Info for Pharmacists about the Long Covid Patient Experience

Salam Kabbani, PharmD, Infectious Diseases Pharmacist Specialist and author of COVID Long-Hauler: My Life Since COVID joins the Quality Corner Show to talk about the patient experience and what pharmacists need to understand about Long COVID. 
Host Nick Dorich, PharmD, PQS Associate Director of Pharmacy Accounts, asks Kabbani to define Long COVID and explain how healthcare providers are learning and adapting to working with Long COVID patients.
 
Visit Salam Kabbani's website
Book: COVID Long-Hauler: My Life Since COVID

Transcript

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00:00:02:07 - 00:00:22:18
Speaker 1
The biggest part was my provider really validating that I had long COVID. And I think that's something that many long haulers still experience where you almost questioning yourself, you know, you think it's in your head. Because for many people, those symptoms come on one day and they're very strong and then the next day you feel fine. And it's just a roller coaster.

00:00:22:18 - 00:00:28:23
Speaker 1
You really don't know what you're going to wake up to. And that makes it very challenging.

00:00:31:10 - 00:00:56:04
Speaker 2
Welcome to the Pharmacy Quality Solutions Quality Corner Show where quality measurement leads to better patient outcomes. This show will be your go to source for all things related to quality improvement and medication use and health care. We will hit on trending health topics as they relate to performance measurements and find common ground for payers and practitioners. We will discuss how the equip platform can help you with your performance goals.

00:00:56:13 - 00:01:28:01
Speaker 2
We will also make sure to keep you up to date on pharmacy quality news. Please note that the topics discussed are based on the information available at the date and time of reporting. Information or guidelines are updated periodically and we will always recommend that our listeners research and review any guidelines that are newly published. Buckle up and put your thinking cap on the quality Corner show starts now.

00:01:33:01 - 00:01:59:24
Speaker 3
Hello Quality Corner Show listeners, welcome to the PQS podcast, where we focus on medication, use quality improvement and how we can utilize pharmacists to improve patient health outcomes. I'm your host, Nick Dorich. Today's episode is going to focus on not necessarily the pharmacist perspective, but rather the patient experience. Our speaker is a pharmacist. That happens to be speaking from the patient perspective.

00:02:00:07 - 00:02:22:14
Speaker 3
That may be confusing, but it is a pharmacist coming from the patient experience when it comes to healthcare and the topic of patient autonomy and their health care decisions. It is discussed from time to time on the Quality corner show. And after many episodes that we've gone through, it became a key goal for our team to feature someone with the patient perspective.

00:02:23:07 - 00:02:49:20
Speaker 3
Now I'll give a little bit of a story as to how we found this guest for the podcast, and this happened one night. I'm scrolling through Instagram like I'm sure many of you do, and I came across a story shared by a personal friend. Her story was highlighting and it was sharing another post, highlighting a book and experience of a pharmacist that had been and was experiencing the effects of long COVID.

00:02:50:07 - 00:03:10:17
Speaker 3
Of course, being in health care, we think we know what it's like to navigate the health care system and how we would take care of our own health if we're the patient. But the reality is that many of us have our struggles when it comes to being a patient or a caregiver of the patient. This may especially be the case when it comes to a new disease state or medication.

00:03:11:06 - 00:03:29:04
Speaker 3
And in some of the cases, it's going to be a little bit of both. So without further ado, when I introduce our guest and in our guest is Dr. Salam Kabbani, and she is an infectious disease pharmacy specialist at Olathe Health in Olathe, Kansas. Salam, welcome to the show. And how are you doing today?

00:03:29:19 - 00:03:32:01
Speaker 1
I'm good. Thank you so much for having me.

00:03:33:06 - 00:03:53:13
Speaker 3
Excellent. Well, before we begin with the show, and I'll give a little bit of a teaser for everybody, we're going to be talking about the patient experience from long COVID. We've talked about COVID back when it started, what we knew. We've talked about it with regards to immunizations. We've been talking about it related to how pharmacies provide services.

