Has LC decimated anyone's life?

Posted by papapaul @papapaul, Nov 9, 2024

Hello all,
I'm a 56 yr old male who's life has been decimated due to COVID
My life has been ruined and I have nothing left.
I had COVID back on February 14, 2020
It was bad and I should have gone to the hospital but was more worried about bankrupting my family. I had a small stroke and have excessive white matter on my brain.
Since then, I have suffered with extreme anxiety, fatigue, memory and cognitive issues. My ADHD symptoms are off the charts and I've been plagued with apathy towards most everything.
I owned a business and when I returned to work 4 weeks after contracting COVID, as I unlocked the door I thought to myself..."I don't feel like I can do this anymore". I brushed it off and got back to work.
Fast forward 4+years and I've lost my business, I have hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, My alcohol use went from a couple glasses of wine in the evening to relax to drinking a 1.75 L of vodka every 24 hours. I ended up in detox 3 times. One good note...I haven't had a drink in 8 months.
The stress of not being able to run my business due to cognitive issues led to the increased drinking. The LC symptoms coupled with the drinking caused me to lose employees and clients. I was evicted from the shop I'd been on for 12 years after my landlord patiently let me get 5 months behind on rent.
I had also moved 2 hours away and was trying to move by business there. I was working and staying in a camper at my work during the week and going home to be with my wife on the weekends. Due to the issues at work I was having to stay longer and longer periods of time away from home... Trying to keep the business alive. I also lost the shop that I was moving into due to non payment.
At this point my wife thought I was cheating and trying to stay away which absolutely was not the case. I have never and would never do that to her, but can understand how it might feel that way to her.
Sorry this is so long winded...
During this downward spiral my wife had her daughter grab everything off my desk when I was in detox for the 3rd time. In the mail she discovered a letter stating that my house was about to be sold in 2 weeks due to unpaid property taxes and I was in default on business loans. I was such a mess that I had been neglecting bills and due to my cognitive issues I had actually thought that I was fairly caught up on everything but I was completely wrong.
Also during this 4-year span my wife started feeling like I didn't care about her anymore. I suffer from complete apathy towards everything, not personal towards her and was just watching my life swirl down the drain and not able to do anything about it. I did and still do care for her and love her but I definitely wasn't showing it at the time. All this led to a divorce... partially to protect her from the fallout. I love her and want to stay together but she's taken all this personally and doesn't understand that these are symptoms... Not how I really feel. She's extremely angry with me.
Also during these 4 years I lost my Mom and then 2 years later my Dad. And to top it off when my mom was in hospice dying, my only brother who I thought was not only a brother but a friend decided to tell my wife how horrible of a person he thought I was. I had no idea this is how he felt and it cut me to the core and at that point I cut him out of my life.
So here I am today.... I haven't worked in 8 months due to cognitive issues. I went from making 6 figures to basically 0. I'm on Medicaid. I'm divorced, I lost my house. I have no family or friends... Just my dogs ❤️
I'm deeply depressed, constantly fatigued, riddled with anxiety, overwhelming ADHD symptoms, suffer from sexual disfunction, extreme apathy My memory is shot. I forget things immediately. I can't think straight or figure things out. I make terrible decisions. I'm always short of breath, weak and in pain.
I've been seeing Dr's, I'm in therapy and seeing a psychiatrist. It's taken me 6 months to get an appointment at a memory clinic which is actually coming up next week Thank God. I have an appointment with neurology at the end of December. I've been praying and going to church 🙏
I feel stuck, hopeless and lost. I don't get any support from my wife(ex) just anger.
I want to be together and try to figure out how to manage my situation, with her support. I don't know what to do. I have lost everything. I feel useless as a person and as a man. I have nothing to offer. Sometimes I think I would be better off dead. I have life insurance so I know that would be beneficial to my wife (ex).
The guilt I carry is overwhelming.

If you made it to the end, I thank you for listening/reading to my story.
God bless you all
I know everyone is suffering in their own way 🙏

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Post-COVID Recovery & COVID-19 Support Group.

@papapaul

Thank you for the positive and uplifting words.
My biggest struggle is the fact that my cognitive issues are so severe that I am unable to work or start a new business and I don't know how to deal with that.
I've always been extremely self-sufficient -quick-minded. Now I can't remember anything I have post-it notes to remind me of post-it notes.
I truly don't know how to survive financially

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I completely understand, after 3 bouts of Covid, last being March of 2022, my quality of life is gone.
Not only has it affected my cognitive functioning but every other organ in my body except my lungs 🙌
What I see the most is no one understands are have any empathy with what we're experiencing.
I also own my own business but can't focus on where to start.
I use GPS EVERYWHERE because even though I drive it everyday I will look up and be totally lost. Even though I'm going on the right path, nothing is familiar to me.
I finally saw a neuropsychologist, 5 hours of testing who diagnosed me with post Covid amnesiac encephalopathy and recommended disability. That's not me but at this point I'm not sure of other options.

