I am Living with Long Covid Syndrome

In late February of 2020 Marty and I both came down with the classic symptoms of Covid-19. Although we recovered there were a few symptoms that continued through April of 2021. A lingering cough that could turn into wheezing and a lack of any energy at all led me to finally contact a good friend who does energy work. She recommended some supplements to take, Gecko-A for me and Ashwagandha for Marty. It was only about 10 days of being on them that our energy returned, and the cough/wheezing was also down to a minimum. 

We both were vaccinated in early 2021 and continued to wear masks out in public. We kept up on the medical literature about the virus and its effects on the body. 

In August of 2021 we went to Texas for a well needed vacation. We both were feeling really good about our health, but I came home with the Delta variant. I was sicker than I had been with the original virus. Coughing, lack of taste, fatigue and brain fog were my main symptoms. As the months went on, I began to notice that I had chronic fatigue, a wheezy cough, lightheadedness, a feeling as though I was going to faint when standing up, memory issues (more than my normal from years of Migraine disease). I had no motivation to do much of anything.

I finally had to accept that I was experiencing Long Covid Syndrome. 

At this writing I am still having symptoms. Now I have extreme fatigue coupled with brain fog which means I spend most of my days watching TV. I just zone out. I have also developed PoTS (Postural tachycardia syndrome), which is a condition where the heart rate increases on changing the posture, such as lying to sitting up or standing. This causes dizziness and /or fainting. 

My mood has changed also. I am much moodier, and I overreact to things that normally would not be an issue. My PTSD is back, with times of such anxiety and fear that I have been back in therapy since September of 2021. Things I once enjoyed doing bring no such joy. 

When I first began to research Long Covid, there weren't a lot of information about it. Now though there is ample information online. I found an excellent article by John Hopkins Medicine which shows a link between Covid-19 and PoTS.

 COVID-19 and POTS: Is There a Link? | Johns Hopkins Medicine

"PoTS can be triggered by a variety of conditions, including viral or bacterial infections. Some researchers believe that coronavirus can be a trigger for PoTS, as an increased number of people who recovered from Covid-19 are now experiencing PoTS-like symptoms, such as brain fog, tachycardia (increased heart rate) and severe chronic fatigue."

In an article from the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland I found extensive research on Long Covid Syndrome. Here is a table from that article describing each body system and how it is affected by Covid-19 Syndrome. 

Long COVID-19 Syndrome: A Comprehensive Review of Its Effect on Various Organ Systems and Recommendation on Rehabilitation Plans - PMC (nih.gov)

For all of us who are living with Long Covid Syndrome it is so very important for those who are in our sphere to understand that we are not just making this stuff up. It is real, and it is not easy living like this. We need love, understanding, compassion and empathy. We need our physicians to listen to us and not treat us like this is all in our heads. We need them to keep up to date on information about the long-term effects of having Covid-19. 

Another website that may be helpful if you or your loved one is experiencing any of these symptoms is

Long Covid Symptoms & Solutions | Brain Fog | Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (rezilirhealth.com)

Our love Story, Part 2 ~ 1998

 January 1998 found us in our last quarter of school. We were busy with class, work and lots of clinicals. But we still made time for fun, it was well needed. 

For my birthday we had a spaghetti food fight with the kids

We had so much fun, even cleaning up

Love can be messy!

In February my mother died. We flew to Austin, and it meant so much to me that Marty came with me. It was the first time that my oldest son, Shan and his wife, Susan met Marty. After the funeral we went out to dinner to the restaurant that my mother loved but didn't get to go much because she thought it too expensive. We told stories about my mother laughing and crying. Marty helped lighten the mood as only he can.

Taken the morning we left in the U-Haul back to Minnesota.
 We were all exhausted from cleaning out the house in one week's time.

In April we went to another wedding!
 Love was in the air!

The month of May we celebrated our1st living together anniversary. In that year as our love for each other grew, I learned how to go from being scared to feeling empowered. Marty did that for me. He allowed me to breathe deep and to trust him completely. He convinced me to go on The Wild Thing at Six Flags, when I was so very afraid. But I trusted him. 