00:03:53:13 - 00:04:13:02
Speaker 3
But our audience is pharmacist and the pharmacy team. We haven't talked about it from the patient experience. And you're going to help us get that message across to the pharmacist before we get into those questions. We need to get to know you. So do you mind giving us some information on, you know, what is your career or background in health care and then what is it that you do today?

00:04:13:11 - 00:04:40:23
Speaker 1
Thank you for having me and for the introduction. I'm an infectious diseases pharmacy specialist. I've been in this role since September. And actually before that I did a little bit of overnight clinical clinical specialist work and then later on took a Walgreens manager position. And during that time is when I actually had my breakthrough COVID infection. It was August of 2021, as you may remember, there was a big delta wave, and despite being fully vaccinated, I got COVID.

00:04:41:07 - 00:05:03:19
Speaker 1
And at the time, you know, I wasn't improving. And then that led to discovering that I actually had long COVID or post-COVID syndromes, and that lasted for over a year. But, you know, that led me to one of the best experiences, which was empathizing with my patients, having that patient care experience as well as the patient experience and writing a memoir.

00:05:03:19 - 00:05:04:11
Speaker 1
So, yeah.

00:05:05:10 - 00:05:24:03
Speaker 3
Thank you. SALAAM And that's exactly as I mentioned in my preface, that that's exactly why we have you on the show today. It is a really unique, unique experience and want to be able to share that will make sure as we go through the show here. You mentioned you do have a memoir about your experience as we get started, where can folks find that?

00:05:24:03 - 00:05:27:05
Speaker 3
Where would they be able to go order it and get more information?

00:05:27:19 - 00:05:42:06
Speaker 1
Absolutely. It is available through Amazon. It's called COVID long hauler. My life and it's COVID and you can search that or my name. So I'm Kabbani and you can find it on Amazon. It's available in print epub as well as audio.

00:05:42:13 - 00:06:01:12
Speaker 3
Excellent. Thanks. Salaam. I myself am a traditional book reader for the most part. As much as I love technology when it comes to the book, the physical thing is my my way to go now. So we're going to get started and going into our questions, your experience and really the messaging that we want to provide to pharmacists and pharmacy teams.

00:06:01:22 - 00:06:09:18
Speaker 3
But before we get to that, we're going to pause for a quick moment and hear a message from my teammates PQS.

00:06:09:18 - 00:06:33:18
Speaker 2
Now it's time for the breakdown as quality corner show host little as three main topic questions. Our guests will have a chance to respond and there will be some discussions to summarize the key points. This process worksheet for the second and third questions, which will wrap up the primary content for this, the 40 after that, expect to end on a closing summary, usually containing a bonus question.

00:06:34:08 - 00:06:41:01
Speaker 2
Now that we've described the process, let's jump into the questions.

00:06:41:01 - 00:07:07:16
Speaker 3
SALAM We're back and ready to start our questions for today, and we're going to start our chat with discussing COVID and defining what is long COVID. We all know that the COVID 19 was a novel virus that we became fully aware of in those early months of 2020. But it didn't take long for some patients to see that long lasting effects from their infection with COVID-19 and that it was going to be more than just an acute respiratory infection.

00:07:07:16 - 00:07:13:17
Speaker 3
Can you help to explain how we define or perhaps diagnose what long COVID is?

00:07:14:10 - 00:07:39:06
Speaker 1
Absolutely long. COVID is a combination of symptoms that present to the patient. After they've been infected with COVID, they usually start to develop within 30 days, at least after the initial COVID infection. And it may be that they developed before, but we can't really say it's long COVID until it's been at least one month, just because it may take a full month for someone to recover from the initial infection.

00:07:39:12 - 00:08:04:13
Speaker 1
And this is why it's very challenging to diagnose. You know, for some people it's even longer. And so it becomes challenging for providers to say, you know, is this just something that hasn't fully recovered yet versus is this actually long COVID? So for many providers and also on the CDC website, you know, there's even a three month window where it might still be an initial infection versus long COVID symptoms.

