171 - Light Switch Recovery: Aaron's Story of When Reinfection Leads to Healing

Aaron West shares his remarkable two-and-a-half-year journey with Long COVID and his unexpected path to recovery. From being a highly athletic cyclist who once rode across South Carolina in a single day to becoming bedbound with debilitating symptoms, his story demonstrates that recovery is possible—sometimes in the most unexpected ways.

• Previously an avid athlete who competed in triathlons and rode 237 miles across South Carolina in one day
• Contracted COVID in Fall 2021 during the Delta wave
• Developed severe symptoms including persistent cough (500-1,000 times daily), neurological issues, and "electromagnetic pulse" sensations
• Forced to go on disability due to inability to work while coughing
• Found some relief through antihistamines (Zyrtec, Pepcid) and beta blockers
• Practiced pacing using "spoon theory" and heart rate monitoring to manage symptoms
• Experienced a "light switch" recovery after contracting Omicron variant in January 2024
• Post-recovery, rediscovered creative abilities and is now writing a book and running a business
• Emphasizes the importance of community support during illness and recovery
• Doctor described him as someone who came back after being "far gone"

For those still suffering with Long COVID—there is hope. While everyone's recovery journey is different, healing is possible, and sometimes it comes in unexpected ways.

Links:

Aaron's website: https://www.cinejourneys.com

Follow Aaron on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/awest505.bsky.social

For more information about Long Covid Breathing courses & workshops, please check out LongCovidBreathing.com

(music credit - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Chapters

• 1:50 Introduction to Erin's Recovery Story
• 3:07 Life Before COVID: Athletic Pursuits
• 5:30 Initial Infection and Developing Long COVID
• 9:28 The Horror Show: Debilitating Symptoms
• 16:31 Finding Ways to Manage Symptoms
• 21:09 Pacing and Adaptation Strategies
• 29:56 The Surprising Recovery Moment
• 35:11 Life After Recovery: Reconnection
• 43:22 Creative Resurgence and Future Plans
• 49:28 Lessons Learned and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Jackie Baxter: 0:55

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Long Covid Podcast. I am so excited to be joined today by Aaron West, and today we are going to be talking recovery, because we're here to share another recovery story. So, as with all recovery stories, this is obviously not medical advice and it's just one person's experience, but that one person's experience is extremely important for many, many reasons. So I'm so excited to hear your story today. A very warm welcome to the podcast, Aaron. It's lovely to see you.

Aaron West: 1:30

Lovely to see you too, Jackie. Thanks for doing this and thanks for having me on and telling my story. These stories need to be heard, I think so. Thank you.

Jackie Baxter: 1:38

These stories need to be heard. I think so. Thank you, I agree, I agree.

Aaron West: 1:52

So before we get into sort of what happened and what worked. Can you just say a little bit about you and what life was like before you became unwell? Certainly, yes, I was Well. First off, I was very athletic. In fact, I had this project I wanted to ride up every mountain in America, ride my bike up to triathlons, and one day I rode across my state, which is South Carolina, in one day. Yeah, it was crazy 237 miles took us about four in the morning till about 10pm. So, yeah, highly, highly athletic. It was a long way, yes, but we did it and we were very tired at the end.

Aaron West: 2:23

And then I was a working professional. I had a career, more of a business career, and then I transitioned into IT and that's where my original background was. I had an IT company when I was much younger and, of course, covid happened. The pandemic shut everything down. We went remote and being in IT at the time, working remotely is very, very tough.

Aaron West: 2:43

So I did have some challenges with like work-life balance, that sort of thing, but for the most part I had gotten into a routine. You know, with a little exercise, my hours, my working hours were very long and you know that sometimes you can't help it. You had to. I was really kind of an IT manager of sorts. So when you're a manager you kind of have to put in a little extra. And then I got COVID and the rest is kind of history. I'm sure we'll get into the rest, but it was around 2021 or so when I or so it was exactly 2021 in that sort of second wave the Delta wave that I got it and, yeah, it took me for a ride, which is why I'm here.

Jackie Baxter: 3:24

Yeah, absolutely so it's. I mean, for me I was ill right at the start of the pandemic, so I always find it very interesting speaking to people who became unwell a little bit later. A little bit later, so for you you were the following year, and by then like long COVID had been a thing, and was it something that you were aware of when you became unwell, or was it not until you developed it that you actually became aware of it?

Aaron West: 3:55

It was something I thought I was aware of. I actually knew one person that had it, but it was still so early that nobody really had a concept of what was going on. I think then just the science was just trying starting to figure out what long COVID was. And because it really is, it's kind of a misnomer when people ask me. I always say I would keep it simple because people just even today still don't understand. I would just say, oh, it's like COVID symptoms, but they don't go away and you have some new ones, basically. But yeah, when I got long COVID, I didn't really know what was happening. So my infection was around fall, fall 2021. I know exactly, but I don't want to say the day. I don't know. It's not a big deal, but I was at a sporting event. So I don't know if I got it at that sporting event or maybe a restaurant after, but that's when the infection occurred and that was. You know. It was about maybe a couple months before the real long COVID symptoms.

