this is disabled girls who lift. We are reclaiming what's rightfully ours. One podcast at a time. It's mary Beth Chloe and Marcia bringing you the thoughts and unpopular topics to get you out of that. A bliss comfort zone. Mhm. Mhm. Already welcome. Hello everyone. Another episode of disabled girls who lift, we're out here so real quick. Thank you as always for supporting us on Patreon. Patreon dot com slash disabled girls who lift. You help us buy nicer headphones and microphones, pay the zoom fees and all that good stuff. But the long goal is to pay for transcribers to actually have this podcast accessible to folks who need to read it. So that would be nice. So, Patreon. Thanks Anyways, moving forward, this is Marcy a sitting on Seminole tribe, land in south florida. She they joined by the lovely mary Beth and a guest that she'll talk about. Uh mary Beth and I guess I am sitting on a lonely island today um in northern California and we are so excited.

I think Marcie has been following her for a long time now on twitter um to have good conversations with daria Oler um based on power button renate nation in Lincoln park. New Jersey. She's been a physical therapist, athletic trainer in New Jersey for quite some time now specializing in treating dancers and I believe you've you're a dancer and performer for over 30 years, right, three decades now. Um so here to talk to us a little bit about that experience as well as contracting COVID-19 last year. So thank you are so excited. Thank you so much for having me. Very exciting, Welcome welcome to the party. Um so I know that lately, yeah, I found you on twitter, so, but lately your twitter conversation has been a lot about long covid and that life. But before we even get to that, I'm a little bit curious about you're schooling because number one, I don't know much about like trainers to be honest.

And number two, I'm wondering what meets you go on to dpt school and also you were dancing, How does this work walking through? Yeah, so this is interesting. I stumbled on athletic training in high school. We had one of those aptitude tests you take and I was really interested in writing and I was looking for all the creative writing, english things and literally it was just athletic trainer and I like stopped and thought about it. Like I was interesting, I've been hurt running so I just looked into it. Yeah, so my under, that's when my undergraduate degrees and from James Madison University and the profession is really changing right now. But I kind of say when I started in it, the big focus was on working with athletes, sports teams, schools teams sort of starting and performing arts at that time. But a lot of orthopedics, we also do some general medicine type things and really being an emergency care. So that's on the field stuff if somebody really gets hurt. I always say we're the people that you see in the khaki pants and polos like run out on the field were typically literally the first person there when somebody gets hurt. Um Really good at triaging. So I'll get a lot of commentary that I'm good in emergency situations or like under stress.

But it's it's that training that I've had. Um And now it's branching out this isn't stuff I'm really involved in but branching out into the industrial settings, military law enforcement, more performing arts. Just kind of general populations are physically active. Not only specifically like sports athletes which is interesting but um yeah so at the time most athletic trainers would go on to get a master's degree and you had a grad assistant ship so you would typically work with the college sports teams or maybe a high school sports team while earning your master's and I was debating that because that's what most people did at that time. And then I saw Petey had switched over to a D. P. T. And I was like you know at the same time get a graduate degree doctorate. And I also be credentialed in another health care professional in addition to having another degree. I will also be a physical therapist. I didn't know much about P. T. I just knew like orthopedic outpatient. Just blown away my first year learning about everything else. But yeah and then so I've been dancing since I was three. Um Not serious if anybody listening is familiar with the answer, I did not have that crazy intense training. I wasn't in competitions or anything like that.

It just was once a week just for fun. And as an adult, when I was at Penn State doing graduate work, I stumbled on a studio and they pushed me into teaching and it just snowballed from there. So my past 11 years have actually gotten to do a ton, getting to perform in new york city, getting to be a little companies. Yeah, it's a lot of fun so that I didn't expect this wasn't like my whole life as a kid. Like for most people, it is, it just sort of really took off as an adult. No big deal. I just performed in a bunch of companies. It blows my mind when I thought of central pennsylvania to come back to New Jersey. I remember thinking like, where am I going to dance? Like I'm not going to dance in new york city, the best dancers in the world. And yeah, I just happened to find some opportunities that worked really well with me. So I always say I'm just going to take whatever dance throws at me. I did not expect to be doing anything with, outside of taking like a fun little class. Um, yeah, so that's a neat thing to be able to have. That is it's so funny is that reminds you of something I've been talking to with with my, my little family over here is like when were kids, everything that we do, especially immigrant kids write everything that we do is like, how are you going to make money off?

Right? Like there's nothing that you do for joy, Like, oh, you love cooking, wow, let's take you to a cooking class. It's like, oh, so you're going to go to school and become a chef, make money, right? Right. Like it's never, you never just doing it because you want to. So that's kind of awesome that you just had something you wanted to do. And at some point it came back around and you found a way to do something with it, but nobody was ever like, so you're gonna get go to Juilliard, right? Oh no. Yeah, I had the complete opposite growing up. And even when I started teaching dance and I always say like I was telling them I have no business teaching, I'm not a trained dance teacher already. PT and 80 at that point, so I was safe to teach people. But yeah, it just, it's just kind of came out of nowhere for me and I'm gonna add to, this is interesting. My husband has recently gotten into photography and is amazing. Like I am floored by these photos and everybody's always commenting and he's like, nope, not selling the photos, just doing it for fun, just enjoying it, wants nothing to do with making it like work or like a chore that he has to do and no matter how often people ask to buy his stuff, he'll just give them the prince for free.

Oh, that's awesome. That's definitely like a balancing act to play as an artist, right? You want, you want, you want to just do art and you don't want, once you have clients and things like that, there are some level of expectations that need to be done like kind of deadlines, right? It's not a spun anymore, but I'm challenging. Yeah, but I'm glad that dance still like, was continued to be fun for you for 30 years. Oh yeah, there's parts where it's hard. One of the companies I was in every month we had a different themed cabaret and I, it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't so I tap dance, it wasn't only tap dance that I was doing. So I didn't have like a reserve of dances to pull from. So every month I was creating new things like within that month and not just the choreography, but fully costuming it coming up with like the lighting editing on my music and everything. So that was a lot, it was so much fun, but to look back and like geez, that was so much work. It was great though and I have a lot of really crazy photos from it that people like, what are you doing?

