Hi! I remain alive! Here’s a special announcement for season 3 (!) of A Friend for the Long Haul! 💜💝

Welcome to the 1st Annual Long Covid Sickstravaganza Holiday Episode! This episode features contributions from a few different lovely folks:

Lyrics:

Verse I

so long alone 

surrounded by the noise 

still on my own

scattered through an empty void

but get up and I show up

cause I've grown up in the dark

and I'm bleeding but I'm breathing

and I know I'm come so far

Chorus

shadows fall from yesterday

what I've lost is far away

where to go when all the love is gone

when everyone has walked away 

and I alone have got to stay 

I learn to love myself and carry on

Verse II

take my life in minutes count them each a win

when I reach the end of one, then I start to count again

so I'll fake it, 'till I make it

cause most don't seem to care

but I'm ready and I'm clawing my way back for every breath of air

Bridge

I survived a stormy ride across my soul

you can't break me

iron veins have made me whole

Chorus

shadows fall from yesterday

what I've lost is far away

where to go when all the love is gone

when everyone has walked away 

I alone have got to stay learn to love myself and carry on 

Thank you all for contributing, and thank you listeners for supporting this endeavor this year! I hope you have a lovely holiday season!

To further spread some joy, there's a pretty decent giveaway happening for this special episode! Prizes are: a free month of the Calm app (not sponsored!), two free virtual dog training Sessions from Ray of Lighthouse Dog Training, a copy of Joe Glasgow's new book - Be a Hero, a signed copy of The Five Gifts: Discovering Hope, Healing and Strength when Disaster Strikes from Dr. Laurie Nadel, and a full copy of Chef Taryn of Bloom19's new Spoonie Cookbook! Chef Taryn also created a special holiday recipe for this episode, peppermint patties that are dairy free, gluten free, egg free, and refined sugar free! To enter, comment anything on this episode - also, tell me if you have a dog - or go to the giveaway post on my Instagram and comment, like, share, and tag friends for additional entries. Winners will be drawn on 12/29/2024.

Don't forget to like, subscribe, follow, and share A Friend for the Long Haul if you can. And if you're feeling extra generous, leave a review. Your support helps get this in front of more earballs and helps me bring more episodes. You can listen to the A Friend for the Long Haul Long Covid Theme Songs playlist on Spotify. If you'd like to support this low budget/high love podcast, you can check out my Bonfire shop for silly long covid apparel or my Amazon wishlist,

Welcome to season 2 episode 12 of A Friend for the Long Haul - A Long COVID Podcast! This week's guest is Katie Drackert, who most of you will know as @kd_kinetic. Katie is the founder of Clear the Air ATX, a volunteer-led, community resource library that lends out air purifiers and other COVID mitigation tools for free to artists, musicians, and independent event producers in Austin, Texas - where I lived for many years and sadly had to leave due to my COVID experience.

In the pre-rona days, Katie primarily worked full time as a performance artist. When Omicron hit, things changed. In this episode, we discuss our personal experiences with chronic health issues, including long COVID, and the challenges we face managing our symptoms while advocating for ourselves and others. We share our experiences with medical treatments, their emotional impacts, and the importance of community support and self-care. The conversation also touches on our backgrounds - which are really similar despite our age difference (I am an old) as well as our many shared interests, and future plans for advocacy work and creative projects that we are both plotting.

By the end of this episode, I became fully obsessed with Katie, and I think you will, too!

Follow Clear the Air ATX on Instagram

Clear the Air ATX's Linktree is full of so many resources and ways you can donate and support the org!

Don't forget to like, subscribe, follow, and share A Friend for the Long Haul if you can. And if you're feeling extra generous, leave a review. Your support helps get this in front of more earballs and helps me bring more episodes.You can listen to the A Friend for the Long Haul Long Covid Theme Songs playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3n0GXLFRWqDJyifglNNM4K?si=7948dbf2222c4392

If you'd like to support this low budget/high love podcast, you can check out my Bonfire shirt for silly long covid apparel: https://www.bonfire.com/store/a-friend-for-the-long-haul/ or my Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3MYBB5G0P7YUD?ref_=wl_share

Hello, and welcome to another episode of A Friend for the Long Haul - A Long Covid Podcast! This week’s guest is Ray, who most long haulers will know from TikTok and Instagram as @rayandstormi. Ray was one of the first long haulers I met when I made my original account back in Sept 2020. We’ve stayed in touch ever since, and I really enjoyed getting the opportunity to chat with her. Ray is a registered nurse and a dog trainer. In our conversation, we discuss her experience, including getting diagnosed with Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is a chronic pain disorder that causes sudden, severe facial pain. It's also known as tic douloureux, Fothergill disease, or trifacial neuralgia.TN is a type of neuropathic pain that affects the trigeminal nerve, which is responsible for feeling and movement in the face, and is widely known to be one of the most painful conditions you can get. Ray shares the story of her brain surgery to help with TN, her long covid story, and we chat about being bendy friends (hypermobile/EDS).

