly.wordpress.com

Astriid and Chronically Capable are two organisations helping chronically ill folks get jobs
https://astriid.org/
https://www.wearecapable.org//

Sleepy Santosha is a youtube channel with fatigue friendly yoga practices
https://www.sleepysantosha.com/ 

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For more information about Long Covid Breathing courses & workshops, please check out LongCovidBreathing.com

(music credit - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Transcript

Jackie Baxter  
Welcome to the long COVID podcast with me. Jackie Baxter, I am really excited to bring you today's episode. Please do check out the links in the show notes where you can find the podcast, website, social media and support group, as well as a link to buy me a coffee if you are able, you should not rely on any medical information contained in this podcast and related materials in making medical health related or other decisions, please do consult a doctor or other health professional. I love to hear from you, if you've got any suggestions or feedback or just want to say hey, then please do get in touch. I really hope you enjoy this episode. So here we go.

Jackie Baxter  
Welcome to this episode of the long COVID Podcast. I am very excited to have my friend Ian with me today. Hello. We have known each other for an awfully long time, so this is quite exciting. Thank

Iain  
you for having me. It's nice to be here. So can

Jackie Baxter  
you maybe tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Iain  
Sure? Yeah, my name's Ian. I'm a musician and teacher, same as Jackie. We studied together. Jackie was a couple of years above me, and we were organizing a project over the summer of 2020 21 pandemic time, and Jackie was talking about the struggles of long COVID and the problems that brought up, and I found myself surprisingly able to understand and empathize and suggest things, because my partner, Cal has various long term chronic health conditions, including chronic fatigue. So me and Jackie ended up talking about things quite a lot, and I was able to empathize and then you asked me on to talk about partners and relationships with chronic illness and fatigue and all these things. And if I say anything clever or insightful, I want it to be known that it's definitely Cal who came up with the idea. Yeah,

Jackie Baxter  
exactly. So I think you might be able to offer a helpful perspective on it from having experienced it for longer. Yeah,

Speaker 1  
hopefully, and obviously, to clarify, Cal does not have long. COVID, we all caught it over Christmas, 2020, but fortunately, we managed to avoid the worst effect. So I am not coming in here thinking I know what anyone's specific problems or troubles or struggles are I'm just giving some advice based on my experience, but I am entirely, possibly, completely wrong. One other minor point of order is Cal. My partner goes by, they them, pronouns, they are non binary. And if you're confused, if I'm referring to multiple people or not, that's just Cal, is them, not her or him?

Jackie Baxter  
So would you be able to talk a little bit about your relationship with Cal, and were they ill when you got together, or was it something that happened

Speaker 1  
afterwards? Yeah, so me and Cal have been going out for about three and a half years. Ish, give or take, a couple of months? And yes, when we did start going out, they were ill and had been ill for a long time. It's a mix of various mental health problems and the stuff that goes with them, as well as kind of chronic fatigue, which, to be fair, wasn't that prevalent at the beginning, has come on a bit more in the last couple of years. So Cal was ill from the start, and I think in some ways, that's probably made it easier for the two of us, because unlike most people who are in a relationship and have long, COVID, that has probably come along and changed the dynamic quite dramatically. I assume that's a big shift in what everyone has to deal with, or as we go into build things from the start.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, so that wouldn't have been easy, I'm sure, but maybe at least you went in with your eyes open.

Speaker 1  
I almost certainly would have been a mess. I certainly, at that time, was very, very empathetic and did not necessarily have the boundary setting skill for myself, to be able to not want to help out and make everything better all the time. And it was very much Cal who, from the beginning of the relationship, helped me into it, and like was very good at while I was helping them out with various things, also making sure I was safe and kind of making sure I had my own space, and all of that. I think

Jackie Baxter  
it's very easy for people who are very ill and long term ill, obviously so deep into it that it's very easy to forget that there are other people that are suffering and affected by it as well. You know, partners, families, children.

