I hit the 30 day max my BCBS policy provided for rehab at the end of November, and I got to go home Thanksgiving Day. It was the happiest day of my life, and the turning point in my recovery. It’s hard to understand the loneliness that you experience in a place like that. I went through the deepest depression I’ve ever experienced. Alone in my room for most of every day, stuck in the bed and locked inside my head. The little voice in my head narrating the most negative thoughts. It was a physical battle as much as a mental one to recover from this illness. I was facing the hardest thing I’ve ever ever faced and I was terrified I wouldn’t ever fully recover to my pre-covid life. I was terrified that I couldn't do it.
But my health problems weren’t over. After being discharged from the skilled nursing facility, I was diagnosed with Long Covid, and I still fight a cough, insomnia, fatigue, stomach pain, and joint stiffness and pain, in addition to terrible brain fog, 9 months after I woke from the coma. I’m now on an inhaler, I have to take meds for insomnia because my sleep cycles won’t adjust to being out of the hospital setting. I was on an anti-inflammatory to help with my lungs and coughing. I don’t have full use of my right hand, leg and foot, and went from typing 100 wpm to hunting and pecking with my right index finger. I walked 8000 steps a day in my job, now barely getting around inside my apartment. While my blood tests recently came back indicating that my levels were finally back to normal, I’m still on medication for inflammation in my digestive system. It took several outpatient treatments in January and February to finally heal the stoma on my abdomen from my PEG tube. I’m still under a doctor’s care for several other health issues related to covid. I am continuing to improve my physical abilities, but as time passes, I’m learning how much nerve damage I have from the brain hemorrhage.