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-ray-overcome-health-and-housing-crisis?attribution_id=sl:a483392d-3284-4f33-aa3e-22897038ef47&utm_campaign=man_ss_icons&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link

If you’d rather provide mutual aid to Ray directly, here is her Venmo information: https://venmo.com/u/Rayandstormi

I’m also selling a series of holiday tshirts on my Bonfire shop in honor of Ray, and proceeds will be shared with her:

“Happy Paw-lidays! Cure long covid” features a brown poodle, like the service dog Ray is training, Goose. The pup is wearing a red scarf and earmuffs.

All I Want for Christmas is a Cure for Long Covid design 1 features Santa’s sleigh and reindeer

All shirts are available in long and short sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies.

You can find Ray on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/rayandstormi/

And on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@rayandstormi 

This video helps tell Ray’s covid story: https://www.tiktok.com/@rayandstormi/video/7144530664161889578 

Please share this episode, or Ray’s gofundme, if you can. And if you can donate, I know that it will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for joining me for this chat, Ray - we need to arrange more of them!

Don't forget to like, subscribe, follow, and share A Friend for the Long Haul if you can. And if you're feeling extra generous, leave a review. Your support helps get this in front of more earballs and helps me bring more episodes.You can listen to the A Friend for the Long Haul Long Covid Theme Songs playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3n0GXLFRWqDJyifglNNM4K?si=7948dbf2222c4392

If you'd like to support this low budget/high love podcast, you can check out my Bonfire shirt for silly long covid apparel: https://www.bonfire.com/store/a-friend-for-the-long-haul/

or my Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3MYBB5G0P7YUD?ref_=wl_share

Welcome to a special pre-holidays ep of A Friend for the Long Haul! This is just shy of 2.5 hours but full of good chats. Here’s the guest list!

Like, subscribe, share episodes pls! If you can, leave a review to help get it in more earballs. Listen to the podcast's Long Covid Theme Songs playlist on Spotify. To support this low budget/high love pod, check out my Bonfire shop for LC apparel or my Amazon wishlist. Thank you!

Welcome to season 2 episode 9 of A Friend for the Long Haul - A Long Covid Podcast! This week's guest is Dr. David Putrino, Professor of Rehabilitation and Human Performance at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director of Rehabilitation Innovation for the Mount Sinai Health System was appointed the Nash Family Director of the CoRE - and so many other things. Dr. Putrino and I discussed the onset of the pandemic, its impacts on him and his team (we feel like we’ve aged about 10 years since March 2020), and how the work they did early on influenced their response when patients weren’t getting better. We also talked about how he and his team care for their own mental health, impediments to research, upcoming studies they have planned, and he answered listener questions like “will you adopt me” and my question which was, “how do I set up a PO Box in New York so I can come to the clinic?” 🤣 We also get into ableism, gaslighting, ways we can all best work together, and he answered the same questions I ask everyone at the end of each episode. Thanks, again, to Dr. Putrino for joining me! About an hour after we met, I tested positive for the vid again, which kind of made me feel like I was living in Alanis Morrisette’s “Ironic” video or Bizarro World.

I also want to add - yes, we talk about medical stuff, trauma, and meds and supplements. Just because you hear about those things on this podcast, doesn't mean you should start them. Always discuss everything with your doctor!

Find out more about the Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illnesses (CoRE) here: https://reports.mountsinai.org/article/rehab2024-02-core-center-opens

And, of course, they're on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/coresinai/

You can follow Dr. Putrino on Twitter: https://x.com/PutrinoLab and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/putrino_lab/

Don't forget to like, subscribe, follow, and share A Friend for the Long Haul if you can. And if you're feeling extra generous, leave a review. Your support helps get this in front of more earballs and helps me bring more episodes.
You can listen to the A Friend for the Long Haul Long Covid Theme Songs playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3n0GXLFRWqDJyifglNNM4K?si=7948dbf2222c4392

If you'd like to support this low budget/high love podcast, you can check out my Bonfire shirt for silly long covid apparel: https://www.bonfire.com/store/a-friend-for-the-long-haul/

or my Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3MYBB5G0P7YUD?ref_=wl_share

Welcome to season 2 episode 8 of A Friend for the Long Haul - A Long Covid Podcast! This week I chat with Jaydo, who you probably know from TikTok and Instagram. Jaydo creates videos focused on "Things You Should Know About Covid," and they've been incredibly successful.

In this episode we discuss:

A friendly reminder: This episode is a bit longer than usual at about an hour and a half. Feel free to listen in chunks to preserve your spoons.

