Long Covid and Embodied Practice

 

I have been further exploring the positivist and non positivist view points on life, research and my practice. Lea’s recent blog reminded me of the first time that I really questioned western medicine. I suppose I was bought up with the view that when it comes to medicine there is a more positivist view point in the sense of this is the research and therefore it must be trustworthy. However when I was recovering from the main Covid infection all was going well and although I was tired, I was confident after about 17 days that I was on the road to recovery and that all was well. But how wrong I was. That evening I had probably the worst night of my life, couldn’t breathe properly and was literally struggling so much that I ended up with paramedics and then going to A&E. After numerous tests showing very little I was told that the reality was they didn’t know if this was the same infection or if I had caught it again (although I was later told this could not have been the case). They also did not know the cause of my symptoms and simply told me that covid is a new virus and they simply didn’t know. I respected this. Unfortunately with this experience I was also experiencing judgement as a young person with covid. The treatment from the hospital lacked any real emotional support and I felt supreme guilt for being unwell and contributing to the burden of the NHS. I waited in an isolated room for 5 hrs and had to ask to be able to go to the toilet and they had to bring a commode in leaving no hand sanitizer or anything. It was a humiliating experience, and I was glad to leave the hospital, because I felt that however unwell I was I did not want to be a burden to others. But I also saw that the staff themselves were traumatized and that another covid patient was the last thing they needed. But undoubtably this also impacted my recovery, and I did not want to be around people for weeks in fear of still being infectious.

I think this was one of the most frightening aspects of the whole experience – there were no answers. They couldn’t tell me whether I would make a full recovery or not or if I would ever get better. 3 months later I was still struggling. Although in time gradual improvements allowed me to return to life, my recovered self is not the same person and I think I have not been truly honest in acknowledging that. I still struggle with memory problems, susceptibility to infections, vision problems which can’t be explained, headaches and very strange circulation issues in my hands. All symptoms which came post covid.

Long Covid remains a challenge for medics and although research is being conducted, they still don’t have answers and yet somehow these sufferers still need to keep living their lives and navigating daily symptoms and so many unknowns.

I believe it was at this point that my notions of positivism altered, and I began to realise that world is complicated and that perhaps not all answers are definitive anyway.  Recovery taught me that my mind and body were not separate entities, and that continued progress required me to address both aspects of mind and body. Burkitt describes Cartesian dualism as body being ‘located in time and space’ and ‘separate from a mind that was a substance in itself, but immaterial, non-temporal and non-spatial substance’ (1999, p.17) But I feel that as an artist you can only reach a true point of artistic integrity if you have reached a point of embodiment. I have not yet reached that point as an artist and I feel that it is the amalgamation between the knowledge of my mind, the training and health of my body which is lacking. Currently they work separately. My journey is to find out how I can make this link and become a truly embodied being. There seems to be something in all this about acknowledging that I am not the same dancer that I was and that is OK.  To realise that I can’t simply divide what my mind and body have been through from my practice. I do believe that I have been doing this. Expecting them to function as they did before getting through such a challenging experience. 

As I explore further into my inquiry proposal, I am now finding the area of trauma to be so vast and therefore look to focus on the trauma of Long Covid specifically. I am looking to perhaps interview other dancers affected by Long Covid as well as draw on my own experience. If anyone knows of anyone who might be able to help in this research process do let me know.

Bibliography

Burkitt, I (1999) Bodies of Thought. London: Sage Publications

A collage I created during recovery from Long Covid