He took me hiking along the Mississippi and we climbed to the very top of a hill, and even though I wanted to give up he encouraged me, with so much love, telling me that he knew I could do it. He was right. He allowed me to be me. I loved that about him. He taught me that I was beautiful, that I was lovable, that I was perfect for him.

We climbed to the top

One movie that we loved was Titanic. Marty told me that he wanted a portrait of me like Jack did for Rose.  I told him he was crazy! But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I convinced myself that I could do it. I didn't know any artists that did nude charcoal portraits, so I called Rochester Community College Art Department and to my surprise there was a professor who taught a course in drawing nudes who did nude portraits. I called him and set up the first session. I was petrified to undress for someone who I never met before, but I kept hearing Marty's voice in my head asking me for a portrait like Rose's. The artist made me very comfortable, it was a job to him. I went out for four sessions, and it was done. I had done it, and I was so very proud of myself. I did it for Marty and he was the only man who ever made me feel absolutely beautiful.  

Here is Rose...

Here's me...

There may be some of you who do not get why I would share a nude portrait of Rose and myself. I share this because Marty's love for me, as Jack's love for Rose, allowed me to accept myself and I saw who I was through Marty's eyes. He brought healing to my wounded soul. It was this healing which gave me the courage to give him the one thing he wanted for our Anniversary. To me both portraits are ART. Plus, it is part of our love story!

We went on a very nice picnic for our Anniversary and
when I gave the gift to Marty, he loved it. He was very proud of my courage.

In June, after taking our National Registry written exam and the practical stations, we graduated, with honors I might say! Now we just had to wait for either a big envelope which had our diploma in it or a small envelope which said we didn't pass it. Thankfully we both passed! It was well worth the 2 years we spent getting through the program.

So happy to be done with school

Marty's parents, David and Sandi Matzke

My children, Kimberly, Joe and Sarah

We celebrated our freedom from school by taking Joe and Sarah to The Wisconsin Dells. We had such an amazing time. That is the other thing I loved about Marty, the way he was such a great role model for the kids. We had fun! Laughter and Joy abounded. 

Trying not to get too close!

In July Marty found us two options for paramedic jobs. One was moving to Montana, and the other to Ottumwa, Iowa. We chose Iowa. In hindsight we wish we had to gone to Montana! We made all the arrangements for our move, and although it was not an easy decision because I would be further away from my kids, it was the only place hiring at that time. We moved at the end of August into a really cute house that had three bedrooms, plenty of room for when the kids came to visit. 

We took Aunt Velda out to eat before we moved.

In October they came to live with us permanently. Marty and I had had numerous conversations about the kids coming to live with us and when they did everything worked out for the better for all of us. To have Joe and Sarah experience what was like to have Marty as a great role model as a stepdad figure made me love him even more. He was always so patient with them and I could breathe easy. 

We all painted pumpkins for Halloween

Joe enjoyed getting back into basketball

Sarah was part of the girls' basketball skills troupe

Marty and I worked at Ottumwa Regional Hospital's Ambulance Department. When we accepted the jobs, they told us that we would be for a 3-month probation period, and after that was over, we would both have full time positions. We made it to the three-month mark and Marty got sacked, because he'd not gotten along with a nurse in the ED. When we were not out on ambulance calls, we were required to work in the ED. Marty had never even been given a word of warning, they just fired him. I was so livid that I went in and told them that I quit too. 

Here we are before Marty got fired

    

We ended up picketing the hospital, which was the only thing we could 'do' to make us feel better about the situation.

Our landlords were wonderful. Once they knew what the situation was, they let us out of our lease agreement. We will always be grateful to them for doing that.

Our 1998 Christmas photo

Merry Christmas to all

We ended the year with my having gotten my job back at Mayo and we found a rental in Owatonna. We rented a U-Haul, and wouldn't you know that a winter storm blew in with lots of snow. We packed it all up though, in the blizzard, and we headed home...home to Minnesota.

Twenty-five Years Together ~ Our Love Story

Our Love Story, Part 1

25 years of loving together...wow!