Because I'm dressed up like Eureka from Eureka is castle or I'm like a flamingo and just, it's so much fun, that is awesome. And have you, have you gotten into doing rehab or strong training or anything like that with the dancers or is that just something for yourself more than anything? I'm kind of stuck with that right now because so previously the last clinic that I worked out, I started to see dancers and particularly preteens and teens, which are my favorite to work with just, you know, just word of mouth in in the area and we're pretty close to new york city to, which was helpful. And then we're now, I work at productivity in Lebanon, New Jersey and I started a year and a half ago and that was one of the thoughts in my head is that we could build like a whole dance program treating dancers and also doing some preventative work. But now, because of all the long covid stuff that have like such limited energy. Not yet because I want to do that right? I want to do a good job with that and knowing you know what's in my head with it and trying to learn how to work with this really limited energy source. Not yet, but I do, this is me, I do have one piece right now who danced as a child and it is the sweetest thing and she's in her sixties and so when you take ballet class it's a very structured thing, it goes to a certain order.

And at the end you have reverence and you're literally like giving thanks to the teacher, to the piano player there, there there's the whole thing and she does it at the end of every session we have, she does her little curtsy and like, yeah, it's something uh So hopefully, hopefully soon. I would love to because I know there's some great studios in the area, but not yet. So go ahead. I Mean, it just does take a lot of energy out of you because I mean, with physical therapy do have a lot of injuries and dancers or athletes, right? And you would have to be like 100% to bring them back to 100% at times. Yeah, it's challenging even now just demonstrating things for just, you know, whatever patient on seeing, I'll go to do an exercise and like, hold on, I forget like one of the teens, they were doing big jumps and leaps and stuff like that. I forget. Yeah. All right. Really? I want to win. So, It depends like I will I don't tell everybody because like if it's like a 17 year old boy, I'm not gonna say anything.

So, it depends on the person, the people I tell they're totally fine, but they don't mind at all. But yeah, I feel weird if I tell the younger patients about it because that's just that's a lot for them. But yeah, so hopefully eventually I will get to treat dancers again. Hopefully have you changed the way that you, you said you changed jobs? Is that because of the long covid or unrelated Unrelated. I started January 2020 and then I got sick. March 2021. Really? Oh, gotcha. But have you had to change the way you do your job or how much you're even able to show up? Is it in person? Is this tele, Yeah, everything's in person had a couple of telehealth business and that was just like the patient's choice earlier in the pandemic. And it's interesting cause there's different parts to my job. So the clinic part um was two days a week, 12 to 6 and then a few months ago made it three, which is hard. I didn't anticipate adding one half day would be such a big thing, but it was, and I used to be more manual based and I just get tired. Like I'm only five ft.

I'm not, you know, the biggest of people and just even like my forms, I get tired and I would just feel like really drained. So I've kind of figured out ways around that and I make sure I sit more if I don't have to stand if I'm not demonstrating something, I sit on the stool on the floor on the table, whatever. I will make sure I sit down. It's like our space is pretty big, We have a gym. But um we have a whole building too, and the treatment rooms are like around a corner down the hallway, so I try to always have patients in the gym unless you know, they really want privacy, so I'm not running between the rooms and the gym. And then um every morning we have employer clients and were on site at their jobs. So I work with construction workers and just by nature where we are, it's a lot of fun, but it's a lot of walking, it's a lot of outside walking in steel toe boots, which are heavy and I didn't anticipate that when we got back after we had to be away for the pandemic and like my shins would kill me. Um and a lot of talking to many people, and when we got back last year in july, it was still brand new to me and my brain was just everywhere.

There's so many people I was meeting every day, I'm at a different location and people have masks on, so I'm trying to remember them and I couldn't because I only, you know, would see part of their face and I would look on the employee directory, like I don't know who they are. Like, that was really Yeah, so I would write down everything, I always have a notebook with me, I'm writing down every little piece of information I could put like someone's name and like the type of necklace they have on now, it's gotten easier now that I'm familiar with more people, but in the beginning it was hard because I didn't have like a norm, like this was a new job for me. So I would just have to figure out early on where the air conditioned rooms because it gets so hot in the summer. Where are the rooms that have the paper towels and I can wipe off because I sweat so much. So it's a lot of weird stuff like that that I just kinda have to figure out as I go and this summer has been way better than last summer. Last summer was really, really difficult because I didn't know what's going on. I think the most part there's very little air conditioning with construction that's all outdoors, rain or shine. Nice sport of parties lined up and it's loud, there's a lot of trucks, equipment and just people are loud because they had to learn how to be loud and yeah, there's just so many weird things that would have never not expected interesting that you had to be on site though.

Yeah, so they have like, um, yards, what they're called, where they meet, which is like, we're all the trucks and equipment and all that stuff are and then they go out to their jobs and I've got to go like to their actual jobs to a couple of times, which is planning ahead because I did this a month ago. Um We were in the middle of the heat waves, it was literally 95° outside and I was outside in the morning, which is what I usually do and then I had a little break and I was going to be outside all afternoon where there was almost no shade and right in the middle was me being at one of their job site. So I really had to plan ahead and I just got out the day before so I was making sure I drink a ton of gatorade. I Pringles like any, I was trying to get salted and making sure I was like drinking Gatorade throughout the morning. So I'd be able to like be um at this job site and be okay and I had to get suited up. There's all the safety stuff. I had to wear a lot of planning that goes into this that I definitely did not appreciate before equipment. Oh yeah, big time. So I have a two part question for you is is how long did it take you to figure out how to make things work for you and then how long, maybe before that even get to that?

How long did it take you to realize like, all right, something's up. Oh well sir is the 2nd 1. I like in the very beginning, like what I call day one because I had body aches and nerve pain, like normal when you get sick. Like I knew something was up and that was trying to move out. So like, that was the week. Everything kind of closed and I'm in the Northern Jersey, right outside the city. Things are really bad here. So I knew something was wrong because I felt like garbage and my breathing was really struggling. Like it hurt. I was winded, walking and talking killed me and I previous as a distance runner and just walking up the stairs, being on the phone was so difficult. I have, like, catch my breath, but like looking back, I definitely didn't appreciate the severity at all. Like, not even close. I was still trying to run, still trying to dance, still trying to do it because once your covid negative, like it's over. I'm done. It's negative. Well, even that, like, I couldn't even get heard. Yeah, I go get tested because it was March. There was no test. Oh my God, you had never felt these symptoms before.

You had never had shortness of breath. Oh, I forgot about that. You got it when it was brand new. I had shortness of breath. It felt like I had bronchitis once in high school. Like, you know, it's kind of like that feeling, but that's it. Yeah, I was, I had nothing going on. You had a bunch of us in the first wave. Yeah, we all joke like, there was no test in March 2020, like, we can't prove it, but, and I lost my smell for one day. So that's my big indicator in case there's any question that maybe it was something else. I lost. I definitely lost smell for a day before we knew it was a symptom. So I didn't appreciate how serious this was. I didn't appreciate, I don't know anything about post viral illness, like I had mono years ago and I was tired for a year, but I was, it was my first year PT school. I did find I was able to still run and everything like I just would be tired sometimes. It wasn't that bad. So it wasn't until, so that was March till the end of july where PTS in myalgic encephalomyelitis, chronic fatigue reached out to me and we're telling you to stop because I was tweeting all the stuff I was doing, honey, what is you doing?