00:08:04:20 - 00:08:28:18
Speaker 1
Now, what their symptoms are, there are so many it can be respiratory symptoms, and those are typically the easiest to recognize. There are a lot of other symptoms. For example, Samuel's may experience erectile dysfunction. Some females may have fluctuations in their monthly cycle. Those are all attributable or can be two long COVID things that you wouldn't necessarily think to associate with that.

00:08:28:24 - 00:08:53:23
Speaker 1
And that makes it really challenging to diagnose as well, because sometimes those symptoms can appear up to six months after the initial infection and the patient may not have been experiencing them during the infection. So it is a bit of a diagnosis of exclusion. And again, that's what makes it so tricky. But it is a myriad of sequelae or symptoms that happen after someone has been infected with COVID.

00:08:54:09 - 00:09:24:15
Speaker 3
Excellent. And you had mentioned as well, and I'll I'll admit for me it's a terminology that I'm still getting used to as the post-COVID syndrome. And with long COVID post-COVID syndrome, we are still learning, right? Just like COVID, right. New novel disease that came through in 2020. There's still a lot more information that we have. So specifically with this, is there necessarily an end point that we know of or is there anything that I kind of want identify when a patient?

00:09:24:15 - 00:09:30:19
Speaker 3
No longer has long COVID or post-COVID syndrome, or is that still a work in progress for us to understand and define?

00:09:31:06 - 00:09:53:19
Speaker 1
Unfortunately, according to the current research that we have, it is still a work in progress. We don't really know. Some people improve and then deteriorate again. Some symptoms may completely go away and then return. We don't know. What we do know is that for those patients that are improving, time is a really big factor. And you know, it is very aptly named Long-Covid, right?

00:09:54:00 - 00:10:17:08
Speaker 1
But we don't know. That timeframe is very different for each patient. And some people, you know, they deteriorate and they continue to deteriorate. So it is very highly individualized. But there are things that can be done to mitigate some of those symptoms that may work for certain patients. So that's that's as promising as it is right now. There's certainly many ongoing trials.

00:10:17:14 - 00:10:25:00
Speaker 1
There are long COVID clinics across the world that patients can try to get into to seek help. So that's very helpful to know.

00:10:25:06 - 00:10:52:05
Speaker 3
Excellent. Thank you. Salaam. And I expect much like we've learned with COVID through now about three years, more information, more data is going to become really important for us to move forward. And some I do want to change gears a little bit, and I'm going to be speaking to our audience, mostly pharmacists that we know listening to the show as pharmacists, we are focused on aiding the patient on their or in their health care journey for yourself.

00:10:52:05 - 00:11:13:07
Speaker 3
So and speaking from your experience as a patient going and seeing and interacting with health care providers, what was that like for you with relation to long COVID or post-COVID syndrome? How are health care providers learning and adapting to work with patients like yourself and how they are continuing to experience the effects of long COVID?

00:11:13:17 - 00:11:38:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's an excellent question. And you know, I've heard many different experiences, some similar to mine, some very different. I will say that I am very fortunate in that I had great experiences at the time. I was living in Humboldt County, California, which is a very rural part of California, but I had a fantastic nurse practitioner. You know, she oversaw my care and she recognized that I had long COVID.

00:11:38:15 - 00:11:58:13
Speaker 1
So she allowed me to go on disability and get some of that initial rest that I needed. And then later on, being a health care worker myself and having a little bit of privilege that way I was able to seek a higher level of care at the Cleveland Clinic first and then later on Stanford. And I know that that's something that unfortunately not everyone has access to.

00:11:58:20 - 00:12:24:08
Speaker 1
But for me, you know, those are highly specialized and trained clinicians. It was a long COVID clinic, and so the biggest part was my provider really validating that I had long-covid. And I think that's something that many long haulers still experience where you almost question yourself, you know, you think it's in your head because for many people those symptoms come on one day and they're very strong and then the next day you feel fine.