Speaker 1  
I mean, yes, but also that kind of goes with it as from what i. Understand, like, often, a huge amount of guilt for having to rely on said people. So it's this,

Jackie Baxter  
it must affect both parties. Yeah, it can

Speaker 1  
definitely be all consuming for the person going through it absolutely. So

Jackie Baxter  
how does Cal's illness affect your life? It's hard

Speaker 1  
to say exactly, because it's been around since the start. Like, I can't necessarily point to what exactly would be different if Cal wasn't ill, because that's a completely different reality where everything is utterly changed. But I would say there are a lot of good things, a lot of bad things. And I say bad things, I'm not saying that these bad things have been imposed on me. I think that's something that's worth acknowledging. Like, if you are in a relationship with someone who is ill, you're signed up for the whole shebang. You're not with your partner just for when they are happy and having a nice time. It's yeah, richer and poorer, all of that. And I think that we often, and this is something I have found particularly useful. I'm aware I'm not answering the question a way that our relationship is framed a lot between us is that we are a team. We're very good team. And it's not that Cal is having a rubbish time or not able to pull their weight or any of this stuff. Is that both of us are a team. We're both doing everything we can to help each other out and ourselves, and it is not me positioned against Cal and the illness, but the two of us dealing with that together, because while I may be putting in a share of physical and emotional labor, they're having to do so much more to manage it, and just because it's happening inside their body and their head doesn't mean that their efforts should not go unpraised unsung. I'm not sure I can answer the how does it affect my life? Question that well, but to kind of take you through maybe a bit of a timeline. So when we started going out, I was aware of the illnesses and their various forms, from fairly early on and well, fatigue wasn't a big part of that, lots of depression and anxiety and post trauma stuff as well. So the main kind of bedrock in which it was all built was just a terrifying amount of communication. If something was bothering me, I could voice it. If something was bothering them. I could voice it in various, you know, boundaries, where they be personal or physical or whatever. It's about, talking through things advanced, checking in a lot, and kind of starting to understand and recognize the patterns. And I got to cheat, I'm not having to deal with what partners have. A lot of people with long COVID are dealing with Cal had been dealing with these issues for years, and had already figured out a huge bunch of very good coping mechanisms, and it was my job just to learn them and maybe listen to what they had figured out, and in a bad moment, suggest you've said this has worked in the past before. How about that? And something I have noticed I do now for everyone is when I am completely out of ideas and there's nothing I know I can make anything better. I offer a cup of tea, and we kind of sit with it and see where it will go. So yeah, lots of communication. As the fatigue has become more of an issue and the mental health stuff has become less of an issue, I think it means that there's a lot of adaption necessary. I'm sure people who are struggling with the fatigue sides of long COVID are fully aware of just how much it can swing from day to day, and how difficult that makes it, and where you don't know if doing something is going to make you feel better or make you feel worse, or all of that. And it's for me, when we're doing things, it's about knowing what the potential problems might be and just checking in lots. It's all communication. And I don't plan very well anyway. So I'm very much an improviser. So if we get to a point and it's not knackered, I'm not going to be able to do that. It's about shifting and changing what you're doing. So you've gone and meet a friend for coffee and lunch, and then walk back to the flat, and then suddenly they're wiped and it's like, whatever we had planned for the evening isn't isn't going to work. Firstly, it's about communication between the two of you so that no one's going to be forced anything. Second, it's about, well, it can be difficult, talking to your friends and the people around you about it, so that hopefully, when you say, Look, I'm sorry I'm not going to be able to do it. Would we be able to arrange for another time, they'll have an idea what's going on, and can be empathetic. But I think the big useful thing that I have learned is about having backups, about having okay, we were going to go out and see a film or do something nice. No, we're not going to be able to do that. And not letting that become an awful spiral of misery, and this kind of sense of that worry of things aren't going to get any better, or that it's just a constant frustration, having that backup in place where you can go. Okay, here's what we're going to do, and buy a couple of ice creams, and we're just going to drive somewhere nice. We don't need to get out. We don't need to walk around, going to put on some music we like, or a podcast or something. Just drive. And it gives that feeling of getting out when the fatigue can have you feel trapped when something doesn't go right. That's

Jackie Baxter  
so true. I've certainly noticed it with the long COVID, and I'm sure a lot of chronic conditions have it in common. This element of unpredictability. Making plans is difficult because you just don't know how you're going to feel day to day. Yes, you might feel okay one day, and then the next day you can't get out of your bed. And then you feel that pressure, don't you? You think, Well, I said I would meet my friend, but I don't feel up to it, but maybe I should make myself do that, which is probably going to make things worse,

Speaker 1  
but then every so often, it doesn't make things worse, or you do nothing, and that somehow makes things worse. And it is the the self doubt that that can foster it really messes with your head.

