I was tripping through the BikePortland archives this morning, and came across the articles written about Covid-19 and its impact on bicycling. Interestingly, the articles stop in late 2022. There are no meaningful references to Covid after that time at the most widely-read bicycle blog on the West Coast.
Which for anyone who is still living with the effects of Covid, is really strange and a little sad.
I rode my bicycle throughout the first year and a half of the pandemic. In Summer 2021, I got [Delta] Covid. I recovered, and then by the fall things got weird. I was experiencing shortness of breath, rapid spikes in heart rate whenever I changed positions, and a deepening fatigue and dizziness that got worse as the fall went on. By November, I was so weak I could not get out of bed some mornings.
I stopped riding my bicycle for almost a year.
Because of worker shortages absolutely everywhere, I would not be properly diagnosed until Spring 2022 with Long Covid, and brand new set of symptoms that posed a real puzzle to doctors and medical researchers around the globe. Ongoing worker shortages meant I could not begin to get treatment until the end of July 2022. My treatment was minimal, because so little was still known about Long Covid; I was issued a couple of different inhalers and advised to be careful about overexerting my heart and lungs. I received a blood transfusion, followed by weeks of iron infusions. They helped until about a month after the last infusion, when my symptoms worsened again. By mid-2023 I was doing better, and was able to ride my bike again now and then on shorter outings.
But the landscape had changed as well. There were fewer places for me to ride to. I couldn't work and I couldn't keep up with the people I used to ride with. And balance issues continued to plague me so that my rides were fewer and shorter pretty much forever after getting Long Covid.
Things slowly improved, to a point. I could play music again, and sing. I tried to book two tours, and was so exhausted after each that I knew my touring days were likely done. Then, arthritis began to make working with my hands more painful, and I had to stop playing guitar for awhile.
I was going to turn 61 later in the winter, and after months with no significant return to anything close to where my overall health had been before the pandemic, I talked things over with my partner and decided to file for SSDI (Disability).
That was a heartbreaking and frustrating process. Thankfully, I was approved after a little over a year of filing forms and waiting, and my payments began in February of this year.
I have continued to ride my bike now and then, to weekly gatherings at Bike Happy Hour or Coffee Outside; but with real limits on my stamina and a continued struggle with dizziness, my rides remained short and infrequent. Cold, wet weather became more difficult for me to ride through. All I could do was remember how young and hardy I had once been, and lament what robust health I had lost.
Long Covid accelerated my aging process a bit, and depression and grief colored my days for many, many months. With counseling and medication, I slowly transitioned from anger to grief and more recently to the beginnings of acceptance. I have a new normal, which I am still learning to identify. My heart is still okay, but Long Covid has changed the effectiveness of oxygen moving through my body. When I exert myself now, my brain gets signals that there isn't enough oxygen flowing to my other organs and extremities, and then my heart and lungs go into overdrive and make me short of breath and fatigued. This is apparently a hallmark of someone with Long Covid, and is a big reason that my disability claim was approved. I am still believed to have symptoms of Long Covid. There is no clarity around whether I will ever improve beyond what I have now, or if this will be my baseline going forward.
I have noticed some issues when I ride that did not trouble me before I got sick.
The arthritis has made braking more painful, even with exercises, gloves that I wear while sleeping, and pain medication. I am stiffer and find it more difficult to turn my neck as far as I used to to check for traffic behind me. And my IBS symptoms have grown more pronouced, with more trips to the restroom needed every day.
It's all of a piece, and there is no meaningful way to separate out specific symptoms and work on those while I learn to live with the rest. Every specific things seems to have affected every other specific thing. Since Long Covid is more likely to occur in those with autoimmune issues, I understand now that having autoimmune issues opened the door to Long Covid, and having Long Covid has affected all my other issues.
I am coming to terms with the reality that I will not have the body I had before the pandemic.
And part of that means coming to terms with the fact that I may have to stop riding my bicycle long before many other people my age do.
My sense of socialization has also changed with aging and changes in my overall health.
I simply don't go to bike-centric events as often as I used to. I still enjoy Coffee Outside, when it's located close enough to ride to. But a great deal of the rest of my bicycle life has frankly fallen off.
The Ladd's 500 was held last Sunday. I didn't go, partly because it coincided with the first day of Passover and partly because the event has grown so large that organizers had to get a permit to close the street this time. I knew that I would not be able to actually ride, and the idea of sitting on a chair and watching it all go by didn't appeal to me. It was fun, and I did it, and I don't need to anymore. I feel similarly about my racing days. They were fun, and inspired my personal growth in some wonderful ways, and I'm proud of what I accomplished. And I don't feel a strong need to go watch races anymore. It's all good, and I am at peace with it.
Covid changed everyone's life in some way. The greater the changes, the less in denial people seem to be about Covid's impact on society and the world.
It was startling to read the articles at BikePortland.org and realize that for the producers of the blog, Covid simply didn't have as great an impact.
Covid changed my life in big ways, and continues to do so even now.
It's a beautiful day today, Highs will be close to 70F. I may go for a bike ride, or just take a stroll.
We'll see.
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