Long Covid case study

Sue: I'd never heard of Long Covid and nobody really knows what it is.

It was about a month after I actually had Covid that I started to get some really weird things starting to happen in my body. I could hardly get myself out of bed. A lot of people talk about brain fog; it’s much worse than that. You can't function really. You can't process. You couldn’t have a conversation because you can't get your brain and your mouth to work together.

And it’s absolutely terrifying because having never experienced that sort of weight in your body you sort of think, what’s happening?

I had no idea what to do, what it was, where to go. The only real help I got was the rehabilitation help when I felt well enough to start thinking about going back to work.

Nicola: When I first reached out to Sue she was very firm at that moment to tell me that she wasn’t yet ready to talk about going back to work, and I explained to her that, no, you know, it wasn’t just about that, it was about anything else that we could offer to help her.

We had a very long conversation about what she’d been through and what she was suffering with and I kept in touch with her until she said to me, I think I’m ready now.

Sue: The way we approached my return to work was a sort of really phased, really gradual. So it wasn’t just about how many hours I was doing,  it was about the intensity of the work I was doing.

Nicola: It was really important that she could do something every day and feel like some of her days weren’t being stolen from her.

Sue: When I know I’ve got something quite intense coming up, I have to sort of plan the days around it and the hours around it as well as the day itself. And what that looks like is rest more than I think I have to rest. Make sure I do meditation and then if I know I’m going to have an intense day, don’t follow it with another intense day.

Nicola: For me, it wasn't about the diagnosis. It was about Sue, what was she struggling with. Who is Sue? What sort of things does she want to get back to doing and how can we help her to do that?

Sue: It was really important to me to try and keep some essence of normal back in my life when I was able to get out of bed. You know if I could just walk for five ten minutes, I would walk with my dog. Just getting out in the fresh air that’s really important part of feeling like there is something that is normal. And then the other thing was I’m part of a community called the Blue Tits, cold water swimmers and as I started to get a little bit better my fellow Blue Tits would contact me and say ‘we’re coming to get you’. And then as I’ve got better and better I don’t need them to come and get me and it's just such an important part of being me and allowing parts of me to come back.

So I’d actually finished up my rehab sessions with Nicola. I said, you know we’ve made so much progress together. I’ve got a lot of my energy back. I’m back to work full time and then I got Covid again. It was terrifying for me. I just couldn’t face the thought of going back to zero again. I know what to do now though. So what I did was I contacted Zurich again and I said, I need Nicola!

Nicola: When people have had a period of ill health, sometimes that can be really frightening. And I think knowing that there is someone there who listens to them, understands them, cares about them and is happy to support them, I think is really important to them.

Sue: If you’re trying to get back to work, don’t feel like you’re on your own, go to your HR organisation, or go to your wellness organisation and say ‘hey do we have rehabilitation?'. And I’m very grateful for it.