00:12:24:18 - 00:12:51:05
Speaker 1
And it's just a roller coaster. You really don't know what you're going to wake up to. And that makes it very challenging and so hearing from Doctor Sullivan was the provider that I saw, you know, hearing that I wasn't crazy, it wasn't in my head. This is very much real that made all the difference. And and I know that, unfortunately, you know, with the pandemic, there have been so many limited resources and many health care providers are burned out.

00:12:51:05 - 00:13:21:02
Speaker 1
So not everyone is going to get that experience. I've also heard of a lot of gaslighting, which is really unfortunate. But I think again, because those symptoms are very nonspecific, you know, many of them don't seem like they would arise from a respiratory infection. I think that, you know, health care providers are human, and if they haven't had the time to really read all of their research behind it, they may think that the patient is perhaps disillusioned or that there is no way this is long-covid.

00:13:21:02 - 00:13:57:12
Speaker 1
And one thing that I really recommend is for for patients who are who think they may be experiencing long COVID as there's actually a website as that's part of the CDC's website, there's like a portal that actually teaches patients how to present this to their health care providers, and that also goes to show you how sensitive this topic is, because you don't necessarily see that for other diseases just to help their patients focus and to kind of delineate the timeline so that it can be presented as long COVID or so that it helps the provider decipher.

00:13:57:12 - 00:14:19:19
Speaker 1
You know, is this actually long COVID? And the last thing I'll say to that is, you know, brain fog is a really big part of long COVID. And fortunately, you know, even me doing so much better now, I still will occasionally have bouts of just, you know, hesitating or forgetting what word I want to say. And for some people, you know, that can be a memory loss.

00:14:19:19 - 00:14:29:16
Speaker 1
And that is challenging when you're trying to tell your doctor about your symptoms, but you're forgetting them. So I think that aid is also beneficial that way.

00:14:29:16 - 00:14:57:10
Speaker 3
Salam, before we go on to our next question or topic, which is going to be the third and final question. But I do want to ask you a quick follow up. And this is your experience as a pharmacist and and also particularly experience working in community pharmacy, but also being a patient from this. Is there a message or ask that you would provide to your fellow pharmacists on how they should specifically manage and interact with?

00:14:57:14 - 00:15:12:20
Speaker 3
I'll say empathize, you know, with their with their patients that are coming into their community pharmacy that are experiencing long COVID or post COVID symptoms. Is there an ask or a recommendation that you would really have them keep in mind when it comes to treating and managing those patients?

00:15:13:11 - 00:15:33:00
Speaker 1
Absolutely. I think the biggest thing that we can recognize is that many patients are going to come to us. They either may not have a health care provider or for whatever reason, they may be reluctant to go. And I use the term provider loosely. What I mean is specifically, you know, like a licensed practitioner such as a physician or nurse practitioner.

00:15:33:23 - 00:16:04:09
Speaker 1
And so it we can make a big impact in those patients lives. And so recognizing that, yes, they may be experiencing long COVID, however, those symptoms, you know, they're just regular symptoms. Right. And so while some of those symptoms may or may not be able to be managed with over-the-counter medications, a lot of them are. And so just like we would recommend any over-the-counter products, you know, making sure to talk to the patient about their medical history, seeing if they have any other comorbidities or drug interactions.

00:16:04:09 - 00:16:32:19
Speaker 1
But if not, for example, I was having really bad dizzy spells and I tried Dramamine. You know, usually it's for Vertigo, but my dizzy spells were were also presenting in a manner that was similar to Vertigo. And it actually really helped for a while. Similarly, a lot of patients have really bad, you know, dysphagia heartburn with long-covid. So maybe recommending, you know, Tums or Pepcid or whatever, you know, that can really help.

00:16:32:23 - 00:16:50:23
Speaker 1
And so just remembering that we have an arsenal of over-the-counter medications that can at least reduce some of those symptoms. And even reading up in our spare time and I see that knowing that, you know, power to our community pharmacies, not much spare time out there. Yeah.

00:16:51:07 - 00:16:52:19
Speaker 3
Right.