Girl had no idea. Yes. So they were great. And even then they were sending me information, but what, like, I still did not appreciate how serious this was. Like, I would go running at work. We have a running club and are very serious. Runners literally was running 7.5 miles with long covid, like full blown symptoms still running and I would get home and like go to sleep. That was a crash. That was a full post exertion symptom exacerbation. I didn't know that's what it was like, oh, I'm just tired, I'm gonna sleep on the floor. Um so it took like a month from there and one of the biggest things, there's a documentary unrest by jennifer brea who is chronic fatigue and that was like stopped me because you see her going through all these horrible things. There's one part where she goes to some sort of like rally or something and it's like really excited to be there and then she's outside her house on the flake outside on sidewalks, fetal position, like crying and in pain and like her husband can't get her up and I was like trying to put the pieces together like what is going on with her?

She tried to go hiking and then you make it and that's as I start talking about chronic fatigue is when it really, you know, I started to sort of appreciate it, but I probably still don't fully appreciate this, but it's in the past couple of months and I'm getting better at modifying my life. These are your two symptoms like chronic fatigue and there's more, yeah, I get a lot of brain fog. So I will forget things that I should know, like my debit card pin number, which is a very meaningful number to me and I will just blank or names names that, that I should know. Not like other people, but like people I've known for a long time. Um I'll forget things, it's not as common now, but I like, I couldn't learn my dance choreography. I couldn't remember some like basic names of steps and things even within pt like basic anatomical things, I would kind of be in my head for a minute trying to remember the name of a body part. Just so like it feels like my brain is just like bees for for era. You're kidding searching, you're just like, you're looking at me found like that, like that happens a lot.

And in the beginning I didn't know that's what it was and I was trying to like, I don't know, I guess it's the pandemic. I guess it's stressed like I'm home, maybe it's being on zoom a lot. Oh no, that was definite brain fogs and so like I can't read full journal articles still or read like pieces of them like an abstract or like people are great when they do like threads on twitter and they sum it up, that is so helpful for me because you're having to do like heavier work. Like that is challenging or doing a patient about for an hour, like being fully focused for an hour, sometimes an hour and a half is a lot and that I feel like it's hard because you can't for me, I can't quantify it. Like I can count how many breaths taking a minute. Yeah, like I can say I'm short of breath and I'm taking 22 breaths a minute instead of the like that's a really objective thing and I can't always quantify the brain fall and so did you have to meet with a physician and be like, okay it's been two months it's been for, it's been six months. What's going on? Like why is this lasting so long? I haven't done that and this is where I'm like the worst as a patient because so in the beginning two things one, we were not allowed to go to the doctor unless we were dying because it was so bad here.

They're just hospitals are completely overwhelmed. So I would have loved to have gone. We're back to that now anyway. Yeah. Yeah, luckily here is not as bad. Like the Northeast is the rest of the country, but yeah. Um so I couldn't go to the doctor the beginning and I didn't have insurance and I got it. I just got insurance in january and I've said this a few times, filling out the forms online to get insurance was so hard for me. Like many meltdowns on the phone with my mom who kept pushing it. You have to sign up. You have to sign up. This is the deadline and even beyond just the picking plans. So I'm adopted and this is the first time ever. I had to put, it wasn't my alien number. So I've never heard of these numbers before. I call my parents like we don't know what you're talking about. So I'm taking out my like my all my paperwork for my parents adopted me. Like, what are these numbers panicking that something's going to happen to me with like ice if I don't fill it out correctly. But like no one knew how to help me with that. So that added like this whole other level of stress. And after that I was like, I don't even know how to pick a doctor.

I can log on and see the list of who's who is an approved provider. But two, my mom keeps out. I just go get blood work. It doesn't matter if they know long Covid just get blood work. Like, I know, but if they don't understand what I'm talking about and they're not listening to me. I can't do that. I've had unfortunately people that I know you tried to dismiss me try to downplay symptoms. Not believe in long cove there. Like I don't have the energy to have to do that again with a with an actual physician. It's a great time. Fun part. Yeah. It's a fun time. And it's at a point where it's like, tolerable, you know how to adapt. You know, you can still do your daily tasks just not over exercise like he did in the beginning. Yes. Right. And those changes. Yes. And I was lucky. What was it like? Early december Jessica de mars who's a respiratory pt in. Canada was helpful. We did a zoom session and she just like blew my mind with how much stuff, you know, within her area that I was I was complaining about breathing symptoms, she's tying and tying it into my autonomic nervous system, which I didn't know anything really about relative to what I was going through.

So that was really helpful. It's like, oh, okay. So now I know these pieces of information. I sort of understand what's going on with part of this and I can kind of manage it. And that actually helped tremendously. And then let's just in general, I feel like pt twitter has been so helpful and all the other just physicians, epidemiologists, everybody sharing information. I think I'm getting a good handle on. Yeah, I mean, it's it's a tough balance because the way that our little country is set up is like if you go to a doctor thinking that they're going to find a cure fix, you have the answers. They won't like everything that you're doing, You have to do that no matter what you have to be the expert on yourself, your condition, what works, What doesn't work. Like you have to go through that whole ship no matter what. But then also if you want to, you know, claim benefits or later you want to get definitely for something like you still have to have that documented, right? So it's like you still have to go to emotions of just having like a dude in your back corner with, you know, a couple of abnormal blood results and like a couple of things so that when sh it happens, you can be like, all right, that's my person.

Like it's really fucking dumb. Yeah. There's nobody that's fixed anything for me. No, no doctor. No physician has done anything that has helped me like medically. But at the same time, if I want to get tested for things, that's what I have to do. And I don't even work for anybody. Right? So don't even have to worry about that part. If you work for somebody, you need accommodations like, oh, we're going back up for one second. Don't forget that. You just saw a couple weeks ago the Katrina Lab, which is at Mount Sinai in new york city. There like one of the leading experts on helping people of Long Covid. They shared a conversation that a patient had called their insurance company and the insurance company doesn't recognize Long Covid as a condition like, okay, well can I increase my coverage? And they're like, wait, no, because I see you have a condition called Long Covid. Like way what planet do you live on convenience? So it doesn't count when I need something. But when you want to charge me, it's real.