Jackie Baxter  
Absolutely. Yeah, you've touched on it. You know, with something like long COVID, there are 1000s of partners, husbands, wives, family members or friends that have overnight become almost full time carers, in some cases, to previously completely healthy people. You know. You add to the fact that it's happened in the middle of a pandemic, which was already stressful, you know, it's, it's quite a big thing, and there are so many relationships that haven't survived that hopefully some of this will be helpful to people in that position, like we found ourselves, you know, my partner and I, is there any advice that you could offer? Maybe to both sides, we'll be right back. I'm interrupting myself for a second to tell you about long COVID breathing. The Fabulous Vickie Jones and I have teamed up to bring you long COVID breathing. We are both passionate about sharing our expertise and experience of the breath and how incredibly helpful that can be with long COVID. We've worked together to develop a course that is specifically tailored to those with long COVID. It's a six week course with 12 sessions, all delivered online. The community feel and learning that we're all sharing is such a joy to find out more information and to sign up for our courses, workshops and other shorter sessions. Please check out the link below long COVID breathing.com or email long COVID breathing@gmail.com to start your breathing journey with us. So uh,

Speaker 1  
sure, yeah. Well, my advice to someone who's a partner or someone with long COVID would be, you know, when you're doing the airplane safety thing, if oxygen fails in the cabin, Louis, masks fall down, like put on your own mask first. And you go, what if my child's not got their mask on, or someone's struggling, or they say, put on your own mask first, because you're of no help to anyone, if you're worrying about everyone else's masks, then you collapse on the ground unconscious in the middle of the aisle. And I feel that while it might be counterintuitive, like looking after yourself is probably one of the best pieces of advice I can give, and finding out ways where you can both look after each other healthily. Like Cal, early on, was making sure that even in a bad spot, there were other friends we could call who Cal could go and hang out with. Or if I was feeling completely spent. I could go and take a day and clear my head or play some board games with my friends, and that's something that I almost certainly wouldn't have done by myself. That was something I need and courage to do. Also, it will be difficult and frustrating at times, and as a partner of someone without chronic illness, it can feel like you can't talk to anyone about it, because if there are things that you find difficult frustrating, you don't want to put that back in your partner and that feels guilty and can make them feel worse. It's important that you have a concentric circle the person with the illnesses at the center, and can lean on the people around them, and then they can lean on the people around them to kind of chat and talk through their problems. And I'm not saying if there are issues, you shouldn't discuss them, not at all, but having people you can talk to. And if you are someone with a chronic illness, encouraging your partner to be able to express their worries or troubles with it somewhere else. And while I completely understand that that can feel very personal, and knowing where the lines are for that like that is something for you to discuss together, but I find that really helpful. That would be my main piece of advice. You can't look after your partner if you're not looking after yourself.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, because everybody needs support, don't they?

Speaker 1  
And yeah, making sure that you're both able to see friends or do things, or find low energy alternatives to stuff, and where you both have your own spaces, or where someone else can take up the slack for a bit.

Jackie Baxter  
I mean, in terms of medical support, I mean, a lot of the long COVID community feels very abandoned. I think a lot. Of especially us, first waivers found because we got ill in the first wave, you know, when everything was really, really bad, and there were so many people that were more ill that we kind of got ignored at the time. And then, because we were ignored at the time, we've kind of been ignored ever since. So that kind of feeling of abandonment, which is quite a difficult thing to deal with, and I know this, me and chronic fatigue sort of community have been feeling that for years, the sort of gas lighting and being ignored. Have you and Cal felt that as well,