00:16:52:19 - 00:17:16:07
Speaker 1
Just knowing that even, you know, for things such as hearing sensitivity, you know, for me, any noise would just make me want to rip my face off. And I know it sounds extreme, but it really is how I felt. I even know of a patient that can no longer drive from Long-Covid because just the sound of hearing cars passing her on the highway just completely disoriented her.

00:17:16:24 - 00:17:35:02
Speaker 1
So just being able to recognize that there are new type of like there like earbuds or like headphones that can really minimize outside noise, just recognizing what options are out there and directing patients to those resources. I think that can be a phenomenal role for community pharmacists.

00:17:36:04 - 00:17:53:20
Speaker 3
Excellent. Thank you so on for that expanded answer. A lot of a lot of details to consider here. And yes, the pharmacists, we are the medication experts, but there's a lot more just beyond the medication that's part of the patient experience and that that we can help these patients with that that does bring us to our last question.

00:17:53:20 - 00:18:26:11
Speaker 3
It is just a simple, seemingly simple and straightforward question, and it's the big one. Yeah, we always focus on this as to what does improving patient health outcomes mean. So different people in different settings, that means a lot of different things. And in this particular instance, from your perspective as a pharmacist, but more importantly today from a patient perspective as well, what does improving patient health outcomes mean for those with long COVID or post-COVID syndrome?

00:18:27:15 - 00:18:52:08
Speaker 1
That's a fantastic question, and I think it's different for every patient. You know, for some patients long COVID has been completely crippling. For some patients, it may present them with symptoms that are very uncomfortable, but it has it necessarily impacted their quality of life. And so I think meeting the patient where they're at and helping them get as close to their baseline as possible is really the best way to improve outcomes.

00:18:52:08 - 00:19:16:06
Speaker 1
And a big part of that is simply not knowing whether we can ever completely treat or eradicate long-covid symptoms. And certainly for those patients with more severe experiences helping them a return to a semi functional life as much as possible. You know, there's a lot of drugs currently being studied like low dose naltrexone helping with the brain fog.

00:19:17:00 - 00:19:43:20
Speaker 1
I am actually actively in a clinical trial with Stanford. It's 15 days of Paxil or placebo and you know, to see if that helps and there's many trials going on out there right now. We don't have anything concrete. And so helping patients manage their symptoms and have somewhat of a semblance of normal normalcy reestablished in their life. You know, I think that's really as best as we can get with improving their outcomes right now.

00:19:44:16 - 00:20:06:00
Speaker 3
I think your key point here, and I'm going to I'm an attempt to summarize it myself, but also translate it a little bit more broadly when I think about this for our audience, when we go through pharmacy school, we're thinking about what's the clinical endpoint, right? Getting a blood pressure to be less than 140 over 90, getting an A1 could be less than 9% things of that nature.

00:20:06:09 - 00:20:25:22
Speaker 3
But we don't talk with the patient about it necessarily from that perspective, right? We want to have that conversation for the patient. What do they want to achieve? What do they want that end goal be? And we talk about what's the treatment plan to do that? What do we expect as far as the timeline? Is this a treatment or a management that they're going to be on for a long period of time?

00:20:25:22 - 00:20:42:23
Speaker 3
Or is it something where it might go away? We still don't have a lot of those answers, unfortunately for Long-Covid on, hey, does this go away as is going to be something that they're going to be on for the rest of their life, but really just having that very straightforward conversation with the patient as to what do you want to achieve?

00:20:42:23 - 00:20:58:13
Speaker 3
What do you want us that want us to help you address, determining really what that is. And that's going to be based on a relationship of of of trust and understanding rather than dictating to the patient what we think that should be.

00:20:58:13 - 00:21:01:16
Speaker 1
I think that is an excellent summary of it, is that, yes.

00:21:03:09 - 00:21:22:17
Speaker 3
We try to put this in different ways, write different communications plans, work for different folks, much like when we're talking about it with the patients. Folks. I really appreciate having you on the show today. Again, your perspective, and I'll add you're not the only pharmacist, you're not the only health care provider that has had this experience, right?