Yes. I have like, wow patients or energy to deal with any of that. Yeah. That's a lot of hoops. It's a lot of hoops not. And most health insurances are pretty trash. So unless, unless you sell your body to the military like I don't know, most insurances are not that great. You make an interesting point that this is and I just had a thought of before as in situation that yet you kind of expect that people are going to have answers and help and here's your treatment here is exactly we're going to do to fix you. And that's not really a thing. And and I'm learning this now from twitter and seeing not only people with chronic fatigue because they've been so helpful to everybody as long covid, but just in general, different chronic illnesses and disabilities explaining their stories. Like I had no idea this existed in my settings are typically see orthopedics which for the most part of people of temporary pain and disabilities, you know, they broke a bone, they sprain their ankle, whatever and then, you know, we help rehab them, they're going to be back to normal. But for you, all this other stuff, I had absolutely no idea how difficult this really is and all the gas.

What does that goes on. You know, you're useful to be disabled. So you're still working your lucky very young. Yeah, I get tired too. Sometimes that's the worst. That's rest more. Oh, how to make me bad and mad in a sentence or less. Like that's the one with long covid video, we've talked about how the word fatigue does not accurately describe what we experience. And even, you know, I have friends who pts who mean well and with chronic fatigue syndrome there just like they just take it at word value that Oh yeah, your extra time on my own. No, there's a whole background that goes on with this and to me, I think a fatigue right? When I had mono, like I said, I could still function. I can still do things. I just got really tired sometimes, but this is a different level. This is like, I literally can't function. I can't get up. I can't like I'm just having to get up to go to the bathroom. I'm like weighing out how much energy this is going to take sometimes.

Like, is this really worth it? Can I wait a little bit more? There's once I crashed really hard and my husband said something about like, maybe you should try eating. And I was like, I've been thinking about that for hours. I can't get up and like, and I've been Thirsty for three days. Just tired. And I ended up that one day I ordered delivery to a place that's down the street, it's like half a mile away. And like my kitchen's like roughly equidistant as like the front door and like, but if I order it, it's going to be prepared. Everything is right there. I don't have to do a thing. So I'm gonna order food instead of just like opening the fridge and having to prepare something. I had no concept of this at all before. I think it goes into like I have to literally manage everything that you're doing and always think about all right, if I have to do this and what do I have to do the next day? Okay. Okay. What do I have to do? What's optional, what do I want? Who's gonna like, oh my God, not to mention how expensive that becomes. Like not just ordering take out, but living that chronic fatigue life in general and how much time to you feel like you've wasted because time is money and you're behind on work and clients and it's never ending.

Yes. Oh man. Yeah, I was so behind on patient notes and it's not like for lack of trying, it's just, I would either be so symptomatic in the clinic and like you guys, it's like, I don't know what days are gonna be bad, I don't know you know what day is gonna feel awful and just trying to get through the day. Like if I could like let's just get through, I'm counting down the hours and I'm like I can't I need to get home and I actually have a long commute. So I'm also considering that like I could stay and do notes but I need to get home safely and then you're just trying to I want to rest on the weekends, but then I'm like but I need to catch up because I'm gonna fall more behind and people are like, oh, but you need the rest like, yes, but now I'm just gonna have more things to do, it's just, you know, it just builds up every day and, and I still think like, I'm, how I used to be that, okay, I'm going to do this and this and this and this and I get to the first thing and like that's it. There's Only 24 hours in a day, can't extend it. So do you have less clients now than you had two years ago? It's hard to compare because it's different. Like my, my last job, I was working monday Wednesday friday 8 to 8, like Patients every 30 minutes give or take a pretty steady, I could never, there's no way to be able to do that now, but like I see this monday Wednesday friday 12 to 6 and I'll see 1 to 2 patients an hour and it's just, I'm just kind of going with the normal flow of, you know what happens where sometimes it's quiet or sometimes it's busier, but we're trying to, recently, I've been speaking up a little bit to try to be more aware of if I have too many evils in a day or a week like that adds up, not only in that for me to have to focus, but the to write the evil that, you know, it takes a long time just trying to be a little bit more aware of things like that.

Or if there's more involved patients like say it's a kid with a straightforward orthopedic injury that's not too taxing for me versus if it's a, it's an older adult who's a really big fall risk and doesn't have good insight into their risk. That's a lot. I had one patient with Long Covid who just by chance, found her way to our clinic. She didn't know about me and you know, I had a lot of help to offer, but that's really emotionally draining and to have you as I'm trying to process and, you know, go through all this trauma and I'm hearing her explain and she has her own trauma and some awful things that happened within the medical community with her. Like that's a lot and I didn't know I didn't anticipate that when I took her on as a patient. So stuff like that now that I'm trying to be more aware of mm. Yeah, there's a lot, a lot going on and it's all stuff that is so easy to ignore when it's working well. Yes, very easy to ignore. Um I want to, I want to know how you're getting back into the swing of things, but before we do that and I didn't mention this before, but we're just gonna take like a two second break here.

Um So on the youtube, we're just gonna be just sitting here, but on the audio version on youtube. No, it's too much work. No, look at our faces, but on on the audio it'll be a commercial break. So like two seconds. Just, you know. Mhm. Okay, that's it. That's all very simple, Nothing dramatic, we'll get it in the post. Alright. But anyways, um so I would love to hear how you got back to your dancing or whatever else you were doing before that. Because I know for me that was probably the hardest thing to figure out is what is the right amount of movement, What can I do? What can I do, what extra ship do I need to do to hope it works better. That took me years. Yes, I it's so messy because early on I just kept trying to do everything like when everybody was home um in spring 2020, also many dance classes were online, some of the top teachers in the world, we're teaching for free. I was trying to do everything because when would I ever have access to them?

And that was a really stupid idea. Um It's been literally me trying to do as much as I can until I crash and like I can't do this anymore. So like with running first, I was trying to run it and I would stop a little bit and I was just back and forth, back forth and last august I hit a moment, I was like, I can't do this, like this is clearly not working and this is so cute now to look on my facebook post or like I'm gonna take two weeks off. That'll help. That was a year. That was over a year ago. I genuinely thought two weeks was like the time that I needed and then I would be okay. It's been a long two weeks for Covid to, oh my God, leaks. Yeah, it's yeah. So, and I had from that time from when I was like two weeks, I would jog a mile, kind of see what happens. And even then it took me months to realize to literally watch my heart rate the whole time. And so I kind of tried to do a little and then I couldn't try and I couldn't. So most recently I didn't jog at all for the whole summer for three months, which wasn't really by choice. I just was hitting a point where like nothing was working at all.