On May 1, 1997, Marty and I began our lives together and we are still going strong after 25 years.

We met in 1996 when we were enrolled at Southeast Technical College in the Paramedicine Program. This was in Winona, Minnesota. For the first few months we did not like one another. I thought Marty was so annoying with his playing games in class, i.e., Hiding the remote for the TV when we would have remote learning for those folks in Red Wing that couldn't make it due to the weather. Marty on the other hand thought I was the teacher's pet, because I was the Work Study and helped our instructors with whatever they needed me to do. 

We stopped by in November 2021 while visiting family in Winona, MN 

 Slowly though, as we went out as a group after class, we began to see each other in a new light. Marty said it began for him on Halloween when we were one of a few people who showed up in costume.

For me it changed when Marty showed up in class having shaved his head. When we all went out for drinks after class that night Marty had gotten there ahead of a lot of us, so he was sitting down already. As we went past him everyone rubbed his head and when I did, he looked up at me and when our eyes met that was it. It wasn't soon after that Tom, my friend from being on Plainview Ambulance, and I were going home after class, and we were talking about who liked who in class. He told me that there was someone who really liked me, and it was Marty. I told Tom that I had feelings towards Marty also. 

I remember it vividly, as if it were just yesterday. Our paramedic class had stopped for break time. Kelly Goodnature and I were sitting in the second row towards the left of the classroom. We were talking about something that Laurie (our instructor) had just said, and then she went out to smoke.

That's when I heard "Charlotte?" I turned around, and Marty was sitting in behind me.
"Yes?" I answered, thinking that he just wanted to know something about the lecture.
"You look delicious."
"What?" I remember looking puzzled.
"You changed the color of your hair, and you look delicious."
Then he got up and walked out.
Leaving me there, speechless.

What the heck was happening? I had put my hair color back to as close to my original dark auburn as I could get (or the beautician had anyway), but not even my husband noticed.
And yet, here was this young man out of all the people in the world, who noticed.
And he said..."You look delicious."
That's why even to this day I call Marty my STD (Silver Toung'd Devil)
He has always had a way with me, still does!

There is no denying the fact that Marty enjoyed making fun of me, my naivete and my getting embarrassed by the raunchy jokes that are so much a part of being in EMS. Once such night, in March 1997 we had gone out after class, and we sat next to each other. Our knees touched and we both glanced at one another, and it was at this point that we knew we both had feelings for the other. But we both knew I was married, although the marriage had been over for years. My plan was to get through the Intensive Care Paramedicine Degree program, find a job and then go through with the divorce. 

This is the night when we both realized that we liked each other.
Marty is laughing because he just embarrassed me.

In early April of 1997 we participated in a mock EMS drill. The scenario was that there were some patients that had escaped from the mental hospital, and it was up to the Sherrif's Posse to find us and take us back to the asylum. It began early on Sunday morning and since we had class all day long on Saturday Marty asked if I wanted to stay over at his apartment, so I did. He made spaghetti for dinner which I was delighted with. We watched Tin Cup before we went to sleep, me on the couch and he in his bed. We woke the next morning and headed out to the farm where we would be hiding at. 

Marty was not going down without a fight. It took them awhile to get him in the car.

I am holding the mouse I found in the small outbuilding where I was hiding. It was what I used as a 'friend' who had to come into the ambulance with me. I wanted Charlie, pictured here, to do CPR on it before I would come peacefully.

When I got home from the mick call it become evident to me that I would need to change my plans for the divorce, as things as home became unbearable. So surprisingly to me once our medic class knew that I needed to find a place to live for a while they all got together and then came to me with their solution. One classmate, Connie, offered me a room in her house. She was single and had two daughters at home, but it was a great offer. She only had one bedroom for me to put all of my things in. I knew well enough that I needed to get everything out of the house in Plainview that I wanted to ever take with me. So, they told me the other part of their 'solution' and it was that I could put some items at Marty's apt.  I still had to leave my two youngest children with their father, and we agreed that once I had graduated, was a paramedic and had a job, that they would then come live with me. It ripped me apart, but I had to stick to the plan for me to be able to care for them by myself.