00:21:22:17 - 00:21:23:00
Speaker 1
Oh, no.

00:21:23:01 - 00:21:43:17
Speaker 3
But there are only so many folks that have really talked about it or made it a broad expansion and something that they've wanted to educate others, the public, their fellow health care providers. So this is the part where typically I go through a summary of what we talked about in our conversation, but I'm going to ask you a little bit of a different question.

00:21:43:17 - 00:21:57:15
Speaker 3
And this is a wild card. It was not put in the script, so fair warning here. But what really inspired you to write this memoir? What was your intent behind it in sharing your experience with the world in this kind of format?

00:21:57:15 - 00:22:17:01
Speaker 1
Yes, I get those question all the time. And honestly, there are two reasons. The first one is, at the time that I decided to write it, no one was really talking about long COVID. And I think a big part of that is we were still in the heart of the pandemic, right? You know, people were still dealing with the acute come in infection.

00:22:17:19 - 00:22:39:15
Speaker 1
Right. But in so I didn't know if anyone was ever going to talk about this. And I was feeling so alone and isolated. And I just I wanted to get the word out there. You know, I wanted people to know that just because John Smith got COVID and he got to watch TV for five days and not have to go to work, and then he was fully recovered.

00:22:39:23 - 00:23:02:20
Speaker 1
Not everyone who got COVID had that experience. Some people are still dealing with sequelae for months and years after. So that was really my biggest thing about raising awareness. And then the other reason was kind of going back to that feeling of isolation. I just didn't want anyone else to feel alone. No one really understood what was going on with me.

00:23:02:20 - 00:23:23:15
Speaker 1
I didn't even fully understand what was going on with me. So it was very hard for even my closest friends, my family members, to relate because they couldn't fully fathom what it meant that one day I was fine and the next day I needed a wheelchair. You know how like, how does that happen? I'm relatively young, I'm healthy.

00:23:23:23 - 00:23:49:15
Speaker 1
So it just didn't make sense. And and that was just very isolating. You know, it was a very trying time. And I'm so blessed that I'm one of the people who have has tremendously improved. And so I got to come on your show and I got to talk about my experience. But that's not everyone's story. And I wanted every long hauler out there to know that they are not alone, they are heard and they matter.

00:23:49:23 - 00:24:24:18
Speaker 1
So that's really why I decided to write my book. And now that I'm kind of on the other side of it, I recognize that. And with sharing in and raising awareness comes the responsibility of advocacy. And that's kind of where I'm where I'm hoping that by putting my story out there, by, you know, coming on shows like yours, I'm able to raise more awareness and hopefully help long haulers, even if it's something as simple as helping a coworker understand why, you know, maybe their coworker called off sick on a random day or something to that effect, you know.

00:24:24:18 - 00:24:31:18
Speaker 1
So yeah, that was the driving force behind why I decided to write a memoir. And it was very cathartic, I will say that.

00:24:32:11 - 00:24:58:17
Speaker 3
Oh, I bet some I'm I'm really glad. I'm really glad that I kind of put you on the spot to answer that answer to that question. I we record over videos or our audience can't see this, but I could I could see really just the that the true heartfelt emotion as you were explaining that how important it is for you but not not for you, as you said, that this is for everybody else.

00:24:58:21 - 00:25:22:08
Speaker 3
There's a part of it. I just said that catharsis that is for you. But this is so much out there for for the patients, the unknown and mystery can be a very scary thing. And for folks to know that while they are feeling that way, that there's others out there who have been through it or have gone through a similar maybe not the same, but similar experience, and then also providing this as a way so that others can really be informed.

00:25:22:18 - 00:25:46:13
Speaker 3
That's incredibly powerful and truly for, you know, myself, just as another person who's a health care provider, I really applaud you for for doing that. And kudos. Thank you. It's a lot of things that we do in this world to make the place better when we're talking or interacting with the patient. But there's a lot of things like this that pharmacists and other health care providers can do as well on a more broad and global.