Speaker 1  
ah, the lack of profanity in the podcast. So yeah, Cal has been on disability benefits, and despite all of their best efforts, not able to work for four to five years now, and we have lots of pals with other disabilities and the DWP, the Department for Work and Pensions, and this is my personal opinion, not the opinion of anything else. Are an evil organization designed to deprive people of what they need to survive and maximize suffering. It is very, very difficult, and particularly with things like chronic fatigue, medical professionals don't often understand them. Like I know that Cal has been trying to get help numerous times to the doctor, and it'll either be a new doctor who doesn't know what's going on, someone who will dismiss it as them making things up, or will not have any solutions, so try and pawn them off and other things like, there are loads and loads of alternate treatments that if people find useful for them, I fully encourage them. However, there is a huge amount of unscientific charlatanary that medical professionals who have a system, who are there to help, often encourage, Cal has been encouraged to go and get homeopathy. And I apologize to any people who use homeopathic remedies. If they work for you, that is fantastic, but there is no evidence for them, and that is a doctor haunting you off and spending a lot of money in something that there is no evidence that will help. So there has been a lot of anger that there are not a lot of support systems. And this is something I'm sure people with long COVID Haven't had to go through yet when you're on ESA or PIP, which are two of the old systems personal independence payments. And I should know these or if you're on Universal Credit, if you're ill, non disability as a result, yearly assessments. And they are demeaning and horrible, and they will look for any excuse to take you off them, even if you probably die as a result, like Cal has another friend who's thankfully more experienced with the DWP and has been to the assessments with Cal. And there is lots of things like, it's important that you have someone take you along, because if you go by yourself, they will take a sentence that you can make an appointment and be on time and mark that massively against you, and if you miss it, just go, well, they miss their appointment, stuff them. And it is a horrible system designed to catch people out. All Tory ministers are welcome to sue me. Yeah. I mean, there

Jackie Baxter  
are certainly people with long COVID that have been applying for the PIP and the ESA was the one you mentioned, wasn't it. I've seen people talking about that and asking for advice, because, you know, what do you do when your sick pay runs out? Yeah, that's what's left, isn't it?

Speaker 1  
So there are loads of like, depending on where you are, local places that can help have a look around what services are in your local area, like Citizen Advice Bureau, although they're incredibly you know, overworked and understaffed are good, and there are places online that can help you out, if you've got DWP stuff coming up, if you're a member of a union, people in there may know or reach out to disabled communities online, because this will be a fairly universal experience. And for some things, like, my cousin has Down syndrome, and the battle for her benefits isn't the same, because that's something that it's very hard for them to be able to say, Oh, well, this doesn't really exist. Something like fatigue or mental health or long COVID. They might be, yeah,

Jackie Baxter  
there's a history. There isn't there of things like me and chronic fatigue and now long COVID, to some extent, and mental health problems, because they're sort of invisible conditions, aren't they? That? That? It's very easy to say, Oh, you're just making that up. Yeah. And I guess the fluctuation, unpredictability thing as well means that if you have your assessment on a day where you're actually feeling not too bad, but at the same time the day before, you actually couldn't get out of bed, yeah? And they don't see that,

Speaker 1  
yeah, if you answering the questions as if it's on a good day, they will treat you like every day is a good day. Yeah.

Jackie Baxter  
I mean, I think we've all realized that the system is not fit for purpose, which I guess is something that you and Cal have known for a long time. Yes,

Speaker 1  
ah, I've become a much angrier man like. Last few years.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, you guys have been dealing with this for longer than long COVID existed. I think you've already talked through some strategies for helping and coping. The

