How I conquered long covid – teacher tells of harrowing ordeal

After almost two years, 41-year-old Sofiyah Ghany is finally starting to regain her quality of life as she continues to suffer from long covid.

Since December 2022, she has been experiencing numerous symptoms, has not been able to work, is constantly tired and has spent most of her money on doctors’ visits and medication.

The Centers for Disease Control defines long covid as a chronic condition that occurs after covid19 infection and lasts for at least three months.

Relating her journey to Newsday, Ghany said it started in 2021.

That year she took the required two doses of the AstraZeneca covid19 vaccine and later had her first covid19 infection in June.

She said she experienced some symptoms but recovered easily. Her second infection of covid19 was in December of that year and it too was “manageable.”

At the time she had been a teacher at a private school for five years, and she taught online and in person throughout 2022.

But in December 2022, she was infected for the third time and she got a lung infection.

She was treated for the infection but found she had an ongoing cough and was congested all the time. She had to visit the hospital a few times to be put on a nebuliser so she could breathe. She recalled she was getting sick every few weeks.

Eventually, her general practitioner sent her to see a lung specialist who gave her a lung function test. She was diagnosed with acute asthma and long covid.

She had to use a steroid inhaler daily to treat lung inflammation and a rescue inhaler for shortness of breath because even when she was sitting down or standing in the shower, all of a sudden, she would not be able to breathe properly.

Ghany recalled she used to ride her bicycle to Chagaramas and back at least three times a week and regularly exercised. But at that point she could not even walk or even stand for ten minutes.

She also had migraines; mild fevers; post-exertional malaise, which is a worsening of symptoms that occurred after minimal physical or mental activity; light-headedness and dizzy spells; tiredness and weakness; difficulty focussing and forgetfulness; as well as blurry vision and mini blackouts.

She visited about nine or ten doctors, including several specialists, based on her symptoms.

“In this country, people don’t believe long covid is a thing that really exists. The approach the doctors have treated me with was treating the symptoms instead of diagnosing the long covid and treating the cause.”

She was unable to work from December 2022 to December 2023 because of the ongoing symptoms including chronic fatigue and tinnitus, and exercising was out of the question.

“I remember being in school and just not being able to teach those children effectively because I would get headaches and was just feeling so tired. So I resigned from my teaching job and, for 2023, I was not able to work.

“Due to my lifestyle change from being relatively active, I became depressed. I was no longer earning money, I was depending on my mom and sister to bring groceries for me when I didn’t feel well enough to go, I was so tired all of the time. It was a lot.”

She was angry, sad, frustrated and did not want to live in that state. She said she wished she would die because she did not believe her health would improve. And sometimes her breathing was so bad she felt she would die in her sleep.

She felt isolated because she could not do the activities she usually did with her friends. And even though she would talk to them on the phone, she hardly saw her friends and family members. She also used to DJ part-time but had to sell some of her equipment to pay for her medication.

It was difficult for her to be financially dependent on others. She felt stuck. She said 2023 was the most difficult year of her life.

But Ghany said she learned the importance of pacing herself and was doing what she could to maintain and improve her health.

When she did a task, she took the time to recover. She got regular Vitamin B injections and intravenous iron to treat an iron deficiency she did not have before. She made sure to have her inhalers and painkillers for her occasional headaches and slept with a humidifier on. She tried to practise yoga and did breathing exercises.

She believed long covid permanently damaged her lungs and upper respiratory tract as she has recurring infections, so she was often on antibiotics and had trouble breathing at night.

Despite this, she started to see an improvement around April, after deciding she wanted to begin working again.

Ghany said her mother and sister encouraged her to start picking up her niece every day after school, to get her out of the house. It was the beginning of her becoming independent again.

She could not make it every day but she was improving, and by September she had a full trip of her niece’s schoolmates to pick up.

As time passed and she felt stronger, when she began getting out of bed and feeling like she had more energy and could accomplish more, her situation began to feel less overwhelming and she started coming out of her depression.

She is now working part-time as a driver, transporting children to and from school, and she has private clients. She said she is content with her job because she can make her own schedule. And she is more self sufficient.

On November 3, her birthday, she rode her bicycle for the first time in over a year. As a birthday gift, her mother, Lisa, took her to Machel Montano’s concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC on November 25. She was grateful she was able to walk the airport gates without being out of breath. And on December 8, she walked the Starbucks 5K Coffee Run.

“I did it on my own and I felt so accomplished because it had been a couple of years since I was able to do something like that. I really believe I’m moving forward and I’m grateful for that.

“I'm not saying any of these doctors I went to got me better. I'm saying I got me better, and time got me better and God got me better. Because this thing, this long covid, the key word is long.

“I’ll never tell anybody it's an easy thing, because it was a journey for me. It took around 18 months to feel relatively back to myself. And you know what? Some had to be hospitalised due to long covid, some people died and are not alive to tell their story, but I survived.”

Ghany said she had and needed a lot of support and things to occupy her mind during those 18 months.

She said one of her dogs, Rayna, was with her through her covid journey, giving her love and support. Her parents and sister were there for her financially and they tried to keep her spirits up. Her neighbours let her know she could call on them if she needed help, and one even cooked for her at times. She also joined several long covid support groups on social media, realising talking to people who understood what she was going through was good for her.

Cricket too kept her positive. She loves the game and used to have cricket camps for her students during school vacation. So while stuck at home, she followed all the different leagues on TV and, when the games were in TT, she would push herself to attend even if she did not stay for the whole game. It was a sign that she was improving.

Ghany is now able to exercise more, mostly walking her dogs, but she is determined to get back on her bicycle more regularly.

To other sufferers of long covid she said, “You have to live in hope. Long covid is a long journey but it does get better over time. Time is the most important factor in this equation. There is no quick fix. I had to just rest and pace myself, reduce my expectations of how much I could do in one day, set goals and rest in between.

“If you do too many things you can set yourself back. It’s better to walk for 20 minutes three times a week than to try to do 45 minutes and then you can’t do anything for two weeks.”