Faith helps when it comes to coping with long COVID
Like many Canadians, I got COVID. Like most other people, it put me down for a couple of weeks before I recovered.
But not everyone was so lucky. According to a 2023 Health Canada report, about 3.5 million Canadians reported longer term symptoms, with 58.2 per cent — 2.1 million people — continuing to have them.
One of those people is Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, vice president academic and dean of seminary at Tyndale University in Toronto.
Neufeldt-Fast got COVID in July, 2023 — his first time. Today, he is one of many people still struggling with long COVID symptoms such as extreme fatigue, brain fog, memory and concentration issues and pain. Any exertion, mental or physical, can incapacitate him for hours or even days.
'For some reason, the virus chose to wreak extra long havoc in my body and brain,' he said of the diagnosis, which came after three months of symptoms.
Like many others with long COVID, Neufeldt-Fast — who is on long-term disability from the university — often reaches a point 'where I feel like I'm in a gloomy pit and see no way out, like a prison experience,' as he put it.
So far, he said, his brain still works well most of the day. 'But brain inflammation happens so quickly. Talking, listening, thinking and looking at the same time does not work for more than 15 minutes for me — I get brain overload and I need a couch. It's all still so weird,' he said.
He has had many medical appointments, done research and connected with other sufferers online. 'There are so many different ideas out there about what to do, and I've tried my share,' he said. 'But nothing seems to work. If there was a silver bullet for long COVID, I'd be the first to know.'
While he is grateful for the research that is being done, it doesn't feel like much progress is being made. 'Research dollars are hard to find and the urgency to give this full attention is gone, unlike when COVID first appeared. It's like everyone has moved on,' he said.
I asked Neufeldt-Fast how he is dealing with the condition from a faith perspective.
'I am so grateful that I am alive, even if I'm not well,' he said, adding he has been humbled by how many people — in his home congregation of Community Mennonite Church in Stouffville and beyond — have reached out. 'That is always a morale booster,' he said. 'They are also gifts from God.'
He is also grateful for his wife, Sheri, who has been 'very supportive and patient with me. She has taken the lead on much that I might otherwise do.'
But the losses have been real; there's so much he can't do, such as work. 'It is hard and humbling to see life go on, largely without me,' he said.
One thing long COVID has done is made him more empathetic about people with disabilities. 'I now know that some folks out there like me may look more-or-less healthy on the outside, but are quite ill on the inside and limited in their capacities,' he said.
He is also more alert to the cracks in the health care and other systems. Some Long COVID sufferers fall through those cracks and slip into poverty and homelessness, and even worse, he said.
Although he continues to lean on his faith, 'I find it harder to pray than before. I wonder if that is common with many folks who have long term illness. I miss church. Even online or Zoom has real limits. The load on my brain is too much,' he said.
He still believes in God, and that God is with him in all of this — that God also allows things like long COVID.
'But I haven't tried to dig down too deeply to explore the why. I'm not ready for that, and I am not convinced I will ever find an answer to that question,' he said. 'Some things are mysteries that we must carry with us. At the present, I'm OK with leaving it like that, though that might change.'
At the same time, Neufeldt-Fast said he wants to be alert to 'God's activity or presence around me. I want to remain grateful for the little things and do not want to complain about what I cannot change.'
Of the experience, he said that 'this is not the path that I would have chosen for myself and my family, or what I ever expected. But life is like that. It's the human condition. We are like dust. We come into being and go out of being. Perhaps, however, I am more alert than before to that spark of the eternal that is deep within me and in each of us, that spirit within that yearns for God and God's renewal of all things, including a sick body.'
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John LonghurstFaith reporter
John Longhurst has been writing for Winnipeg's faith pages since 2003. He also writes for Religion News Service in the U.S., and blogs about the media, marketing and communications at Making the News.
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