Yeah. So which sucks. I love running this summer. So I just tried again last week, I jogged a mile super slow and it was ok watching my heart rate and then I tried again a few days later and got home and like I crashed like could not get up for hours, like, so I don't know the answer is I haven't, I'll see and I'll take, I haven't figured it out yet for 500, but definitely it made attempts, especially since that's your life. That must be so hard. Yeah, it's a little tough because you don't know how to reframe the way that you used to plan these things. You're basing it on an old model, like the way that I plan things in my workouts and like I used to work out, I used to train four days a week, you know, like 2.5 hours, whatever was on the paper did it. I used to do like a hot yoga class and then do squats. Like what this body, that's a privilege. How No way.

No, no. I have to start out the way that I even get back into close doing things that I'm doing now Is like literally remembering what I can do and doing like 10% of that. And even though it kills me because it feels easy I learned the hard way that if I do what I, what I thought I should be able to do, I'm going to be dead for four days. So it's literally just like cutting down your ego, like slow down and doing that tiny bit for a long time and then being like, all right, I can handle a tiny bit. Here's a tiny bit more. Yeah, I literally just told a friend before, was it either the first or second time. I just jogged in this past week. I was saying I'm gonna jog a mile slow in my neighborhood. It's flat and I even said to him, I know I should do like a walk jog, but I hate that. Like to me a mile isn't even like he wasn't even a distance, you see that here we go. So now I'm like dating like, alright, I could kind of walk jog maybe then because like with dance, so I did for dance, I didn't dance the whole summer.

I always dance on my own around the house, but I have not taken class in over three months, which is a really long time dance I had done better with because it's stop and go and whether it's virtual or in person. My teachers are great and they're like, do whatever you can, you know, like, like even in rehearsal, my director would kind of look at me like, I know because I would get so caught up in what we're doing and I would remind myself and I was like, check my heart rate and everything. But again, like in the enemy, I was just, it was too, there's so much going on and I'm like, if I have to prioritize, what do I have to do? Like go to work, clean my house and cook, eat whatever, you know, dancing, running. I don't have to do, even though I feel like I have to do them. But what's interesting with that with the time off? Like my cognition has gotten worse. Dance to me is like cognitive rehab because the stuff I've been doing for so long that even if it's new choreography or whatever. I I've been doing all the steps for my whole life and I feel like my brain is even less sharp than it was before. So rehearsals start next week and I'm friends with my doctors have talked about this like physically see what I can do, I'm not going to push but I'm curious if even just watching rehearsal or as much as it's like this hurts but say I just watch videos of class because there's plenty of tap teachers that I post videos for people to learn, like just watch it.

So I'm getting the cognitive part of it and so stimulating my brain and stuff I'm familiar with to see if that helps even though I physically can't do everything yet. That's hard. Yeah, that's like step by step because it is mentally and physically draining to do the task but to watch the task and to try to remember at first that that would be a good first step I think because somebody, a friend had sent me a video of um Flamenco dancing which I don't do it but I love it. Yeah, it's beautiful and yeah and just hearing the sound, my agreement and that's what made me think of it because it's that's that's so soothing for me to hear all the percussion alright so that's gonna be my new thing to try to start this thing. Yeah you gotta watch cut your ego down, get a nice chain saw out of that ditch up cut the ego down because I'm sure it's in the way I'm curious about like especially since you're on twitter and very active on twitter and just social media in general, the criticism that long Covid might get because I know chronic illness, the spoon e community, you know, it's it's its own thing very similar, but do you still have like those bro's online that are like you're faking it, what are you, what are you talking about?

Like you know like what I mean and you don't have to you know, talk about the hard because that's that's also mentally exhausting the gaslighting online but what have you experienced? I personally have been fairly lucky um the frustrating ones for me and just with long covid physio in general, we'll get our within Pts predominantly who really want to push created exercise and that, you know, there's a thought we're not trying hard enough and that we're in our heads too much and oh it's it's you're over, you're overreacting and stress anxiety but you know those things and we're trying to say that's not it and they've been like known Pts who have very big platforms will put information out like this is dangerous because someone is going to look to their information so you're you're an established person like this is really dangerous and it's a fine line because you need to speak up but you don't want it to just, you know, go back and forth and just get ugliest things can on social media.

So that's been the hard time for me. And I know there are other pts who are pretty public who with long Covid who feel they just get a little bit more I think than I do, but that's been, I luckily haven't had many people at all just not believing me or like you're just faking it, you're not you don't want to be better kind of thing. But it's just that as though we don't know how our bodies are responding and if I'm telling you I've been a runner forever, I've been a dancer forever. I love to exercise. So the fact that I'm not exercising should tell you something and it's not just all of a sudden one day I decided oh forget it, I'm not gonna exercise anymore. So that's that's for me, that's the hard part. And what is its colleagues. You know, it's people that I know whether it's in person or I know them through social media for years who just aren't listening, they're not, you know, they're not trusting us as clinicians who are patients with it. Actually, there was an orthopedic surgeon. Um but who sort of condescendingly months ago had said that I was tweeting like a patient, like I am one, what does that even mean? You're a patient too bro, right, like it was a weird like putting me down and so I'm supposed to just be very objective, scientific.

I'm like, no, there's so much more to learn from what I'm going through them. Just like you're my heart rate. Yes, I stopped engaging with. You can't see both sides of healthcare, just you don't you don't care. You're tweeting like a patient that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I mean, I'm going to keep it's like that student versus teacher mentality or label to power, like hierarchy thing. You're not looking down at people like you're guiding people, you why not? God yeah. What's nastier that they have obviously a very large following. They have hundreds or dozens of clients as well who look up to him and then they're feeling gas lighted as well, you know that? And they're paying them you're being paid like ship. There was a physician who hadn't really engaged with, I don't think before, but he made a really condescending remark towards um somebody who has long Covid has been a huge advocate, like one of the giant giant people doing so much work um really, really nasty about because she's trying to explain, I want to say lab work if I remember correctly, and I literally message about this, you have patients who are seeing this, it's not only your colleagues because that's bad, but there are human interest.

