Long Covid: A rollercoaster of recovery and relapse since contracting the virus

— You are not the person you were before you got Covid, your life is completely different, you have to rest before and after everything so you don’t crash

Patient groups are critical of the lack of coordinated services for those with long Covid. However, academic researchers and independent medical organisations have recently stepped in to offer support 

Christmas 2020 is one that many people won’t forget, for obvious reasons, but for Tanja Buwalda, the effects of long Covid made the festive season even more unbearable. The 46-year-old mother of two, from Crosshaven, County Cork, was suffering chest pain, breathlessness, debilitating migraines and extreme fatigue having contracted Covid while working abroad in March 2020.

“We were trying to make Christmas interesting and fun but it was so hard for the kids because we couldn’t see anyone in the family…my daughter said, ‘Mom, you’re always tired, it’s OK we’ll do our own thing, you just stay in bed’. They had written me out of their lives because I was always tired and in bed.”