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I'm so sorry to hear all that you went through😢. I will pray for you and ask God to help you restore your health fully and help you get back on your feet. Pray and keep praying HE will help you. Put your faith in God because every situation is out of our hands. Pray,keep praying...There is a silver lining, there is hope that you will be well again🙏🙏🙏🙏

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The only thing in my life that hasn't changed is my social security number!

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LC has decimated many lives. In the USA the Recover Project has endless painful statistics. A lot of research continues but to my knowledge there aren't any sure treatments, cures yet. Rest seems to be the best, with some easy slow motion to keep the body functional.
I'm'72 and retired so I can take it easy. If you have a family, need to work you have what seems right to to be an impossible life.

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@kaylin7

I'm so sorry to hear all that you went through😢. I will pray for you and ask God to help you restore your health fully and help you get back on your feet. Pray and keep praying HE will help you. Put your faith in God because every situation is out of our hands. Pray,keep praying...There is a silver lining, there is hope that you will be well again🙏🙏🙏🙏

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Amen🙏

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@froggiiii

LC has decimated many lives. In the USA the Recover Project has endless painful statistics. A lot of research continues but to my knowledge there aren't any sure treatments, cures yet. Rest seems to be the best, with some easy slow motion to keep the body functional.
I'm'72 and retired so I can take it easy. If you have a family, need to work you have what seems right to to be an impossible life.

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I’m retired too. I couldn’t imagine if I had to work or take care of anyone else. My life has changed in every possible way. Zero for the good. I was a generally happy person. Now I’m just depressed & feel like crap if I try to do anything. I had 2 decent weeks & then got Covid again. Back to no memory, headaches & fatigue. I’ve been to 20 different therapies. I’m a little better but it’s been almost 5 years. It is frustrating and no one understands. Honestly over it & sad.

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@sophia53

I’m retired too. I couldn’t imagine if I had to work or take care of anyone else. My life has changed in every possible way. Zero for the good. I was a generally happy person. Now I’m just depressed & feel like crap if I try to do anything. I had 2 decent weeks & then got Covid again. Back to no memory, headaches & fatigue. I’ve been to 20 different therapies. I’m a little better but it’s been almost 5 years. It is frustrating and no one understands. Honestly over it & sad.

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I wish I didn't still have to work fulltime. It's exhausting and I can barely do things that need doing at home (laundry, cleaning). It will be five years in March. I am not who I was before covid. Damaged heart, lungs, left me with blood disorders, daily migraines, ongoing shortness of breath, cough, fatigue. I often think it would have been easier just to have died when I got original variant. It is a living death.

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I have been lucky this year finding a doc that would work with me on Long COVID. I am on my third week of an antiviral and celebrex...and things are better. My energy is creeping up an inch at a time and I am able to walk further in the freezing cold. My crazy rashes are not itching like mad and are starting to slowly heal. I have had less palpitations and shortness of breath and less pain overall. I have been lucky as I have no side effects from the antiviral.

So keep looking...out there somewhere is a doc who can help!!!

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@klf58

I wish I didn't still have to work fulltime. It's exhausting and I can barely do things that need doing at home (laundry, cleaning). It will be five years in March. I am not who I was before covid. Damaged heart, lungs, left me with blood disorders, daily migraines, ongoing shortness of breath, cough, fatigue. I often think it would have been easier just to have died when I got original variant. It is a living death.

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Pulmonary therapy help with a few things. Tranont helped with some other things.

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Hello Papa Paol, OK... I've posted several places here and am a newcomer but if you want to get generally aquainted, feel free to look my stuff up. Start there. My ADD (I'm inattentive, not hyper type) is worse (or is it LC brainfog? And who's to say?) with LC.

I learned, when I was a young whippersnapper about your age, that my hope wasn't in my hopeless situation much like yours. I'd lost everything, marriage, kids, barely scraping by, expecting to die in six months to maybe two years. I was a wretched mess, to quote the late Milfrod Poltroon. I saw the end coming fairly soon and I had little left to give, and not much means to take and stay alive. So one night, thinking it over I gave whatever I had left - and it wasn't much - to God, and asked Him to do with it what He willed.

That was about 25 years ago. I'm now in my 84th winter, and God has given me a beautiful, Godly wife, brought the daughter I never had and her six kids into my life, given me purpose (all Him - not me striving for it)

Life with LC is a debilitating pain in the butt and I chafe at the bit longing for the day that I'll be restored to enough function to do more.

But I'll wait it out, watch, and pray - and sing His praises right in the face of the enemy (who plants seeds, darts in the side, and harpoons us with misery) and keep pressing on, as Paul says in Phillipians, and like Job, regardless what I'm reduced to, never ceasing to trust and love Him.

You do the same. I pray right now as I type for Him to sustain you and bless you.

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