Could be your literal patients who are seeing that you're being rude to this person who's dealing with a chronic illness trying to help herself and trying to help just the community at large. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm always, I'm careful sometimes because I'm like, oh no, it's certain things I say. I'm like, well what response is this going to get? Because it's me being a human, it's not me being a scientific physical therapist quoting from a textbook and at the end of the day, older white dudes don't like when people tell them they're wrong. So it doesn't matter what, especially if it's a woman. Yeah. It doesn't matter what. And she's not white, this peasant telling me what she just got her degree because of affirmative action. Anyway. You don't give a ship all of this. Don't still I don't like I understood all of this what we're saying now, but I had no concept. Um and just seeing how much, you know, women are gaslight and not believed anybody who's not white is not believed so much harder.

And I know we're stupid. I know with chronic fatigue will see that I'm afraid the numbers, the majority of people are white and I'm like, are they? And I don't know. But are they or people of color just not being believed and they're not being counted. And I'm curious too because that's been happening with long Covid a little bit and like it seems really unlikely where the majority of people affected with acute Covid infections were people of color. Yeah. But then long covid is mostly affecting white people know that's a question of access, which nobody ever asked. I mean it's like how many things are rare? Like people say AIDS is rare and it's like, is it? Do you really think it is? They're just people like mast cell syndromes not comment at all. Uh Are you sure? Are you sure? Like I'm literally right now I'm being worked up for like one of the top three auto immune diseases. And yet nobody who I've seen in the past 21 -15, I'm not doing the math years has ever even thought of it. And it's the most common one.

So people can't even think of the most common thing. How am I going to believe when you tell me what things are rare? I'm not, I'm not, I'm not Yeah, like we're literally, I think we do with the DS example, like I've been around dancers my whole life. That is a thing. It's definitely a thing that exists that's not super rare. It's not, it's not, but if it's not, you know, in the textbook, it wasn't written down in front of them. And it's so funny because at the end of the day it's like, so number one you don't care. You're in healthcare like get out. But like number two, like you went to school, you did something science and you're all for science, right? Like isn't the whole point of science skepticism and asking questions and now someone's asking you a question, you're like, whoa, But I know science. It's like this. Yeah. But it's always like my science, my science is true and your science is false. It's like, I'm not the science that makes me comfortable. Like, just this makes sense to me. Just say what you mean. Like it's not about the met, it's not about the research, it's not about the evidence is about you don't like feeling uncomfortable because you don't know everything.

Just say what you mean. That makes me think of I've seen this mug that goes around on twitter and it's like, don't confuse your google, served with my whatever degree. Like you need to listen to people. I can't explain that enough. And yes, maybe a patient who is not in health care is not going to go super detailed scientific information that that's not what they do, but they can explain what they're going through. They can explain their symptoms. And like for me last year in the summer, I didn't have the vocabulary to know autonomic dysfunction, but I just felt like my body was not processing things correctly. Like, and I would say crash and I don't know there's actually a word that like, people with chronic fatigue use. But to me that's what it was. I just would crash and just that alone. You know what I hadn't spoken to somebody, but if I had should have been, you know, should be enough to trigger something. But at the same time I could I know other people who have autonomic dysfunction, that those symptoms just get dismissed as like, it's a panic attack anxiety or of course you were sweaty, it was hot out. You just need to make it, thanks God, the meditation, the yoga, the Pilates, which are fine things, you know?

But that's not what is going to fix any of. You're still not listening to me though, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. No, I've never had anyone um again, right? Like things that are rare or common in their evidence based. Like, I've never had not one person look at my junk es joints and be like, oh, I wonder if you have a D. S like, I've never had one person. I'm telling you, I get dizzy. I'm telling you, I have brain fog, I'm telling you. But I'm telling you, I'm 32 years old and I wear compression stockings and my feet are swollen and at no point in time. Are you ever, like, maybe your things that are automatic aren't working well. Like, never. Never. I have never worry about this. Never. So this is this has been to trust these people. Yeah, I had a story and I don't have, like a definitive answer, but years ago I had a patient and um she had a knee scope and she was not my schedule for an evil and kept canceling a few times. Like who is this lady that keeps canceling because she literally couldn't get out of her house. She was in so much pain with the help of her husband can get of her house and she had had a scope, what does she have her lateral release like years earlier, that's it.

And her and she was middle aged and her kneel like this old arthritic knee and it just like blew my mind because she previously was fine and it was a really long, long like over pretty close probably a year that I was seeing her and even then she was still had to use assistive devices to walk and everything and we stayed friends was like really slow progress and then last summer and she always had like weird symptoms that nobody was able to kind of figure out what was going on. And she sees some holistic people and then last summer she fell and that seemed to have triggered something that all these symptoms got worse and she was diagnosed with A. L. S. And unfortunately she had passed away maybe like 68 weeks after her diagnosis. And I wonder now looking back where all those like I said that me that just did not look like what I would expect to see if it wasn't it wasn't going. Yeah and I know she had gone to many physicians and had blood work and had all these tests but knowing that she was a woman who is middle aged who is not white and like, I wonder how much they might have written off, like maybe borderline lab values are just kind of a God forbid your fat because that will be the reason.

Yes. Oh God forbid if you're not a tiny person, it's like, what's your weight? That's it, get out of my office, What time is it? Like, that's another one. And I think that's, I think that's a one thing that you learn from the communist illness community, like being in it. Um I mean there's like that's a conversation because there's weirdness there, but just being in it, then you can understand like the levels because when you look things up on Mayo clinic as a regular person or when you actually go to school, you learn about disorders, like they're always like, oh well lupus is commonly diagnosed from age this to this. Like they don't ever say like, you know what a person is probably gonna be slightly weirdly fucked up for 10 years and then they're going to be diagnosed with lupus, like they don't teach you that you just think it's, you're super sick or you're not, but that's a sad reality is like, luckily that patient, you know, got a diagnosis before she passed a lot of people, it's too late.

Like you don't know, oh she probably died from a stroke. She probably died from so many other things because she was a woman of color and that is why that illness is so uncommon, right? Because they didn't get the diagnosis beforehand where we could be treating thousands of people before they fucking die. Just listen to us. That's how I feel now with, with long Covid where it's so weird to be in the middle of as this is all happening. And obviously like illness from a virus chronicle muslim virus isn't new. But to me, so many people, we didn't for whatever reason, didn't know about it. And I feel like I'm constantly trying to warn people whether it's warn people as humans to, hey, we're a mascot vaccinated stuff or as clinicians to say like, you need to be aware of these things. It doesn't matter what the person is coming to you for, it could be orthopedic, something simple, but they're going to have a whole body. Yeah. Like, yeah, like in sports medicine, even I've been trying to speak up or there is, I haven't found evidence on this, but with the autonomic dysfunction, are they at an increased risk for key illness, which is a really big thing And there's been, and there was a big increase in deaths in high schoolers.

