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The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics

ISSN: 2472-7318

Navigating (Dis)Closure During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Kristi Murray Costello


Keywords: disability; long hauler; ableism, mortality, ER

 

Categories: Sick/Disabled Bodyminds during Sick/Disabling Times; (De)Constructing Writing; Academic Pressures (or Critiques of Neoliberal Horseshit Productivity Expectations, as suggested by Amy Vidali)

 

Content warning: mortality; ER

 


The nurse removed the pulse oximeter from my finger. “No one—in all the emergency room visits and appointments. . . all that time you spent at the hospital. . . no one gave you a breathing test?” I shook my head. She sighed, “You’re lucky you didn’t die in your sleep.”

What we didn’t know then was that what I was feeling, both in range and severity of symptoms from loss of taste and brain fog to tachycardia and seizures, was being felt by other folks just like me who were relatively young and had been in good health prior to having COVID. Since contracting COVID-19 in April of 2020, I have connected with other longhaulers online through mutual friends (Friend with dysautonomia, meet my friend with dysautonomia.), and I have met others through studies, physical and occupational therapies, and a bimonthly Long COVID support group, including a professional ballerina, a minor league baseball player, a lawyer who had just made partner, a graduate student who began having symptoms five days after her 21st birthday, and a 40-something tenured academic/marathon runner. Though most of us had been taking all of the CDC's recommended precautions every step of the way, we also all assumed, based on what we’d read and heard, that if we did happen to catch COVID, we would very likely be okay (Narrator: they are not okay). If you ask me how I am, it’s likely that I will tell you that I am fine. Maybe even well. I will certainly tell you that I'm better than I was, which is true, but also not the whole truth. 

Scientists are starting to close in on some answers as to why some of us are unable to shake COVID. As they discover the extensive reach of post-viral syndrome and the potential long-term impacts to our nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, lymphatic, respiratory, and digestive systems, including the alarming rate at which longhaulers are developing dysautonomia, many of us who were initially gaslighted by our doctors are finally being believed, treated, and supported. Early on, when I told my general practice doctor that I could barely breathe, she gave me a prescription and told me to try yoga. When I was accepted as a patient at a Multidisciplinary Long COVID recovery Center in August 2021, doctors, physician’s assistants, and residents scribbled and typed quickly as I spoke, interrupting with thoughtful questions. Occasionally, they would provide commentary, baffled by COVID’s reach and seeming randomness, how it seized on any pre-existing condition, how it had crossed the blood-brain barrier. My partner and I shared experiences, articles, pictures, and theories with them. I was asked to participate in several medical studies, and, occasionally, a doctor would ask if they could introduce me or share my story with someone newer to Long COVID who was struggling. I didn’t have any answers yet, but I finally felt heard and seen.  A photo of the author, clearly ill, with her head resting on a pillow; her eyes are puffy and swollen and cheeks are flushed.

The doctors now know much more, and they have seen much more. These days, as I visit a new specialist and tell them about my inability to sweat or leg swelling and pain, they nod and tell me they’re hearing this from other Long COVID patients too. I am, thankfully, no longer being placed in the role of COVID educator in these appointments. As I learn more about what happened while I had COVID and the weeks after and what is happening now in my post-COVID body, my attention is pulled in another direction, too. I have started to wonder why I have been so quick to apologize for my body and perform wellness and able-bodiedness in my public and professional writing, why I am so quick to point out the ways in which I am feeling better when people ask me how I’m feeling, why whenever someone asks me how I am doing, I always say I’m doing fine. 

I have some ideas, of course. As a Midwesterner, I was raised not to “complain” or talk about my health in public for fear that it might make someone uncomfortable. Plus, the patriarch of my working class family, my grandfather (certainly influenced by his father who was influenced by his father and so on) instilled in us not to use health or injury as excuses for not completing work (cue image of my grandfather continuing to build the deck with a blood-soaked towel wrapped around his hand). As a woman in male-dominated academia, I didn’t want to show “weakness,” a word I am working to wean out of my vocabulary. As an English professor, a WPA, and a scholar who already had a less-than-healthy relationship with work, I didn’t want to damage my ethos as a hard worker, especially because I was somewhat new to my current institution. As someone who cares deeply about labor issues, I didn’t want my absence to put more stress or work on my colleagues. Similarly, as someone new to the area, I didn’t want my new friendships to be shaped by my health concerns. And, finally, I am beginning to come to terms with my internalized neoliberalism and capitalism and my problematic inclination to correlate my productivity to my self-worth. I guess what I’m saying is that, if my relationship to how I have presented myself during and post-COVID, especially in my writing (text, email, and social media), was to be defined, it would most certainly be “It’s complicated.”

If you are expecting productivity tips (Potential headline reads: “10 Ways to Manage Work While Managing Autonomic Dysfunction”), I’m sorry to disappoint you. This also isn’t one of those “maybe-I-got-sick-because-everything-happens-for-a-reason” pieces. I have learned from this experience, certainly, but this piece doesn’t really share much about that either. When I read the CFP for this special issue and mused about what carework means—what it means to care for ourselves, our families, and one another and the labors involved—I realized that I had been caring for my body, in some ways, through what I could do as far as engaging in treatments, taking my medications, being thoughtful about my diet, exercising, and attending medical appointments, but I also continued to work too hard, rest too little, and ask for help too infrequently. This piece begins to explore why. What is it about our world and what we do that makes it so difficult to be open about our bodies and our health, particularly in public-facing arenas, like email and social media? And how much more difficult is it to care for ourselves when we carry the weight of expectations, like able-bodiedness, seemingly endless energy, and positivity? 

(Click on image below to read each vignette.)

What my Friends and Family See

An outline of a woman in black flexing her biceps.  Shutterstock Strong woman Images, Stock Photos & Vectors | Shutterstock

 

What My Coworkers See

A neon sign hanging in the window of a nondescript business that says

 

What My Partner Sees

A pile of about ten silver spoons on a black background.   7,022 Pile Of Spoons Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images  Credit: Getty Images/Westend61

 

What I Feel

A snowy road goes forward into the horizon, snowbanks and bare trees lining both sides.

 

 


Bio

Kristi Murray Costello is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing Studies and the Associate Chair of Writing Studies and English General Education at Old Dominion University. She is co-editor of the book, The Things We Carry: Strategies for Recognizing and Negotiating Emotional Labor in Writing Program Administration, alongside Courtney Adams-Wooten, Jacob Babb, and Kate Navickas. Her writing has been published in the WPA Journal, WLN, Composition Forum, Kairos, Creative Nonfiction, and several edited collections. In her free time, Kristi enjoys coffee shops, dogs (all dogs but especially her own), and hiking in pretty places.