You can find Jaydo on TikTok at: https://www.tiktok.com/@JaydoCovid

and on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/jaydocovid/

Here is his linktree

and his YouTube channels: https://www.youtube.com/@JaydoCovid

https://www.youtube.com/@jaydomusic

You can listen to the A Friend for the Long Haul Long Covid Theme Songs playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3n0GXLFRWqDJyifglNNM4K?si=7948dbf2222c4392

If you'd like to support this low budget/high love podcast, you can check out my Bonfire shirt for silly long covid apparel: https://www.bonfire.com/store/a-friend-for-the-long-haul/

or my Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3MYBB5G0P7YUD?ref_=wl_share

Thanks again for listening!

Welcome to season 2 episode 6 of A Friend for the Long Haul - A Long Covid Podcast! This episode features my friend, Laura Thomas. Laura and I met in an Austin, Texas-based long covid support group, and started talking when she found out that I had moved from Texas because I discovered that my MCAS symptoms improved out of state.

Laura hosts a podcast called Rescued By A Dog, which features stories of dogs saving their people. In this episode, Laura and I discuss:

Find Rescued by a Dog on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0t6XikdERybsS3wwwaJb6j?si=c1654161e4504d1e

And Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rescued-by-a-dog/id1648960693

Don't forget to like, subscribe, follow, and share A Friend for the Long Haul if you can. And if you're feeling extra generous, leave a review. Your support helps get this in front of more earballs and helps me bring more episodes.

You can listen to the A Friend for the Long Haul Long Covid Theme Songs playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3n0GXLFRWqDJyifglNNM4K?si=7948dbf2222c4392

If you'd like to support this low budget/high love podcast, you can check out my Bonfire shirt for silly long covid apparel where I'm raising money for a pro license of Zoom (as of right now, I can only record 30-40 minutes at a time and then we have to hang up and come back. Not great for conversational flow!): https://www.bonfire.com/store/a-friend-for-the-long-haul/

or my Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3MYBB5G0P7YUD?ref_=wl_share

Thanks again for listening!

Welcome to season 2 episode 5 of A Friend for the Long Haul - A Long Covid Podcast. This episode features Lola Germs, a self-described "pandemic communicator + disabled guy w AuDHD + a funky rare genetic disease." We met on Instagram and once we got to talking we realized we share a lot of weird funky health stuff and our life and work trajectories have been similar in a lot of ways. Lola shares information about the pandemic in a way that's inclusive, creative, and accessible - which is not an easy thing to do, especially with such complex information! We talk about what led her to creating her YouTube channel, important things like the warmest socks you can get, the fact that I didn't sweat for almost two years, how illness impacts self-identity, how gratitude can be weird, the confidence required to care for yourself in modern society, and then we venture on to righting the wrongs of the medical industrial complex, her hopes for the future, climate change, the need for popular science communicators, and the future of space travel. I'm an old lady and I was ready to adopt LG by the end of this episode. Truly. I love smart people with hearts like this, and it's a privilege to get to have these conversations!

Find Lola Germs on social media:

Lola's YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@LolaGerms

Instagram - instagram.com/lola.germs

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@lolagerms and LinkTree with resources - https://linktr.ee/lolagerms

Support Lola's work on ko-fi

You can listen to the A Friend for the Long Haul Long Covid Theme Songs playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3n0GXLFRWqDJyifglNNM4K?si=7948dbf2222c4392

If you'd like to support this low budget/high love podcast, you can check out my Bonfire shirt for silly long covid apparel where I'm raising money for a pro license of Zoom (as of right now, I can only record 30-40 minutes at a time and then we have to hang up and come back. Not great for conversational flow!): https://www.bonfire.com/store/a-friend-for-the-long-haul/ 

or my Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3MYBB5G0P7YUD?ref_=wl_share

Thanks again for listening!

Welcome to season 2 episode 4 of A Friend for the Long Haul - A Long Covid Podcast! Join me for a conversation with Merel and JC. Merel leads the Long Covid Choir, and JC is a member. Discover how this unique community has brought joy and support to those living with the debilitating effects of Long Covid. In this episode, we delve into the origins of the choir, how to join, and what to expect from the weekly sessions. Learn about some support group events and Merel's work with Long Covid Kids groups, and the things that bring us joy. We also discuss our experiences navigating healthcare systems in the US, England, and Norway.

Whether you're living with Long Covid or simply curious about this inspiring community, this episode offers hope, connection, and a glimpse into the power of music.

Don't forget to like, subscribe, follow, and share if you can. And if you're feeling extra generous, leave a review. Your support helps get this in front of more earballs and helps me bring more episodes.

You can listen to the A Friend for the Long Haul Long Covid Theme Songs playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3n0GXLFRWqDJyifglNNM4K?si=7948dbf2222c4392

If you'd like to support this low budget/high love podcast, you can check out my Bonfire shirt for silly long covid apparel where I'm raising money for a pro license of Zoom (as of right now, I can only record 30-40 minutes at a time and then we have to hang up and come back. Not great for conversational flow!): https://www.bonfire.com/store/a-friend-for-the-long-haul/ or my Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3MYBB5G0P7YUD?ref_=wl_share