Um, I think mostly football, in august, I'm obviously not going to know why, but I'm like, I wonder if any of them have long covid, if there was some underlying stuff that they're kids, they're not going to necessarily know how to report it. It's easy to write kids off unfortunately. And just say that last year, This past August yeah, there was, I want to say I might be slightly off, but maybe like seven or eight deaths in 26 days or something. It was like ridiculous. Like more than there unfortunately are always going up high. School coaches are crazy and do unsafe things. But there was a, it was a much bigger number than we would expect. And yes, I'm curious like if any of them might have had some lingering symptoms from covid and just, yeah, especially with this idea that, oh, Covid doesn't affect kids. Kids don't need to worry about it. They don't need to get vaccinated. They don't need to wear masks. They probably didn't consider that the stories I'm seeing from pediatric ICU physicians and nurses, pediatricians, you know, even just in private practice, what they're seeing, it is so sad and knowing what we know from adults, it seems really unlikely kids would just magically not be affected.

And from my experience when I said, like, I couldn't verbalize everything I was going through. I didn't have the words. How is a kid going to describe how is the kid gonna say they have feelings fog. Yeah, it is that's really, really upsetting to see, um, everybody put all the walkouts to not wear masks in schools. Yeah, I can't even explain how much is like, this hurts me so much to see what is going on with Children right now and I feel like years or now when they're young adults, adults are going to ask like why didn't the adults protect us. It's just because they wanted to go to a football game. They wanted to go shopping again. That's all I wanted to go to Applebee's and get through to. Even though like we are literally in the in the time of technology where you don't need to leave your house, you really don't. You want your package delivered to you by a drone? It's possible. Uh Yeah, everybody's like, yeah, good. No, I mean that's just that's also the unfortunate thing about low income communities who are exposed to covid so much more with higher populations.

They're also the ones working these jobs like delivery drivers, grocery store clutter and they will constantly get exposed. But the people that don't give a sh it that can stay home work from home, can't, don't care about wearing masks or getting vaccinated. It's not, it's never going to affect them Because they don't need to work at the grocery store for 40, 60 hours. You know, it's that's, that's what pisces me off. Not that yeah, somebody I know avoiding any identifying information but was reckless and had gotten covid, let's say like really late fall last year being reckless and then had this whole tweet when they are post when they got vaccinated and like you were being irresponsible and they were in a position where they could take two full weeks off of work financially. It was okay from a family child standpoint that was fine. They were able to just sleep for two weeks. Like not everybody has that many people don't, people have to go back to work whether one they're contagious and they're stuck because they need to make money and where they're supposed to do or they don't have like the child care available.

They don't have any sort of support to help them at all. And there's so many people that are in that situation now. Exactly, people who have more resources are the ones who are kind of yeah. At the end of the day it's like if it doesn't exist in my life it's not real. And like that's what the disability community has been shouting for decades, right? Like that's what people have been colored been shouting for decades. So unfortunately this isn't anything different. You'll never know until it happens to you before you go because the end the weight and even though we have the internet, we have what world wide web, your phone shows you what you're going to click on. So you know freaking Karen watching Fox news and and buying ever met it and we'll never see our podcast like you know, it will never pop up, aren't it? I had my hopes up. No, sorry Susan I tried my best when I talk to people and they really try to avoid Covid kind of conversations that I kind of have an idea of where they stand on stuff because I just don't want to get into anything ugly.

And I just really doubled down on things and I'll say I have long Covid and I know in the point being people who know me enough that they don't assume I'm crazy or whatever. Um and they look at me as I get trusted health source and I'm like, so now what are you thinking? Because you know me, you trust me. You know, I work in healthcare, you don't believe in this illness, but I'm telling you that I have it and I just kind of they get confused. I just kind of there, but hopefully that need, I don't know, it makes a difference. Hopefully it does. Who knows? At the end of the day, people get you you want to, you know, it's safety, right? Like there's a lot going on in the world. Things are scary. You want to keep your brain where it's safe. But um unfortunately when you're hurting other people like you need to you need to grow Yeah, it's a girl a little bit that made me think of something and this could be for another episode when you come back because you're definitely gonna come back. Um it's just like, you know, the discrimination against people with disabilities and having to out ourselves or disclosure check that box and disclose that we are, you know disabled or need an accommodation.

I hope that that doesn't translate to long covid patients as well because you know, just some misinformation online and how nasty that gets. And it's like do we have to start checking a box for future employers and tell them that we have chosen to not get a job? Like yeah, I mean stuff like that's already happening and you know for those of us that we didn't have a positive test cause that didn't exist. It wasn't a thing like we can't even prove it their studies that or clinics that require a positive test and keep speaking up saying not everybody is going to have one or yeah, I don't even have the antibodies right now. Well that's the other part of me. Like I had a negative antibody test two months after I got sick but there's so many reasons why I wanted. I know that sometimes the the range of the test or it might not be correct or two. I literally might not have produced antibodies which is why I'm in this position. We're not entirely sure yet. But yeah, that's happening. A lot of people aren't being believed because it's like oh don't have antibodies or your test is negative or you don't have a test. And yeah, so this is interesting to me because this is so new to To be okay with that.

Like I have disabilities to like say that and you know, grasp that? Because obviously I'm like, I'm okay. I'm talking 2009. But the changes often such a weird thing to say and be okay with them. What do I say to people do I tell them things do I not? Certain situations like I said for dance, it's fine. Like I'm not auditioning for anything anytime soon. So it take class. Not a problem at all. But then there's other situations where it's like, I don't know how to handle it and this isn't like a known illness and post viral illness in general is really poorly understood and accepted. And I'll hear people start to bring up literally PTS quoting literature that whatever percentage of people chronic illness have depression and there is meaning that the depression is what's driving the symptoms, not your depressing. Like nobody believes your symptoms. All right. It's all right. Well, we're not going to get anywhere with this conversation and yet. So that's hard. It's I mean, I think it's helpful when it's like a month ago or something that biden said that um Long Covid will fall under the A.

D. A. And everything, but that's assuming you can see a doctor who will give you that diagnosis, especially if you don't have the cash. Yeah. And then with the whole insurance example, I gave your insurance isn't recognizing it then what do you do if you don't have unlimited fun. Yeah. And that's the way things work when things are new, it's like, Mhm. Absolutely ridiculous. They tell you, well, you don't have this test that I know this only thing about and this is the end and nobody ever says, well, all right, well, let me find you somebody who's an expert on this and studying in like, let's see what they could do. Like, No, it's always like, well, these are the things on my braver and that's it. Like, okay. Um like when I said earlier, I'm being tested for literally one of the most common autoimmune diseases. I've only had one person test me for like, I've had everything like blood work, mris lumbar puncture ct scans, like everything. This is the first person that's done like a different set of panels and I tested at normal on it because she knows things, wow. Like that's all I needed this whole time.