On May 1st the Rochester boys, as we called them, showed up in Plainview, as did Marty. They moved everything that I was taking with me into Connie's and then my computer and a few other pieces of furniture to Marty's. I had taken the family van, which was just junk. It would barely make it up the really big hill to Connie's house. But for a few weeks, I made do. 

I quickly found out that living at Connie's was not going to work. Her daughters fought like cats and dogs when she was gone, and she was gone all the time working for Winona Ambulance. It was impossible for me to study and sleep there. So, I began to stay at Marty's more and more, to do my work study for class and to have a quiet place to study and sleep. One evening after we had discussed our relationship, we decided that we'd just remain friends, after all I was quite older than he was, 17 years to be exact. But Marty was not to be trusted. He came over to the couch, sat down close to me and said, "Before we become 'just friends' I want to do one thing. He moved his fingers up into my hair, pulled me close and kissed me.

Here we are in our apartment 1997

Our first apt together, 125 E. 3rd St, Winona, MN
Outlined in blue. 2021

Three weeks later Marty told me he loved me. I was shocked. We had already decided that we would just have fun with each other until we got out of school. When I told my therapist about Marty and our age difference and that we were just going to live together through the end of school, and we had medic jobs. She laughed and said that I would be shocked at the relationships which work where the woman is much older than the man. I laughed, assuring her and myself that would not happen with us.

We continued to hide our relationship from our classmates as we didn't want to make it a big deal. We'd drive separately and we never sat next to one another in class. That all changed when we went to Fergus Falls to help the 1st class of Paramedics set to graduate in June of 1997 go through their practical stations. Marty and I drove together and checked into the hotel on Friday afternoon. I was registered in a room with 2 other women and Marty likewise with two guys. After the long drive up to Fergus Falls, we laid down in my room and took a nap before heading out to where our instructors and some of our classmates were camping. We awoke when one of the women came into the room after she checked into the hotel. Needless to say, she was dumbstruck and left the room very quickly.  We drove out to the campground and as we walked up to the camp everyone was laughing. They all knew we were a couple. 

Doc, one of the Rochester boys, took me for a motorcycle ride and talked to me much like a big brother making sure I was really sure about it all. I just told him the plan that we were going to live together while in school and until we found paramedic jobs. Three years later Doc would be a groomsman in our beautiful 2000 wedding.

Our lives as a couple began to take shape as the weeks went by. I bought my first car in June, a Toyota Celica which would later become a source of immense trouble. I had my kids every other weekend and we tried to always find fun things to do with them.  

Here we are right after I bought my car

Here we are with my kids, Joe and Sarah, on Sugar Loaf overlooking Winona

In August I got a job as a Lab Tech for Mayo, working in the Baldwin Bldg. in Rochester, MN. I'd take the bus from and to Winona and it wasn't too long after that when Marty was hired as a Pharmacy Tech for St. Mary's Hospital so we both worked for the Mayo Clinic. Life was going well. 

In August Marty surprised me with a dinner cruise down the Mississippi

We moved to St. Charles, MN in September so we would be halfway between Winona and Rochester. It was a very cute little one-bedroom apt. on Whitewater Ave. that suited us well while we were in school.

Here are some other photos from 1997

Going to work, we had the same evening hour shifts at the Mayo Clinic,
 so we could go to work together

Practicing our dance moves. 

We loved going out dancing. Marty's best friend Joel was the sound guy for a band, so we'd go out to hear the band and have a fun filled evening. We also enjoyed going to the Black Stallion in Winona and the Hot Fish Shop. It was actually at the Hot Fish Shop that the rest of our class, who had not gone to Fergus Falls, leanred that we were a couple. After watching us dancing it was very clear that we were an item. 

The Hot Fish Shop is no longer there. So sad.

This was at Marty's sister, Lisa's wedding in September

At the rehearsal dinner for one of Marty's best friends, Joel in November

Before Joel's wedding 

Singing at the reception.

Christmas 1997

Marty and I, my oldest daughter Kim and her beau Mark, who
happened to be one of our classmates, Sarah and Joe
Merry Christmas