https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00819-w
"Abby Koppes got COVID-19 in March 2020, just as the world was waking up to the
unprecedented scale on which the virus was spreading. Her symptoms weren’t bad
at first. She spent the early lockdown period in Boston, Massachusetts,
preparing her tenure application.
During that summer of frenzied writing, Koppes’s symptoms worsened. She often
awoke in the night with her heart racing. She was constantly gripped by
fatigue, but she brushed off the symptoms as due to work stress. “You gaslight
yourself a little bit, I guess,” she says.
Soon after Koppes submitted her tenure application in July, she began
experiencing migraines for the first time, which left her bedridden. Her face
felt as if it was on fire, a condition called trigeminal neuralgia that’s also
known as suicide disease because of the debilitating pain it causes.
Specialists took months to diagnose her with a series of grim-sounding
disorders: Sjögren’s syndrome, small-fibre polyneuropathy and postural
orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. To make time for the litany of doctors’
appointments, Koppes took a six-month “self-care sabbatical”.
It’s a bit of a blur, she says, but Koppes, a biochemical engineer at
Northeastern University in Boston, describes September 2021 to April 2023 as a
dark period in her life. Fortunately, she was buoyed by one monumental victory
that preceded it: she was granted tenure in summer 2021.
However, other academic researchers with long COVID might not count themselves
so lucky. Koppes’s experience has compelled her to speak up for other
researchers with the condition. It needn’t spell the end of an academic career,
provided institutions step up to help.
Nature spoke to researchers living
with long COVID to find out how they manage the illness amid the pressures of
academic research. (Many requested anonymity for privacy or for fear of
repercussions on their careers and reputations.) They describe new realities
that include budgeting for periods of fatigue and negotiating adjustments such
as flexible working arrangements — an area, they say, in which academia can do
better."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: March 21, 2024
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-100819438
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
