Today marks 2 years since I got COVID.
I didn’t even notice the date until now. It’s 10.21PM, February 20th 2024. I’m sitting alone on the floor of my apartment. I was doing some daily stretching but figured I’d write for a little.
2 years, shit.
I really hoped I’d feel better by now.
After getting COVID I tried for a while to continue my previous life, the life of a professional basketball player. Practicing 10 times a week and playing a game or two on top of that.
It took 7 months before I was burnt out.
It’s been tough, losing the Mark I once was, being forced to leave my dream behind. Watching my family struggle through it all together with me.
It’s been two freaking years! Two years of ups and downs. Two years of different treatments. Two years of burning myself out, pushing way past what I can take because I so badly want to get better.
I could write about how I’ve been slowly but surely getting better, maybe even put some motivation in there for other Long COVID patients.
But damn I just miss the way it was before.
Back when I didn’t have to worry about studying 8 hours a day.
When I could practice twice a day and do it all over the next day.
When I still felt like myself.
Two years, and it’s still mostly gone.
The truth is, of course, that I have been recovering slowly. And I do want to write about that as well, even though it doesn’t make the losses I and so many others have suffered any less painful.
Over the last year or so I’ve gone from completely burnt out and deciding to quit my professional basketball career for good, to feeling okay at times.
I’m still not the Mark I used to be–perhaps I’ll never be him again–yet there have been days when I’ve seen slivers of that person returning.
I ran a 10k on February 10th. My first real sports “performance” that actually felt good in two years.
I’m still recovering from that hour of running today, but it was 100% worth it. I’m more than happy to pay the price for feeling a tiny bit like my old self again.
As I go into the next year I hope to get more and more of these moments.
Recovery is slow, but it’s getting better.
And on the bad days I just think back to that 10k, and how freeing it was to just be running again, not worrying about how it felt or if I could breathe or how my body would react.
It’s those moments that help me get through the bad days.