Good Weekend letters to the editor: March 4

Long Road

Reading Fenella Souter’s article on long COVID [February 25], polio survivors like me would be thinking, snap! So many of the long COVID symptoms mirror those of the late effects of polio – gross fatigue, brain fog, swallowing and breathing difficulties, etc. After many years of treatment, Dame Jean Macnamara prophetically told my mother “they will pay for this later”. We sure did. Unlike those with long COVID, most polio survivors had a period of sunshine, time in their 20s and 30s to live with whatever disabilities they had from childhood. Then the nasty little virus woke to pounce again. By this time, of course, a new generation of doctors hadn’t seen polio. One GP told me the symptoms were “all in my head”. Post-polio organisations around the world continue to fight for informed treatment for us. Long COVID hit immediately. We hope the period of sunshine comes soon and lasts longer.
Fran Henke
Hastings, Vic

Noting Good Weekend’s article and Katrina Strickland’s editorial, I have chalked up 55 years of chronic fatigue syndrome, since age 16, and for the first 23 years it went undiagnosed. In fact, green lights from the medical and yes, psychiatric fields, saying there was nothing wrong. Little was known in the 1970s. Finally, the poverty and incapacitation led to aloneness and loneliness.

I failed massive, and I mean massive functioning testing in 1999 and was told, “Graeme, you are running on nothing most of the time. You are in no state to enjoy the pleasures people simply enjoy. As a matter of course, life’s daily trials and tribulations are like killer blows.” For there is an extreme collapse in metabolism and cell function generally, not picked up by the standard medical testing. Long COVID may provide more impetus for serious action on CFS. As Payton Jacobs says, she would like to get her life back. I was denied one. I have nowhere to turn. A marriage of 43 years has survived this slow burn cataclysm.
Graeme Tychsen
Toronto, NSW

Rare Finds

Having read Melissa Fyfe’s article on the State Library Victoria [February 25], I wondered if she has read The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray: the story of Belle da Costa Greene, a young woman of colour who kept her heritage secret, becoming the personal librarian to John Pierpont Morgan (J.P. Morgan) and responsible for cataloguing and purchasing rare incunabula to enhance his private collection.
Megan Dunnet
Toronto, NSW

ONLINE COMMENTS

Long Road

It is not just people who are old and with pre-existing conditions who are getting long COVID [February 25] ... it could be your mum, your sister or you. A year ago, I was lifting weights in the gym, working full-time and looking after my family. I have been in bed for nearly a year now, sick every day. I’ve lost my amazing job, sold my car and am too tired to have visitors. Too dizzy to watch TV or even do colouring in ... heart palpitations on standing. Unable to cook or clean or look after myself. Unable to remember enough to read a book ... even speaking is difficult. Every tiny activity leads to a crash of energy when afterwards I can’t lift my arms or legs. It’s hard to believe a busy productive life and career have ended this way. How can a civilised, wealthy country leave people suffering without support? What about employers losing staff? Where is the duty of care? RockKnitter

People try to go back to work too soon because there is zero financial support for long COVID sufferers. While you’re still employed (even if you’re not being paid) Centrelink doesn’t want to know, and you can’t access hardship provisions in your super. I even know one person who was refused payment through income protection because it wasn’t a “recognised condition”. It seems ridiculous that people could access their super during the pandemic and buy big screen TVs, but people with long COVID face losing everything while stacks of their money, which could cover loan payments, living expenses etc, sits inaccessible. Slayne5

I think I had “long mumps” in my 40s, taking months to get over it properly. In contrast, in my 80s I recently survived COVID, thanks to paracetamol and codeine (not very much of either) and although very unpleasant at the time, the after-effects were quite mild, if that’s what they are. (Could be just old age!) I’m very thankful for that and feel sorry for younger people who might have something like my “long mumps”. David Morrison

Thank you for this article. I had long COVID last year, and I realised there was something seriously wrong when I couldn’t remember how to drive to our local Officeworks. While starting with short walks helped to overcome the fatigue, I found that playing Wordle and Word Scramble really helped with the brain fog. I wouldn’t wish long COVID on anyone. Stephen Wall5

READER PRIZE
The winner of the best letter in March will win a mixed case of 16 bottles from Naked Wines, together with four Plumm crystal glasses. RRP$524.

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