It’s Been A Long Haul: Correspondent Anna King On Her Snail-Slow Recovery 1 Year After COVID-19

Sometimes I feel as low as this cold-early-morning snail on the Richland river path. 

June 3 marks a year since COVID-19 blasted through my immune system. I have never figured out how I got it. And my recovery has come in fits and starts. But mostly it’s just been incredibly, snail-slow. 

When I stopped having fevers from COVID-19 is when the doctors pronounced me over the disease. I could barely walk down one block and back to the house. Each breath was a gasp for air, heaving. Lungs like concrete. Now, I am able to walk quickly for several miles keeping pace with my friend. But I still huff hard on even the slightest of hills. 

Anna King went to the KADLEC Emergency Room twice during her battle with COVID-19. Once she was having trouble breathing, another time the virus attacked her inner ear, giving her vertigo. CREDIT: Anna King/N3

Sometimes I get frustrated with myself. I still feel so sluggish and slow. I’ve gained weight from this hard year at home. 

But I also have moments of profound gratitude. I am firmly planted on this earth. So many are not with us now. Every time I look in the newspaper, I see another person my age dead. Teachers, health workers, good people. Gone.

When I go for a walk, I notice the flowers in my neighborhood. Last year I spent the summer inside. I missed the roses, the iris, the daphne, the pansies. I hungrily drink them in, making my husband stop while I tiptoe a few steps into neighbors’ yards to smell them. “Leave some for the rest of us,” he teases me.  

Last July, when I became fever free, I signed up for yoga lessons on Zoom to help me recover. I started with simple twists and stretches on the floor. I could barely do it. Now, twice a week for a year, I’ve worked slowly with a patient teacher. I can now hold dolphin pose and dancer pose for short periods of time. 

A few months ago I was dealing with tight feelings in my chest. I’ve had other long-haul symptoms, too.  The exhaustion. The difficulty breathing. Much of my hair fell out.

Sometimes friends of mine call, also long-haulers. They’re struggling, and trying to get into the University of Washington’s COVID long-hauler program. They’ve been trying to find a doctor who’s COVID-literate. I have family and friends struggling with life-and-death long-haul fights of their own, like cancer. I write them letters. 

Anna King with her nieces. From left, Lena King, 6, Anna King, Lucy King, 4, and Lily King, 10. The girls are Anna’s nieces.

I’m now fully vaccinated. The second shot made me sick for 48 hours. It brought back bad memories of being in the grip of  COVID. But I was glad to get it. Now, I find myself worrying about the variants. 

But I keep snapping back to this: I’m here. Most of the time, I can work a full day without collapsing. I can hug my family again, feel the little spindly arms of my nieces drape around me.

I can drink in the flowers — because I can breathe now. 

I’m so lucky to be here on earth.

I’m healing. It’s okay to be a snail. 

I’m gonna see summer. 

During the pandemic, many people took up new pastimes. Anna has been writing poetry. This is what she wrote about her COVID-19 journey:

I thought I shouldn’t have stayed out in the sun so long talking to Mary Beth 

I was traveling home

I was too hot

But then, sick

Sicker than the time when I was in the ICU as a girl 

Weeks of fighting for my breath 

Like keeping my head under the blasting shower too long

Fighting myself to fall asleep and keep breathing 

Afraid

A visit to the ER, then another

Two or three bad days from a long stay in the hospital, maybe intubation

Each time under the street lamps in the emergency lane I would say goodbye to my husband and dog

Wondering if I’d come out again 

Then the fever 

It wouldn’t leave

Five weeks on the couch trying to get rid of the internal heat

Ice packs, rest, mango lassies 

Cards, letters, calls 

Texting my husband who was hiding from COVID in our same house 

Feeling crappy for days, then weeks, then two months

I’d wake up and think it was gone, the uncertainty

Only to descend again into the fever

So lonely 

When I was finally done, I could hardly walk to the car

The first time it took me about 40 minutes to get to the end of the block 

Then, I went around the block 

On one walk, I saw a snail crossing the asphalt river path

This last year has moved so slow

Haltingly healing

My hair fell out

My lungs like concrete

My heart hurt, sharp pains, squeezing

My brain is slow

But I’ve been at work against this virus like the deliberate snail: 

Now, I can walk four miles quickly,

I can do dancer pose, 

Meditate for one minute, 

Write this poem.

The Columbia River in the early morning. Correspondent Anna King has been walking all over the Mid-Columbia to help her recover from COVID-19. CREDIT: Anna King/N3