Aaron West: 4:51

I had the cough. I think that was a post-infection cough and I coughed for about a year or so, but it was still a couple months. I tried to work through it and boy. That was tough. That's the thing On Zoom calls. Those were the norm by the time I had my infection experience and I had learned how to mute my coughs very, very strictly and lead meetings and kind of like you mute around food or drink, you know, it just became another thing. But I didn't actually know that I had long COVID until well, basically my world was turned upside down. But it was a good six months later that I fully understood what was happening and I was able to apply some sort of treatments, even though you know, long COVID is long COVID. I would experience it for quite a quite a bit of time. But I did make some gains once I um had some treatments, so, which I'm sure a lot of people have found yeah so.

Jackie Baxter: 5:49

So it sort of took you a while to sort of put those pieces together and go oh, hang on. There's this thing that I've sort of heard of a little bit and sort of coming to that sort of realization. You mentioned a cough. What were your other kind of main symptoms that were kind of going on there with your when it sort of became long COVID?

Aaron West: 6:13

Sure, so initially it was the you know the infection symptoms and the cough, and the cough was really, really bad. We tried to estimate how many times I coughed a day and we were like maybe 500 to 1,000. And I felt bad. My wife is a professor, so we were both working and I was working downstairs and she was working upstairs, but she could hear every single cough and I knew that took a toll on her as well. But she could hear every single cough and I knew that took a toll on her as well. You know we don't think about our caregivers or caretakers, but yeah, I love her and she was very supportive throughout and she didn't know.

Aaron West: 6:49

But yeah, it started as a cough and then just basically my world just was rocked. So the best way I can describe it and I have described it before was like there was an electromagnetic pulse like coursing through my veins. So I found it impossible to sleep because I was just wired with energy and tingling and you know all these neurological symptoms that I later found were part of the long COVID. But I just thought, I didn't know, I wasn't sure if I was, I was trying to exercise, I did not know the connection with cardio, and so I was basically resetting the lung cover, kind of setting myself back for at least around the first month, and I actually went on disability from my job and the but the thing is I didn't know it was COVID, I didn't know, I thought I'd been over that long ago and so the reality was my work said that you have to be able to talk without coughing to work. So my reason for going on disability was because I just coughed so much.

Aaron West: 7:52

But that, and I remember the Olympics in 2022. I watched those. I basically watched all the Olympics. I was an expert and you know, of course it's kind of global affairs, but I remember when the war started with Russia, ukraine, and I was watching that live. So yeah, so basically, I guess you could call it anxiety too. I had not really been an anxious person, but that went up to like level 20 out of 10 or so. It was just really insane.

Aaron West: 8:26

And there were other symptoms too that you know, the kinds that are embarrassing, that I didn't realize. Everybody goes through the GI symptoms. I had those. There was a point in my you know really the worst of it where I would throw up every day. Uh, and I didn't know why I would throw up my food. I would, yeah, so, and and there was another also the other end. I won't get into that part, but that that was a a part of it as well. That was kind of the middle, like six months in or something. That's when that that GI, um, but so, as it happened, my dad is an epidemiologist and so I remember it was around March or so March or April of 2022, he was the one that actually diagnosed me because he started pointing things out and asking questions and then when I saw my doctor, he kind of ruled everything else out.

Aaron West: 9:16

But they put me on a cocktail of antihistamines and beta blockers. Out, but they put me on a cocktail of antihistamines and beta blockers and so Zyrtec, pepsid, sometimes Claritin, even though I think that overlaps with Zyrtec. Everybody has their whatever works for them. The beta blockers were actually the big helper there because the post-exertional malaise. So those were my.

Aaron West: 9:39

Once I got past that first stage, which, yeah, it was a horror show I can't even imagine. It's really hard to describe the experience, but I wouldn't wish it on anybody. So once I started taking the antihistamines, it took about gradually about a month or so for that to kind of streamline and balance or so for that to kind of streamline and balance. And then the beta blockers helped with the post-exertional malaise because and I don't know if you experienced this or others, but I also would try to sleep and I would find that I was getting sleep.

Aaron West: 10:13

During the first year or so, I got about 14 hours of sleep a night, which is I went from like six pre-COVID I'm back in that vicinity now but it was about 14 hours and of course I'd feel miserable when I woke up, like throat sore, everything. But yeah, sometimes my heart rate would spike and just like with a dream or something, and just a dream would excite my heart rate to the point where I would wake up and it would be like 30, 40 beats higher and I would have to, you know. So basically every night in the middle of the night I would wake up at some point and yeah. So those 14 hours were spread over basically a 24-hour period, could not predict when I would be awake. So when it comes to appointments with doctors, my doctor had scheduled me to have a procedure and they said 8am and my first thought was there's no way I can do 8am. I mean, I can't predict, you know, 10am actually.