Just one person used to be like, what about this? Like, that's that's it. It's just one blood test because the common blood test, it's called show show grin syndrome. Um So what venus, serena, venus, serena, Williams, sister venus and serena, that's what venus has. But literally the literature is its old white ladies that get it before menopause, right? And then this is the blood work, you do the end. But if you're somebody that actually knows about autoimmune disease and you're like, no, no, no, actually, there's like an early profile and some people like 10 to 15 years at these tests and you want to work through this and see that. But I just spent the past how many years seeing people that don't know ship right? And then instead of them acknowledging that they don't know things that are changing and finding me someone that does, they just say you're fine. So that if that happens for me for literally one of the most common things like long covid, like like yeah, how's that going to go? I don't know something I've been seeing within PCI with this is I try to keep track of this the long Covid courses being offered.

Who's teaching them? What is that? What is their background? And I took one, I'm gonna not say who it was but I took one to just see because it's not somebody who is in. So we have long covid physio there. Pts and other allied health care professionals who have long covid and we have allies, people who like within state chronic fatigue syndrome and other things that they have their clinical indoor like research expertise. So they're legitimate allies and they're helping us and doing whatever work they need. So this one course wasn't being taught by somebody in our community. So I said let me take it and see what's going on. And I remember like the lit review in the beginning was great. Like wow this is like the really the most current information. Fabulous. And then the second part of the course that was on treatment. I'm like, oh no no no no no no no. This is that you are going to harm someone. Like I wouldn't be able to do this and I can tell you exactly why. And and I had let the person know is virtual. You know, I'm here, I have this whatever. And at the end for questions or trying to like nicely speak up without, you know, without making a ruckus. But like just say a couple of things. And then people started asking me questions because they would ask the speaker questions and they didn't know the answer.

Like no. Actually here's some information we know from chronic fatigue that applies here. And they have an online community and a message board that I, you know, don't participate in just waiting for a long cove has to check it actually, because someone asked the question was like, oh this is my moment. Alright, here's information. And they responded with like, here's my upcoming courses. You can take like, nope, here's free information from long Covid video accurate information. I put a couple of links. We have blogs from J. O. S. PT. Um Not me, but a couple of us have an editorial jsut like what we already know from, from chronic fatigue and what we need to do with long Covid. I just remembered, I have to check because I don't know. I don't see how they responded but that's so that's so frustrating because people are genuinely taking these courses like oh this is an established person or an established company that runs the courses and they're not getting out of whatever whatever their expertise area is. They're not leaving it and that is really going to harm people. Not obviously everybody is different every long covid patient. Yeah, but it's like classic before you even get to that it's like nothing about us without us and then none of us started the same.

Like you didn't even finish step one. They didn't even start, they still start. They didn't even ask us. No, this is actually the first couple of minutes. Oh man. So do they be some research on this Is what kind of actually like really opened my mind to like when people speak on things they don't know about an art involved in that community for whatever the condition is. So with long Covid physio. I wasn't one of the authors that we have a handful of us from Vancouver physio who authored a briefing paper with world physiotherapy on safe rehabilitation for long Covid. It's amazing document and this speaker referenced it but didn't acknowledge us. She said it was physiotherapy and the charge of society physiotherapist, like literally. So if you get the paper, the first thing that's written is the acknowledgement acknowledging long Covid physio like like it's right that like why wouldn't she didn't know about us? What do you like the paper? Of course it was a classic way lady move.

I thought of this. I found it pay me. Yeah. So that's been so hard because we're trying to get good information out and obviously not just anecdotal, here's my story but our collective stories and what we already know from the existing here's where you can information coming out. Right? What is the hardest part? Yeah. Like don't harm people, we know enough to not do certain things because we know that's going to harm people. Do not harm people and their free resources. Yeah, it should be free. These things should be free those courses that and everybody and it's like what I said earlier with cutting your ego down, right? Like they want to just pump everybody into what they remember what they think graded exercise. Like I'm sorry, graded exercise for somebody coming out of this wreck might just be sitting on the floor and learning how to breathe your Dia friend. That is a great exercise. You don't need to get on the treadmill. You don't need to pull out any bands like chill out, chill out.

Like just the idea of what things mean to people just stupid too. I know some some of the Pts have gone through when they've seen physicians or whoever and they've been put through like I guess typically the clinicians wouldn't think this is much but like a one minute sit to stand or six minute walk and my dad too taxing. Why would you why would you do that? Mhm. We're having to fill out some giant questionnaire. Like no, they're done now. Your brain is done too much mm dot you're gonna have to link us to those resources. Yeah. Give us a nice give us a nice starting blink. Um And then maybe we could talk about it some more. Maybe we could talk about it in the Patreon content but then share it. The Patreon instead of keeping it behind Patreon for that one. I don't think they'll mind. Well let's say it's super easy. Our main website is just long. Covid dot physio nice and easy with tons of resources available.

All right. Is there anything for this conversation that you just need to get off your chest or shall we reconvene another time? It's poisoning my son. Yeah. No, I appreciate both of you so much. We're very thankful for this episode though. That was very informative. Oh yeah. Yeah. And for me, I feel like it's like a movie to all of this is so weird position to be in and being public as you know, there's pros and cons to it. But knowing there are other people who are public and able to talk about their situations and what they're going through is it's really, really helpful because I would be lost. I love having other pts and other health care professionals who can lend their expertise. But then to have people who actually have a chronic illness who can explain what they're dealing with and what they've had to figure out. That that's been hugely helpful to me. Oh yeah. This life changing. Yes, it's life changing. All right, well everyone, we love you um and well do a separate thing for where to get started with long Covid, but we won't hide it behind a paywall that's going to be free.

Oh and where can people find you? Darya on twitter or their platforms were to go twitter. It's on tap physio. And then number two physio to Yes, it's a funny play on words because I don't really like to drink. I think this is a beer page on follow. Yeah. And then I don't use it often about instagram is just on top physio. That's a good place to find. Me too. All right, lovely. They're wasting ship several girls out. Thank you. Thanks for listening to disabled girls who left. We appreciate all of your support and everyone who's taken the time to show us some love. Don't forget to subscribe rate already. Review of our channel. We're on apple podcasts, Spotify player FM, google podcasts and more. You can also find us on instagram at the civil girls who left, wow