Speaker 1  
other good piece of advice I think I can give is a useful role you can be as a partner to someone who has long COVID or other chronic conditions. Is like I often perform the role of social buffer. I know Cal isn't going to be able to say the kanackard I need to leave. So it is worth me checking in, and often, particularly after a year and a half of her own being locked inside to various degrees, like having systems in place. This is something I talk about in my teaching all the time. There is no point in banging your head against the wall. It's often worth coming up with a way around so very early on in our relationship, Cal was feeling panicky and not able to get out of a social situation. And afterwards, we talked about it, and we said, okay, next time Kelly is feeling panicky and needs out, but it feels unable to say it, they will hold my hand and squeeze my pinky, and that was the signal that for me, that they wanted out and to do the socials moving over necessary in the like three years since then, we have never needed to use that. But even the knowledge that is there helps provide security. So if there is something you are uncomfortable with or something that's putting you on edge, often, just having a system in place will make things seem easier. What's an example? Going to some friends tonight with Cal to watch a film, hang out. I know Cal's got stuff on in the morning, and Cal is very bad at being able to set the boundaries with people who aren't partners, more or less. So I know it's for me to kind of check in, or find a moment or provide the social warnings that we may need to go. And this is not a ago on have another drink situation. It's a actually, no, we need to be able to have our boundaries to kind of keep things going. I mean, I

Jackie Baxter  
think something that we've noticed as well Malcolm i is that he is often a much better judge of how I'm feeling than I am. He can take one look at me and think, you're knackered, you need to sit down, or you're not having a good day. Whereas sometimes I almost kid myself into thinking, Yeah, I can do that, and I don't realize the effect of it until afterwards, when it's too late, yeah,

Speaker 1  
and a lot of it is trial and error as well. Why? I think I've got a very good, intuitive understanding now of how Cal is doing. A lot of that has come from me having seen that situation before, and we've done the wrong thing, me having seen that situation before, and we've tried something out, and to our surprise, it's worked great. So yeah, it's a tricky one, yeah.

Jackie Baxter  
And like you say, you know you're not going to come upon a solution necessarily straight away. You might try some things that don't work so well, and at least then you know not to do them again. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, clearly things are awful for those suffering with chronic illness, whether it's long COVID or something else, but when we mentioned earlier, you know, a lot of people will forget that those close to them have also had their lives turned upside down. It

Speaker 1  
does affect everyone's life around you, but it's also really important to acknowledge that none of this is your fault, and none of this is something that could have been expected, and it could have happened to any of us, and it's important that we all help out those who were unfortunate enough to have it happen to them. One other thing I wanted to kind of say is that something that I think is really important for everyone is it's okay for it to be terrible now and then, like it's very important that, particularly if you've got something that you're dealing with for a long time, occasionally, when the mood takes you, it's important to be able to say, this is terrible. This is awful. Insert profanity here. I don't like it doesn't need to be all making the best of a bad situation all the time. It's a really good valve to be able to let off, to have a rant about it and kind of complain and get that frustration out, because it is hard and it is terrible, and it's not worth just holding that all in until it bursts. And this goes for everyone involved. This goes for the person who's the illness, the partners. It is difficult. And I would say one of the hardest things is not knowing at what speed or how it might get better. Often, when you hit against a problem like your mind can circle back to that place of, when is this going to get better? How is this going to get better? Everything is awful, and it's about allowing that frustration when it's helpful and healthy, but also either knowing as a person, going through it yourself, or as a partner, ways to spot that spiral early and kind of distract from that or go into another topic, because sometimes talking about it doesn't help. Sometimes talking about it when you're having a good time, it's just going to make you feel awful.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, yes. And I guess, with experience, you know, when those times are helpful and when they're not,

Speaker 1  
I'm not always right, but I think I do pretty well.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, that's great. I mean, I guess this is I'm asking you from the perspective of being the one who's not ill, but I feel a huge amount of guilt that my partner has changed his life, and as much as he says, Oh no, it's not that different. It is. It's not what he signed up for. Yet, he's been really, really awesome, but I still feel bad about it. Can you offer any advice on that from your perspective?