Aaron West: 11:13

So I started making all my appointments for the afternoons, and even those I sometimes were iffy. I was very afternoons and even those I sometimes were iffy. I was very, not very punctual, which is not like me, if you know me. So, yeah, it was hell for the really. I mean for the first, I say for six months, but really the duration. I kind of reached a streamline of where I found means to which I could live with this and yeah. So that was basically the next phase. That was a lot sorry, but it was a horror show.

Jackie Baxter: 11:45

Yeah, I, I think you know whether anyone listening is. Has you know going? Oh yeah, I had exactly that symptom, or maybe their symptoms were were not so similar. I think everybody who's experienced this can relate to the horror show. You know where your body is, just not your own. You have no control over it, and it's utterly, utterly terrifying. You know whether it's that you just can't sleep or you're sleeping, for you know 14, 15, 16 hours and still feeling like crap.

Aaron West: 12:57

And it's never enough, yeah.

Jackie Baxter: 12:59

Exactly, you know, and it's so, so common. I see this in the work that I do day to day as well as with people that I speak to on the podcast. You know it's so common and we know that we need sleep to get better. But we couldn't buy an hour's sleep, certainly not a good quality one. So, yeah, I think you know that that is is such such a difficult experience. So you mentioned that you'd got access to some beta blockers and some antihistamines and they'd been helpful. Was there anything else that you found that sort of did help? You know you said you'd sort of found a I can't remember what your phrase was a means, a means to live or or something like that, wasn't it that you just said? So what was it that helped you get to that kind of? You know I can actually function on some level, kind of um space sure, yeah, well, my, my medicines are another episode entirely.

Aaron West: 13:55

I, I, I did eventually you know I did get to the point where I could take little travel. Oh boy, that first time driving with long COVID. Yeah, I probably should not have gotten behind the wheel, but I made it. It was very, very scary but I drove about. I made about a three hour road trip and was about to pass out when I got there, but, but I think more. So, yeah, I had a bag of medicines that I kept with me and so, anywhere I go, I basically had one of those bags they take to the grocery store and it was just full of medicines.

Aaron West: 14:26

So lots of antihistamines, I would you know, like I mentioned the Pepsod, but benzos too. In fact, I'm mostly tapered off benzos, but I had to start those during and those saved me. Yeah, because that was. Yeah, I didn't know what was going on, but those were a big help. Of course, those are addictive, so that's you know. I would think people would exercise caution, but and that's where tapering is important too, now that I've recovered but, yeah, acceptance, knowing what it was.

Aaron West: 15:00

And I did use a long COVID support group. There's a big one on Facebook. I'm sure you've counted others that have been in this one. I think now it's maybe 60, 70,000. It was around 50,000 people then and that was very helpful. In fact, I think I first found it around May, june 2002 or so and that was when I just realized, just reading everybody's stories, kind of like what people experienced listening to this podcast, I was like okay, well, wow, people finally get me. And I've since met some people that have had long COVID and you really can't understand somebody. And actually now that I've recovered I still know people with long COVID and I'm the only one that really gets them. They still don't get how I'm not like that anymore but it is a strange thing.

Aaron West: 15:46

But pacing was a big thing. So I was able to travel and do things, I was able to work a little bit, I did build something and I'm sure we'll get to that. But pacing and spoon theory I didn't actually count the spoons. I'm sure most listeners know what spoon theory is. But you have, you know, 20 tasks you can handle a day and you know something like a shower would be like three spoons. Personal hygiene was a really a big exertion. So you know that was something I love. I'm glad that I'm over that now because I love my showers, but showers took a lot out of me, just the act of getting up and standing for 15 minutes, even five minutes, it was tough, but yeah, spoon theory and also just pacing myself.

Aaron West: 16:37

So when I did do something so, for example, if I did have to take a short trip and when I say trip, even though I mentioned the three-hour road trip, but mostly this was going to the grocery store or little minor trips I would need a couple days or so basically bed-bound. I had my couch, my recliners, so that became my friend and my cat. My cat is my friend as well, and yeah. And then when I did, I was able to do some longer activities, but I knew that I would be spent on the other side, so I would basically reserve that time off. So if I did have to take a trip or do something work-wise, maybe go to the doctor even I would know to not schedule anything over those couple days, give myself time to rest, and so by the end of it I had, so I recovered. I actually know the date. It was January 5th. 2024 is my recovery date.

Aaron West: 17:34

By that point I was probably to about maybe 10 hours a night sleeping. I was mostly functional. And then I had a year or so of building a business and I started my own company and we were then building the website and then, all of a sudden, I recovered and was able to continue that with. Again, I was bed bound, I was using an iPad, iPhone to build the business and then, and I I couldn't sit at a computer, like I'm sitting right now, for even an hour or two. So it was, it was very, very challenging, even with pacing. Like you know, an hour at the computer would be like six spoons or something or maybe even, maybe even 20. That might actually ruin my, ruin my day, but I, yeah, found a lot of. I got really good at the iPad is what I got.

Aaron West: 18:23

But then the recovery date it was then about two and a half years and I, of course, had not exercised even modestly. I mean, even walking to, you know, just around the house took a lot out of me just walking down the hall and I got to the point where I was looking at my heart rate a lot and that actually helped, because I knew that once it went over a certain threshold that that was going to be too much. And even when I did have to walk, I would walk with my watch and I'd be staring at my watch, looking at the heart rate, because I found that if it got over like 100, that was going to be bad for me, but if I kept it around under 100, I was probably okay. That was weird when I recovered, because you don't have to look at your heart rate. You actually want your heart rate to get up higher. I had to retrain my thinking in that regard but yeah, it was very, very crazy. But even at the end I still had a lot of those CFS slash ME symptoms, the PEM, post-exertional malaise. I really couldn't exercise.

Aaron West: 19:31

Oh, and I forgot to mention my taste and smell. So for two and a half years I didn't really come to terms with how much my taste and smell was altered until afterward, because everything tasted amazing All of a sudden. Yeah, every food in the world which is a problem, by the way. You don't want every food in the world to taste bad, to taste good, even vegetables. But that was not my food of choice. But prior to that there was some, and I was a very healthy eater prior to the infection, but vegetables it felt like I was eating trees and dirt or something. It was just nasty. So I created flavor and I would, so I would. I developed poor eating habits just while I had the infection and then, of course, like I said, afterward they got even worse and I had to get on keto for about nine months to even things out. Now I eat healthy again. Vegetables taste great, so yeah.

Jackie Baxter: 20:26

Oh, amazing. So it sounds like you know you had a sort of you know, relatively gradual improvement from implementing things like the pacing and the antihistamines and the beta blockers and some of the other things that you've just mentioned, up to the point where your final recovery if that's even a word was sort of I'm going to say, dramatic or certainly quite quick. Do you want to talk through that a little bit, because you said I know the date and I'm thinking how do you know the date? Tell us more.

Aaron West: 21:02

So mine is rare and I'm usually cautious about sharing this. I know you have the disclaimer everybody's different, but mine happened with a reinfection. So it's interesting. We had just gotten back from a Miami trip, so we had gone to Miami for the holidays. Miami, in the very southernmost United States, had a great time and I was able to walk a little bit. I could get 10,000 steps. Some days, again, it was watching the heart rate and there were some days I would just have to sit at the hotel. But we'd spent about a week or two and had a really lovely time, but I was still not myself. I'd made a lot of gains but I was not able to again, couldn't exercise. Those under 100 heart rate walks were basically all I could do, and even that I was actually recovering from that trip.

Aaron West: 21:53

I had been home about a few days and my wife, as I mentioned, she teaches, she went to a meeting, she got COVID. This was during the Omicron spike, a big spike. This would be 2024. So it was a big wave and yeah, so we went on vacation and avoided it and I was deathly afraid of it. I was afraid that my long COVID would get worse, so I was not leaving the house as much as I should have, and when I did I was very careful to protect myself. But when it's in the same household, she had gotten it once and I had not got it, you know, maybe six months prior to that. So I'd hoped that the same thing would happen again.

Aaron West: 22:34

But, as you know, omicron was very infectious and so I think the day, maybe a day or two after I had symptoms and high fever. You know the infection symptoms. They're actually worse the second time and I don't know if that's because the vaccine might have helped me on the first occasion. I think we know now that they were more effective with death and hospitalization. So they certainly helped. I was not, my life was not threatened with the first infection, but the second infection was very, very clear because the telltale signs that spiking fever, you know right away. And again, I don't know if it's connected, but I did take Paxlovid.

Aaron West: 23:14

But January 5th was my first positive test, or was the positive. I mean, that's when I developed symptoms, that's when it spiked and that's when I got the test and took it. And yeah, lo and behold, those two stripes were bright, red. So and I was thinking, I was scared, and what was interesting is I have a company, as I mentioned, and I was pacing to build it. But I knew that well. I suspected that this infection would really take me down further.

Aaron West: 23:42

So what I did the next day is I just worked my butt off. I woke up Saturday morning and, yeah, just worked nonstop and I got so much done and my co-partner, co-owner, was like, wow, it took COVID to get you working this hard. She was very supportive, it was a joke, but she had not seen it. She was like, wow, aaron's really at it. But I didn't stop and what happened was on the Sunday, the day after that. It's weird, I know the weekend it was a Friday that I tested positive and I could tell things were different. I still had the infection, which is no fun at all.

Aaron West: 24:20

Anybody probably everybody listening to this podcast knows that the infection is oh, wow, okay, I remember what this is like. Now you know I had the very limited version for a couple of years, but yeah, that the infection still is terrible and still had all the dizziness and all a lot of those neurological symptoms came back, but the fog was, was gone. The fog had never, even never quite left during that those two and a half years completely and in fact self-awareness is really gone during long COVID. So I think I not I think I always thought I was better than I was. But I mentioned the co-owner. She had gotten used to working with me and she had a relative that had some a memory oriented disease and she would do memory tricks because I would just drop a thought in mid-sentence and she would then read she was actually really good at disease. And she would do memory tricks because I would just drop a thought in mid-sentence and she would then read she was actually really good at it. So she would just almost do like a backwards word association. She'd be like, okay, we were talking about I don't know grocery store dog, whatever, and eventually something would click and I would get my thought again.

Aaron West: 25:24

That of course, in an instant went away with the reinfection and my doctor called it a light switch recovery and he actually didn't believe me when I first told him, because I sent him a message through the medical portal and he didn't say he didn't believe me, he just wanted to see me. And so because all of a sudden I had my second wind and on that, as I mentioned, on that Sunday I had, um, there was an incident in my neighborhood where, um, there was a criminal that had chased after one of my neighbors with a baseball bat, I know, and then they broke a window, a couple of doors down, and I was. I had been involved with the neighborhood beforehand, so I knew of a criminal in the neighborhood that had been doing some vandalism. You know just a couple pre, pre infection, and I got out of the house. No, of course I hadn't the infection, so I had my mouth covered. It was at night and I remember running about two blocks to to just ID this person. Of course I stayed away from the police, everybody, and I made sure not to infect them and I even told them COVID COVID, and I was coughing, you know COVID cough. But I was like, wow, I just walked like it was nothing and I didn't even look at my heart rate. I'm sure it was high and it was that point. I knew that it was gone and it really was.

Aaron West: 26:45

And then the co-owner, the co-worker, once the infection cleared up, I was kind of waiting to see if it would come back Because, as you know, there's a delayed effect, delayed onset. So I thought maybe once the final infection symptoms cleared up, then maybe it would come back. And it never did. And so I started working out again and I even remember having a doctor's appointment scheduled shortly thereafter and I even told him. I was like no, no, I've recovered. I need a couple of months to just get more exercise. I'm basically to have a better outcome of the test because I'm still recovering from the recovery. So I just had so much energy, like all of a sudden I went from those 10 hours of sleep to two hours of sleep. And yeah, I just had so much energy, like all of a sudden I went from those 10 hours of sleep to two hours of sleep and, yeah, it took me maybe about six months to really start actually sleeping. And again, I talked about working. While I was infected I kept on working. I was building a website for this business and that's what I used to do and still do build websites.

Aaron West: 27:46

So my doctor saw me in April and again, he never disbelieved me, but he might have believed that I believed that I had recovered and he told me later. And he greeted me with a smile and he told me that he knew I had recovered because he's been my doctor for 20 years. So he knew the second. I walked in the room he said, the moment I saw you from the door, I knew that was the old Aaron and I've since had a couple of visits. So that was, like I said, around probably April, may, 2022, 2024. And I just saw him again December and he was like you've made a remarkable comeback. At that time he hadn't seen this, but I think he's seen this a couple other times. That's why, again, I want to caution don't go out to get COVID, because a lot of my friends got COVID, including those that were in this long COVID support group, and you know they were hoping to get similar results and you know it doesn't work out. Everybody's bodies are very unique. But it did go away for me and and yeah, so I I've.

Aaron West: 29:16

Now it's been a year, a little, a little more than a year, of this recovery and I've been able to make major strides.

Aaron West: 29:23

Not very long.

Aaron West: 29:25

Covid for a couple of years really does take a lot out of your life.

Aaron West: 29:27

And one thing my doctor told me is he'd never seen anybody come back that had been as far gone as I was. Those were the words he used. He had acknowledged the gains that I'd made and he said he had seen improvement. He actually told me and I'm scared to share this, you know, please don't take it to heart but because I was so bad off he didn't think I'd ever recover. He didn't tell me until after I'd recovered. But I think that the fact that this happened he actually has been trying to get me into studies to. You know, it might be too late now, but of course there is a political element, and I don't know if there are a lot of studies for long COVID recovery now, but I think the fact that this happened to me and it's happened to a couple others, I think that shows that there is a cure out there, and so for those who are still suffering, I hold out a lot of hope. I think that eventually we'll find it.

Jackie Baxter: 30:24

Yeah, and I think you know that the important message isn't so much exactly what it took for you to recover, it is that you did you did you know my recovery is very different to yours and every person that I have interviewed, every recovery story that I have seen or heard. You know there's commonalities? Of course there are, but they're all very different and everybody's situation is very, very different. You know, rightly so, because every everybody is different.

Jackie Baxter: 30:56

Um, so it's, it's that kind of, you know, taking ideas or things if it's useful, um, but actually the most important thing is that he got better or she got better, or you know whoever it was yeah and what I thought was really interesting was when you know, when some people have this sort of like slow burn recovery, um, and some people it happens a little bit quicker or a little bit more dramatically and, um, you know, for you obviously it was a little bit different, but you know quite sort of oh, that just happened um, are you?

Jackie Baxter: 31:30

sure. So you know you have this kind of moment of recovery. You know whatever that looks like for each individual person ill, for, even if, even if you have a much quicker recovery, you know people who recover in under a year, for example, or people who have maybe been ill for 20 years with something like ME-CFS. You know, however long you've been ill you, you lose a lot of conditioning, you lose a lot of your life, you lose a lot of that kind of inability to sort of exist in the world, don't you? You kind of you feel like you know?

Jackie Baxter: 32:12

For me, I sort of looked like I was sort of like poking the world, don't you? You kind of you feel like you know? For me, I sort of looked like I was sort of like poking my head out the door and going, ooh, it's a bit worldly out there or it's a bit people-y out there, I'm not sure about that. And this kind of like you know, reintegrating into the world and reintegrating into your body, almost, you know, and interacting in, maybe, a world that is a different world to the one that you knew before. Um, and you know, like you said, that that people don't really understand it if they haven't been through it.

Jackie Baxter: 32:45

Um, and you know you talked about starting to work out again you know you do become very deconditioned when you're very inactive and then when you're sort ofactive and then when you sort of recover and you think okay, I can build that back again, but it still takes time to go from you know couch to 5k or zero to whatever you're wanting to do. So yeah, I would be curious as to kind of how that next kind of phase went for you and what life kind of looks like now.

Aaron West: 33:18

Well, I love the way you phrase that about looking outside. Yes, there was an outside, and I live in the southeast, where it's very sunny, and I did enjoy seeing the sun a little bit and, of course, I enjoyed seeing the people too. What's weird about these couple of years? They might seem like they passed fast. I mean, even though it was hell, it felt like that time passed quickly, slowly and quickly, like the days were slow, but the time passed, the calendar passed, the months passed.

Aaron West: 33:53

So I'm currently and actually previously at the time I was on the board of directors for a disability nonprofit actually. But the thing is I knew some of them prior to my infection and then I joined their board when I was infected. In fact, my board photo on that website is still. I can still see the COVID in me because I look like just freaked out and a little heavier and just did not want to be there, and I might share it with you later. We're not going to use that as my episode photo, but but, but I got to see.

Aaron West: 34:35

So this is just one example, because these are people that were on a charity that I was on. You know calls with every couple of weeks, sometimes every month at least and then big calls every quarter and and they had an a disability event at the Capitol just championing people with disabilities and including those who recovered. And it was really the first big event that I actually intended in person and I lived downtown in my city so I was able to walk to where they were it was about a mile away or so and I got to see all these people that know me and that knew me and seeing myself in their eyes was a really great feeling in that what I heard a lot was like they said a light had been turned on and I was like, well, you should have told me the light was off, but I probably didn't want to know. But yeah, they said I was more alert, more energetic, I speak faster is what I heard a lot. I don't have to pause looking for those words. And, of course, what I said about self-awareness, I had no idea I was speaking slowly during the long COVID period because I just didn't know. And this is where people that are still suffering from long COVID and there are a lot of them, I think the recovery stories there are plenty, but for a time there wasn't thought that you could recover. But cognitively I really bounced back because, as I mentioned, I was building a website on my iPad and I don't know people that code but those keyboards are really not convenient for brackets or any sort of. Yeah, it took about 10 times longer to code on the iPad, but the thing is I had the time. But once I came back, once I returned to the keyboard, I was able to actually leverage my brainpower, which had returned. My cognitive skills were pretty much right back immediately and I didn't have to.

Aaron West: 36:30

So, like we were talking about sleep, if I got two hours about sleep, you know, if I got two hours of sleep during long COVID, I knew I would be worthless that day. Like I needed a baseline of sleep to be able to even function in any capacity. You know, including one of those days where I was losing my memory, no sleep, it was just off. Everything is canceled. I was just going to rest, pray, I could sleep. But sometimes it happens, sometimes it wouldn't. With this I mean, just coincidentally, I had a dental infection, a bad tooth, and so that was painful and that kept me up all these hours. And so just because it's hard to get comfortable sleeping with tooth pain tooth pain is miserable in a different way than COVID, but I found that after two hours of sleep, three hours of sleep, I was okay. I was able to process thoughts. I mean, yes, I was tired, like anybody is tired after three hours, but I was still able to function, and so my doctor and I talked through this, still able to function, and so my doctor and I talked through this. So another big thing that's happened that couldn't have happened during COVID is I'm in the process of writing a book and I write fast.

Aaron West: 37:41

I enjoy writing and it's something I love. I love films, so I write about films. I'm writing a book about a label here in the US called A24. So, if you know, moonlight, everything Everywhere All at Once, those type of movies, the Lighthouse, midsommar, some of the horror movies too. They're behind a lot of those and in fact, I ran a Kickstarter, a crowdfunding campaign that, by the way, is so intense I would not recommend, maybe, even if you need the money. We did get funded, but I had to pause my writing because that just took a lot of time.

Aaron West: 38:16

But, yeah, my cognitive skills came back in a way that surprised me and I hate to say, hey, I'm smarter now because I don't think it's that and my doctor kind of explained it because I was able to tap into that energy, this newfound energy, to produce something of value. So the company is doing well that we built and it's still a smart startup. It's still myself and my co-owner, co-partner, who is also disabled and she would not mind me sharing that. So I get her and she gets me. But writing a book, so it engaged like a creative element and I can't give like the medical diagnosis. I can just restate it what I heard as best as possible. And the doctor said that maybe just because of the recovery, because it was Omicron, a new variant, that it might have just stimulated my brain in a way that taps into the creative side, and so I do have more brain power, but I have more creative brain power.

Aaron West: 39:19

So I'm really, of course, I'm writing a book. I've got about 80,000 words. We'll probably be finished very, very soon, hopefully within a month or two. And I'm currently because it's about a movie company I'm trying to binge watch movies and so I watched six movies yesterday, which is as a movie fan I know as a movie fan that's actually hard to do. During long COVID it was really hard to watch a movie, especially like a movie that you have to pay attention to, that you have to process. Now it is like nothing, because I'm watching these movies, I'm taking notes, I'm thinking about where this is going to go in the book, I'm making notes for what I'll rewatch later when I write a later chapter.

Aaron West: 40:00

So, yeah, there's hope for us. We will get our brains back, we will get our energy back, we will find a purpose. And you mentioned having to. I have to be employed. I have to make a living. So writing this book is my living and building this company is my living and the great thing. And I'm not here to promote my stuff. You know, if people want to find me, they can, it's fine. We're doing very, very well. So we don't really need that and, like I said, we just had a Kickstarter that was funded.

Aaron West: 40:35

But the thing is, we created a community and we create a community under certain um, like a very non-toxic like, and we don't ask if people are disabled or or, you know, have anything going on with them I know for a fact that some do but we're able to give them, um, some collegialities, some companionship and and uh, so, and trust me, it sounds probably sounds like a cult, but it's just a people, a bunch of people that love movies, and in fact, tonight we're going to talk about the oscars, uh, the oscar awards, so that'll be a lot of fun, um, and I've appreciated that too. So we've with our our thing. Uh, we say we built what we wanted to exist and we did so. I built this as I was enduring long COVID and then again made it come into fruition with the recovery.

Aaron West: 41:20

Without the recovery, I don't know that it would be here. I definitely would not be writing a book, but without the recovery, I think it would still exist in some way shape or form, but we would not have. We've built a very complicated website that I could tell you about. That would bore you to tears, but it's a one-of-a-kind website. There's a lot of stuff behind the scenes. So, yeah, I'm very proud of it. It's probably the best thing I've built, and I've built stuff for Fortune 500 companies and all that. So, yeah, very, very happy. I know that was a lot, but there is hope.

Jackie Baxter: 41:55

But it sounds like that power of connection is so important as well and that that was something that was helping you while you were unwell, but also that you've now kind of created and, you know, allowed to really kind of blossom. You know, now that you are recovered and you know it's I don't know the way I see it. You know I I recovered and now I want to give back, I want to help people because I know how hard it is and I also know a lot of the pitfalls because I made them myself, um, and and I sort of feel like this idea of taking something from that awful experience and using it for good. And it sounds like you've done a sort of similar thing in a different way. But, you know, with this kind of love of connection and movies and you know creating and talents that you have, you know that you've created this and taken it forward and that it's now a big part of your life and I think that's a really nice way of putting it.

Aaron West: 42:59

Yeah, thank you. Well, what's interesting is I mentioned the support group, the Long COVID support group. So, like you, I did not leave after the recovery. I did talk about it in that support group and I did share. Hey, so far it seems like I'm recovered We'll see what it looks like in a month and the people in the support group, you know, for the most part everybody really wants to help each other.

Aaron West: 43:22

The one thing is, during my long COVID experience I did my emotions ran the gamut. You know it's difficult emotionally too, and sometimes I would lose control emotionally. You know this is not a masculine brag thing, but like I didn't cry at movies beforehand, now during COVID, maybe I'm reverting back to that now, but it's not a again, it's not a point of pride, but during long COVID it would not. I mean, my emotions were all over the place and sometimes they'd materialize in surprising ways. But with the long COVID support group I was sharing my support stories or my recovery stories, kind of like what I'm doing here and what you do, because I wanted people to realize that hey, there is a solution, because what happens is a lot of people will recover and they will then leave the group. So I stayed around for maybe six months and after every doctor's appointment or maybe every big benchmark that I passed that I cleared, I wanted people to know what recovering was like, but also what it looked like. So I did talk, I did share that hey, I have so much energy, like more than I know what to do with. That is regulated. Now I'm back to being what I would think of as a normal person, to being what I would think of as a normal person.

Aaron West: 44:37

After a period of time, I had to actually leave that group because I realized that it's not for me anymore and I did share my stories. It's more powerful, I think, and impactful for people to hear it from my mouth, like we're doing right now, because people did not believe me and that's okay. But I found myself after six months and of course, there's all sorts of people that will. You know. You mentioned the medical people will have their solutions. I don't know if they're all you know. Some might be scams. Some people might believe in them. You never know. You have to treat people with face value.

Aaron West: 45:11

But people were asking for proof that I recovered and the thing is I can't just send them my medical records, even though I had them. In fact that's a rule with this group is you cannot send your personal, private medical records to anybody. So I didn't want to portray that. But I also get why somebody would be critical and would want to ask questions and make sure that people are telling the truth. So actually leaving the group helped me personally. Just turn the turn the door and I did say goodbye. You know it was 50,000 people I'm. I doubt they miss me, but but again I graduated.

Aaron West: 45:48

So now this, this personal community, and also, you know, now that I'm out and about in the neighborhood, I've reunited with friends who had missed me and they told me I thought you know, time, like I mentioned, moves slow and fast, but when it's slow it's really, really slow and it's lonely. And there were people that I hadn't heard from and they hadn't heard from me and they just knew I was ill. And when they saw me after recovering they were just like we just missed you, man, we just missed you, and that was very sweet to me. Now I've heard from other long COVID survivors that hey, where were they? And I get it. You want everybody to be thinking about you and it really did mean a lot when people checked in on me during that time, including people that I interact with frequently now. But the thing is people don't know you're just gone and people have their own lives. So I reunited with a lot of friends, a lot of loved ones, and I still have yet to. There's still a lot of old friends I haven't seen that. I can't wait. It's going to be like friends coming together. They're like oh my God, you're this person I knew that we had such a great time with five years ago or whatnot.

Aaron West: 46:59

There's also I hate to say this, but there's also a matter of people not expecting much from me. So the thing is, yeah, I do a lot, but I'm writing a book and I need quiet time for that. So long, covid has actually taught me how to prioritize my time, my private time, because if I'm writing a book and I need quiet time for that, so long COVID has actually taught me how to prioritize my, my time, my private time. Cause if I'm going to watch six movies in a day, I'm not going to do much else. Otherwise my brain is going to, you know. It's just going to come unglued.

Aaron West: 47:27

But that's not a day for social dates. You know. That's a. That's a working day, I'm I and when I say, watching six movies, like I said, taking notes, writing in my book and that sort of thing, so I think when I publish it I'm going to go on a book tour and I'm kind of prearranging that. Again, I'm not trying to sell the book to your listeners, but I'm really looking forward to that community of going out to different cities and interacting with people that share the same passions that I share. Yeah, and getting, yeah, touching the touching grass, as they say.

Jackie Baxter: 48:01

Yeah, and I think you know we learn a lot of lessons, don't we, while we experience this, as we go on this journey, and I think you know one of them is that we have to let things go um, because otherwise they fester um, and we can let them go in whatever way works for us, um, but also that, certainly for me, you really don't take things for granted anymore and you are, you know, you know much more, I think, what is important to you, and you're much better at prioritizing that, because you had so much time when you couldn't you had no choice, you couldn't even, you know, enjoy sort of resting and relaxing because it was so uncomfortable. So, you know, it's those, you know, what is actually important in life. You know, I think that gratitude for having that back, certainly that's how I feel, um yeah, that's a, that's a.

Aaron West: 49:00

A good take from long covet is that you come to appreciate your personal time and actually enjoying that personal time, because it is not enjoyable during this, that this illness. So yeah, I'm certainly thrilled that you're, you're recovered and uh, and yeah, everybody else, I think it can happen. So, yeah, just take those baby steps, you'll get there. Mine was not a baby step, mine was a gigantic, large step, but that might help happen to people too. We, there's just so much we don't know yeah, absolutely well.

Jackie Baxter: 49:33

thank you so much for coming along and sharing your story and sharing some hope and good luck with the book and the book tour and watching 27 movies in one day.

Aaron West: 49:48

And.

Jackie Baxter: 49:49

I'm so excited to see where you go next. So thank you so much for being here.

Aaron West: 49:54

It was great being here, Jackie. Thanks for having me.