00:25:47:01 - 00:26:05:04
Speaker 3
So I hope and maybe we'll see, maybe this is just the start of you writing memoirs are maybe the come who knows, right? We don't know exactly. So we'll see. But I'm just sincerely I'm really excited to do to do and present this episode as part of the quality corner show to share your experience. I think it's something that's very, very powerful.

00:26:05:11 - 00:26:28:02
Speaker 3
And for our listeners, definitely go on Amazon, find Salam's memoirs and look up by the name Salam Kabbani. Definitely worth checking out. But before we get to actually closing out this episode, Salam, we got to ask you a few additional questions so folks can better get to know who you are beyond the pharmacist and beyond the patient experience.

00:26:28:02 - 00:26:31:01
Speaker 3
So these are a couple of quick, rapid fire questions. Are you ready?

00:26:31:02 - 00:26:32:13
Speaker 1
All right. Yes.

00:26:32:13 - 00:26:37:02
Speaker 3
First one, are you a morning person or are you a night owl?

00:26:37:17 - 00:26:38:19
Speaker 1
Morning person.

00:26:39:13 - 00:26:43:05
Speaker 3
Excellent. Now, do you need coffee to go along with that early morning or how do you do?

00:26:43:12 - 00:26:48:11
Speaker 1
Absolutely. If there was no coffee, I would not be alive.

00:26:48:11 - 00:27:02:10
Speaker 3
And fair enough. And when I'm in the same boat with you on that one. Next question. Do you prefer to read the book or watch the movie? And depending on your answer, if you want to throw in a particular selection that aligns with it, that's great, but not required.

00:27:02:17 - 00:27:18:24
Speaker 1
Most of the time. I want to read the book and then watch the movie occasionally. Not necessarily when I was growing up, you know, Harry Potter, I think we all loved those books, so definitely read all the books first and then watch the movies. And of course, the book is always better.

00:27:19:12 - 00:27:36:06
Speaker 3
Ali Excellent. Okay. Next question. And we've we've we've talked a lot about this topic in a way, but well, give you a chance to maybe double down on things you've already said or introduce something new because it can be more broad. What is your recommendation for living a healthy life?

00:27:36:24 - 00:27:59:21
Speaker 1
Get at least 8 hours of sleep every night. You know, I was always given this advice in pharmacy school, never actually applied it. And now that I do, my life is so much better. Drink lots of water and really be mindful of what you are exposing yourself to, whether that is social media, the news that people you surround yourself with, the kinds of foods you eat.

00:28:00:04 - 00:28:21:12
Speaker 1
I know I sound like I'm just giving you advice. You know, you probably heard from your parents growing up, but it's true. And now that I have a slightly more fragile body, I really do think that all of those things have such a huge impact more than we necessarily give it credit. So that's my advice again. And get exercise, if you can physically.

00:28:22:03 - 00:28:42:24
Speaker 3
As I get older myself and I don't I'm not old, I don't think I'm old by any means, I find that 8 hours of sleep part is increasingly becoming Yes, I want to make sure I do that. And that doesn't if you're averse to working out and doing some of the things going to bed early does not take, does not tell it, take physical exertion to do so.

00:28:42:24 - 00:29:01:11
Speaker 3
So consider that everyone. All right. So our last question from this section. What is one goal that you are working towards? This could be in your personal life, this could be in your professional life, whatever. But what's one goal that you are working on and that you want to achieve or at least make some progress on in this 2023 year?

00:29:01:21 - 00:29:33:09
Speaker 1
I want to run a marathon, not necessarily in 2023, but it's a goal. I used to hate running. I wouldn't say that I enjoy writing now. It's it's not something that you know, or just like sparks joy in me. But having been disabled for a year and really going from fully healthy to needing a cane and then a wheelchair, I'm just kind of now back and forth, it really put into perspective how significant it is to really treat my body well and to help it remain strong.

00:29:33:19 - 00:29:49:22
Speaker 1
And I just feel like running a marathon is something that I need to do now that I don't have is now that, you know, I'm doing so much better. Thankfully, it's just something that's on my list and I'm going to do it. I mean, there might be a lot of cursing involved, but I do plan on doing that.

00:29:50:17 - 00:30:10:08
Speaker 3
Excellent. So I'm I love that I've been a runner at periods in my life when I was in college. Very serious. I can tell you I had a goal for doing a marathon. I hit half marathon and then I said, That's kind of enough. Hopefully you can go further than I did on that part of it. But as someone who has a lot of experience, I'll be checking in with you as well to see where you're going.

00:30:10:08 - 00:30:17:13
Speaker 3
We can always adjust our goals or we can push them even further from where we are. So you and I will be touching base on that moving forward.

00:30:17:18 - 00:30:19:11
Speaker 1
We will be back in a few years.

00:30:21:00 - 00:30:42:20
Speaker 3
Yes, long term goals. There we go. All right. Well, Salam, I sincerely appreciate having you join the show today. This, for me was a fantastic episode, a great message that we can share with our pharmacy community. But even beyond that, for patients that have had similar experiences as well. So it really means a lot for me and for the show to have you here.

00:30:42:20 - 00:31:02:23
Speaker 3
Hope as well that this was part of maybe the catharsis for for your journey and continue ways to promote that. But there are going to be I know there's going to be folks that want to hear more from you. They may have questions for you after reading your memoir, all of those different things. So before we go, do you mind letting people know where they can contact you?

00:31:02:23 - 00:31:06:07
Speaker 3
And then again, repeating for us where folks can find your memoir?

00:31:06:20 - 00:31:32:13
Speaker 1
Absolutely. So people can email me at Salaam S.A.L.A.M @authorsalam.com. That's going to be the easiest way. I'm also on social media. I have two different Instagram files. One is just focused on the long hauler, and that's at Long Hauler Chronicles. The other is it started off as a bookstore instagram, which is really where I share all of the books that I read and talk about that.

00:31:33:06 - 00:31:57:08
Speaker 1
And that one is The Unabridged Life of Salaam Macita, which is very long. I'm sure we can link that to the podcast, hopefully. But you know, that's one place people can find me. And then I'm also starting on Tik Tok. You know, I have I have lots to learn, but it's the unabridged life of Salem and then also my website, SalamKabbani.com.

00:31:57:08 - 00:32:08:17
Speaker 1
And then for my book, it's on Amazon. You can just search COVID long hauler My life since COVID. It's available in audio print and epub Excellent.

00:32:08:19 - 00:32:37:13
Speaker 3
So again, thank you for joining today's episode. Thank you More importantly for sharing your experience with patients with health care providers. This is an item where certainly there are many of us, many people out there that are going to be continuing to work with patients to help them manage their long COVID post-COVID syndrome that's there. So this conversation today, it's one step in that journey for all of us.

00:32:37:18 - 00:32:54:23
Speaker 3
And it's an item where we're really all in it together to help improve the care for our patients. So thank you very much. I wish you nothing but the best going forward. And for our listening audience, that means we are now finished with this episode. We thank you for joining us today and we hope you'll listen to our next episode of The Quality Corner Show.

00:32:55:06 - 00:32:59:07
Speaker 3
Before we go, we have one final message from the Peaks team.

00:33:00:07 - 00:33:21:03
Speaker 2
The Pharmacy Quality Solutions Quality Corner show has a request for you. Our goal is to spread the word about how quality measurement can help improve health outcomes. And we need your help in sharing this podcast to friends and colleagues in the healthcare industry. We also want you to provide feedback, ask those questions and suggest health topics you'd like to see covered.

00:33:21:22 - 00:33:44:01
Speaker 2
If you are a health expert and you want to contribute to the show or even talk on the show, please contact us. You can email info at pharmacyquality.com. Let us know what is on your mind, what we can address so that you are fully informed. We want you to be able to provide the best care for your patients and members, and we wish all of you listeners out there well.