Covid Relief Fund ❤️‍

Hi! I'm Jamie, Buffalo Bills fan from Chicago, sailor, geologist, and, just lately, Your Bestie With Long Covid. If you're reading this, it's either because we're pals or because one of my phenomenal, world-changing friends sent you my way.

 

Here is the situation: My wife Ashleigh and I have had Long Covid since December 2020, and recently caught Covid again in November 2022. Despite being fully vaxxed, boosted, N95 masked, and socially isolated, we have it and it's bad.

Doctors tell me it could be another six to nine months of rest before I start seeing actual recovery from the most recent Covid infection. This is a very, very scary thing to hear. A great deal of being sick is being scared, and you may have seen a few of my posts talking about how although I’m the happiest I’ve ever been (in love and a blissful newlywed!), I’m terrified I can’t afford to stay alive.

How many days do we have to recover from the worst illness my body has ever seen before we’re inevitably sicker? When will treatment arrive? I hear whispers of intense retrovirals being trialed for Covid next year, but will that be soon enough to save us?

My AMAZING internet friends, after supporting me from afar, are now rallying to do some fundraising on our behalf. I...do not have words to express my gratitude. But it is big, it is profound, and I am so, so, so thankful.

 

Here’s how it went down:

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Before December 2020, my definition of "sick" was a migraine, quickly remedied by rescue medication and sunglasses. Occasionally my allergies would flare up, or I’d have a cold and need to chug a little Dayquil to be a productive member of society. I was geologist working with the EPA to clean up Chicago air, soil, and water. I was an accomplished sailor, racing in regattas most summer weekends. I had just come off a nationals win. I also worked with a few tech startups. My future wife? A firefighter paramedic, a literal hero. We both had STEM degrees, awesome careers, adorable dogs, and big plans together.

Covid changed that. My fresh, wise definition now mirrors another friend with Long Covid; she writes: "I am in a Brontë novel, bedridden and vacant, lost to the world while my poor lover roams the moors at night."

I stopped working. Most days, I am too tired to even read on the couch with my wife. I live in bed. It is an effort to change into clean clothes, and showering is a Herculean feat. Our teeth are crumbling and falling out, and i’ve lost about 20% of my hair. My limbs feel full of wet cement, and my brain feels hot and dry, running on fumes and dragging me to sleep. Sometimes I feel like fear and anxiety is the only thing keeping me awake, desperately combing twitter and each new medical publication for clues on how to rid our bodies of the virus that’s stealing our newlywed years.

Shortly before the pandemic struck our family down, Ashleigh suffered a career-ending injury after a full decade as a firefighter/flight paramedic. She tore her shoulder while rescuing a child from an overturned car.

In truth, selfishly, I was a little glad at the time; she had been working 70hrs a week in a dangerous field for a long time, and I was proud and happy to support us while her shoulder healed after surgery. Ashleigh has a history of pulmonary emboli and a heart defect (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), so when I later read that a novel respiratory virus was emerging in another part of the globe, I knew it could be very dangerous for us. We were N95 masking in supermarkets in January of 2020.

As the pandemic began to escalate, we got our first taste. A mild case in March 2020. We seemed to recovery fully, but it was scary for about a month. Working in person was no longer an option; we dodged a bullet the first time, but might not be as lucky next time. When we got sick again in December 2020, Long Covid wrecked us almost completely.

Officially immunocompromised, we decided to use some of our dwindling savings to enroll in coding bootcamp; we knew we needed to pivot to Work From Home careers, and we both had STEM degrees we could leverage to make that transition.

Ashleigh completed the coding camp with ease, but I got about halfway before I was overcome by crushing fatigue and brain fog. The mental effects of Long Covid were far scarier than the physical effects thus far, and I had to acquiesce to my body’s demands for rest. It felt like failure and like my body betrayed me. I cried.

Ashleigh proposed in in August 2022, and we got engaged. She’s literally the most brilliant incredible person I know, and we laugh together every single day, even though Covid has stolen so much of our lives. Her work ethic, selfless devotion to emergency medicine and public safety, her endless patience, her ability to keep us both laughing in the midst of illness and uncertainty- y’all, how did I get this lucky? We originally planned to wait a few years until we were back on our feet and healthy, but the Supreme Court seems poised to move against the LGBTQ community. We quietly got married in October for just $60 with just a judge, and my mom and my sister as a witness.

This is the hardest thing i’ve ever had to write, and, like many things these days, it took me hours longer than I expected. It’s viscerally uncomfortable to ask for help. We are far more comfortable working from the other side; being the helpers, doing the giving, the supporting, the rescuing.

Huge shout out to our friends for encouraging us to to trust that here, now, we are being given an opportunity to grow closer together, and to lean on the community as a lgbtq family in desperate need. That there is alchemy in vulnerability.

Whether you're someone I’ve known and loved for years, or somebody who clicked out of curiosity, thank you for reading. If you have the means to contribute, every single dollar means more than you know. Even just sharing this page makes a huge difference. 

We accept every bit of help wholeheartedly, in the spirit with which it is given, and with tremendous gravity. We will make it worth it. We will pay it forward in every way we can. We will come back swinging.

Thank you. Be safe. Wear your N95 mask. We love you.