Speaker 1  
Sure. First of all, same as that you're allowed to feel frustration. You're allowed to feel guilt. These things with feelings are important. I'm not saying you're correct to feel guilt in any way, but you're allowed going, I feel guilty. Then going, Ah, I feel guilty. I can't express it. Or this is terrible. Or, yeah, lots of communication is a big help. And from the perspective of our relationship when Cal is feeling guilty about the time we talk about it, and something that helps with that sense of guilt is the both of you helping to support each other to have your own boundaries, or making sure that it's not all consuming for either of you. So for example, if I'm planning to go out with some friends, and this has been in the diary for a while. I haven't seen them in a while, and Cal is having a really bad day, finding ways to make sure I can still go and see my friends, making sure I can still do my thing. We're not both trapped in it, but often that involves bringing in other people and making sure that they've got someone to hang out with or something else to do. And it's about that sense of guilt can be, I think, assuaged by trying to make sure that you both have healthy ways of managing those boundaries and looking after each other. And also this is more our personal dynamic, but you are feeling guilty, I understand, but tough. Yes, it might make certain things more difficult, but I am here for this and here for the relationship that we're in. And even when it's a bad day, I love the time I spent with Cal and even if that's because I know I can make things a bit better, and I would argue. And this is definitely an insensitive thing to argue for some people, if you are committing to a relationship or a long term relationship with someone, and something goes wrong, someone gets a chronic illness, just something bad happens, you're not signing up to that relationship with them, as long as everything's lovely, as long as everything's nice and not difficult, you're a team. You're here to work through things and get through things together, and you're allowed to feel guilty, and it is allowed to be difficult, and the only way we get through it is with lots of communication and teamwork and knowing the team is not just the two of you, but the other people around who are there to help as well.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, it's coming back to that everybody needs some support, doesn't it? You know, I'm

Speaker 1  
so good at podcasting that reintegration from the start is to masterful. Yeah, exactly,

Jackie Baxter  
yes, you know, and I guess. And you know, not just that. You also need support, that maybe Cal needs somebody else that they can lean on some of the time when you need to do your thing,

Speaker 1  
yeah, and I think that's an important thing to kind of emphasize, as chronic fatigue in particular is a really isolating condition, because you get stuck not being able to do things and not being able to see people and it can, it really shrinks your window of things you can do, and you can make their best efforts as you can, not to be socially isolated as well as isolated in things you can do. Because from what Cal has told me, it's the isolation that does the lasting damage is the isolation that can make things really difficult, and trying to make sure we've got that kind of community where we're helping each other out together, reach out to each other and make chronic illness friends, but also be aware that ranting to someone who's going through the same thing as you about how hard it is, can often bum them out, so be careful. Communication, boundaries, team, yes,

Jackie Baxter  
and things like support groups as well. Yeah, absolutely, as much as you know, a very supportive partner as you obviously are. You know, is amazing, and, you know, really helpful and completely invaluable. But sometimes you want to talk to somebody that gets it from the same way that you get it. And as much as a partner will get it from having seen it they've not experienced it in quite the same way. Yeah,

Speaker 1  
yeah, I can't ever claim to get what Cal has been through.

Jackie Baxter  
The maybe would be useful if partners could speak to each other as well. Because, you know, likewise. Ed, they are also going through something. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if such a thing exists. You know, support group for partners, yeah, would be quite useful.

Speaker 1  
I have not. I have no idea. If you have any burning questions, please feel free to reach out to Jackie, and I'm sure she'll pass them on. Or just if you, if you want to rant, that's fine. I am bad at responding to emails, but no, I'll read them and feel bad for not responding.

Jackie Baxter  
I can confirm that,

Speaker 1  
as Jackie has done a project with me at working the test, I am bad responding to emails and I apologize.

Jackie Baxter  
Oh, well, thank you so much for imparting your wisdom. Thank

Speaker 1  
Cal for imparting it onto me first. But yeah, absolutely. Well,

Jackie Baxter  
yes, exactly the both of you, you know, you've obviously got something going that really works. And I think a lot of people with long COVID, and a lot of people who know somebody with long COVID can definitely take something from that, and if not, you're entertaining to listen to.

Speaker 1  
Thank you very much, Jackie, thank you for having me on. Thank you so

Jackie Baxter  
much to all of my guests and to you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed it, or at least found it useful. The long COVID podcast is entirely self produced and self funded. I'm doing all of this myself. If you're able to, please go to buy me a coffee.com. Forward slash long COVID pod to help me cover the costs of hosting the podcast, please look out for the next episode of the long COVID podcast. It's available on all the usual podcast hosting things, and do get in touch. I'd love to hear you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai