My Long COVID Story, Part 1. Pun intended
Before I begin, let me explain something. "Long COVID" doesn't mean you have the acute disease, but rather that you have negative physical and mental sequelae that can appear a year or two or three afterwards. I first caught the damned virus in March of 2020, but looking back in hindsight, I believe my Long Story started 15 months later. Because of this timeframe, I will break this down into several posts. I will also call my first acute episode "COVID1" and the second "COVID2."
The symptoms of COVID1 were annoying but not severe: fever and chills; muscle and joint aches ("myalgias" and "arthralgias" respectively); some nasal congestion and clear discharge ("rhinorrhea"); a minor sore throat ("pharyngitis"); a loss of sense of taste; and a strange change in olfaction. Everything smelled like smoke, eerily reminiscent of the time I went into the charred shell of a neighbor's house destroyed by fire. I would often awaken in a panic, thinking that something was burning up in my room at Motel Hell in Milwaukee. Needless to say, I lost my sense of smell for everything else, and it hasn't fully recovered over three years later.
I just recently realized how this ties acute and long COVID together. 
