Karen Wright’s Story

Long Covid
Written By Katy McGhie
“I never stopped, I was always on the go, always doing, always active and always saying yes. Always chasing the improvements, the success. ”
 

  • Before Illness / Early Illness

    • Busy mum of two, full-time NHS Physiotherapist

    • Active lifestyle: gym 6 days a week

    • Helped set up a field hospital and designed Long Covid rehab services

    • High-achieving, always on the go, people-pleasing tendencies

    • Unresolved past trauma

    Initial Decline

    • Autumn 2021: Covid-19 infection that didn’t resolve

    • Severe fatigue, brain fog, chest pain, light/sound sensitivity

    • Couldn’t walk around the block or tolerate car rides

    • Crashes after minimal activity

    • Husband took over parenting and home responsibilities

    • Felt isolated and unrecognised because she “looked fine”

    Struggle and Realisation

    • Tried to push through, leading to repeated crashes

    • Recognised need to change approach

    • Reflected on stressors and lifestyle before illness

    • Saw the need to slow down and live differently

    Finding a Way Forward

    • Low histamine diet reduced symptoms overnight

    • Built structure with pacing and baseline management

    • Meditation, breathwork, counselling, gratitude practice

    • Embraced deep rest and gentle movement like yoga

    • Learned to ask for help and accept support

    • Let go of perfectionism and urgency

    Rebuilding Life

    • Worked with Long Covid service, applying Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

    • Gradually returned to work (30 hours/week) and parenting

    • Enjoyed hobbies like gardening, paddleboarding, piano

    • Adopted a slower, more intentional pace of life

    Health Challenges and Progress

    • Diagnosed with thyroid cancer after finding a lump

    • Surgery removed cancer, leading to unexpected relief from migraines and tinnitus

    • Improved overall capacity and energy

    Career Transition

    • Left NHS after 23 years when Long Covid service closed

    • Founded Sage Health and Wellness to support others with fatigue

    • Developed an education programme to share recovery tools

    Reflection

    • Describes recovery as hard, lonely, but deeply transformative

    • Found more balance, presence, and authenticity

    • Message to others: the answer isn’t just external—real change starts within

    • Believes a full, healthy, joyful life is possible through self-awareness and aligned living

 
 

Introduction

In Autumn 2021 life changed suddenly, and enormously. The Covid-19 infection landed, and it didn’t go away. The best way I can describe it, is that it was like having an empty tank, there was just nothing in me to move, think or function. I kept thinking, I just need more rest, so I’d lie on the sofa for 2 or 3 days. I would feel better and glad, so I’d try doing a little something. But going out for a short walk or a ride in the car left me depleted once more. It was very difficult to accept. I had my children to look after, my career to attend to, my friends and family, and my hobbies that I was missing. I was missing from my life. I had a list of symptoms as long as my arm that massively impacted my ability to function and participate in daily life, including:

  • Sensitivity to light

  • Sensitivity to sound

  • Severe brain Fog

  • Headache & Migraine

  • Chest pain 

  • Extreme fatigue

  • Orthostatic Intolerance 

  • Food Intolerance 

  • Weight loss

  • Constipation 

  • Hypersomnia 

  • Breathlessness

  • Rashes

  • Intolerant to extremes of temperature

  • Tinnitus

  • Non-restorative sleep

There was no way working was possible; I could barely walk around the block, let alone go to the gym; and my husband picked up the lion’s share of the parenting and home responsibilities.  Outwardly I looked fine, so people didn’t understand. It was isolating and depressing. Life was unrecognisable. After months of trying to “pick myself back up” and keep going, that resulted in crash states, something had to change.

 
 
“...no knowledge could take away from the devastating losses this illness brought. Everything I used to enjoy seemed to make my health worse. It wasn’t just the big losses, it was the culmination of all the little losses too.”
 

Background

I had just turned 40, was an active Mum with two busy young boys; managing a home; putting everything into a thriving career, working full time as a Physiotherapist in the NHS, climbing the career ladder; and somehow, smashing it in the gym 6 days a week as well. At work, during the Covid-19 pandemic, I had been involved in the setup of a field hospital and led research into Long Covid. This work steered the creation of a Long Covid Rehabilitation Service, which eventually expanded to support individuals living with ME/CFS and Post-Viral Fatigue. So I had an understanding of the condition from a professional perspective, but the lived experience was something entirely different, and no knowledge could take away from the devastating losses this illness brought. Everything I used to enjoy seemed to make my health worse. It wasn’t just the big losses, it was the culmination of all the little losses too. I couldn’t tolerate a bath for example, couldn’t tolerate very long in the car, couldn’t sing along to my favourite song, chocolate was off the menu and the TV hurt my eyes. I was lost.

Looking back through the depth of my understanding of these conditions now, it’s easy to see how my body was in a depleted state and vulnerable to this illness back then. I had worked intensely for the previous 18 months providing health care during the pandemic; we were having an extension on the house which was a stressor, we held a wedding at our home and recently got back from an adventure weekend climbing Yr Wyddfa, the highest (1000m+) peak in Wales, for my 40th celebrations, in the weeks preceding the infection. Perhaps more importantly was my approach to life. I never stopped, I was always on the go, always doing, always active and always saying yes. Always chasing the improvements, the success. Unknowingly, I had people pleasing and perfectionistic tendencies. I also lived with unresolved trauma from the past. 

 
“Ironically, I was referred to my own Long Covid service in work. Working with the team, I moved towards acceptance, consolidated a baseline and routine, and found the ability to move the body without judging and comparing to past ability. ”
 
 

Recovery

One thing I knew was that food was making my symptoms worse. My family and I ate a fish and chip take away one night in the early days, and my body went into overdrive. I still couldn’t walk 2 days later. I’d read success stories about low histamine diet, so that was the start. Food. I spent the little energy I had on food planning and preparation. There was a noticeable overnight improvement in symptoms after the first day of eating differently. The internal “revving” I could feel in the body calmed down and restorative sleep was experienced for the first time in months. I was amazed! It wasn’t a cure by any means, but it was a start.

That was the first step. I found hope, found a baseline, and the crashes became less frequent. I hacked everything possible to make it work for the recovery back to health, embracing the wins and learning from what didn’t work so well. I tweaked and re-tweaked my routine time and time again, focussing on one thing at a time. Deep rest was built into every day through a regular meditation and breathwork practise. I started pulling some skeletons out of the closet in counselling, and practicing self study. I explored Buddhism and Non Violent Communication. I leaned into my relationships and focused on what was important. To ask for help and receive help with grace was a big change in behaviour to my usual independent way of being.

Ironically, I was referred to my own Long Covid service in work. Working with the team, I moved towards acceptance, consolidated a baseline and routine, and found the ability to move the body without judging and comparing to past ability. Finding baseline and sticking to it was a game changer. Living with respect to my baseline was making me better, but I knew I had to play the long game to gain the capacity and freedom I wanted. Making recovery the top priority, brought some hard lessons and sacrifices, like letting go of the completer/finisher mindset I had always lived with, and identified with, and missing out on things I wanted to do. But the less I crashed, the more capacity grew. It was worth it. Soon I began a regular yoga practise. They were “big” small steps, and it was a place to build from, and so very slowly, I started to build my capacity.

Going back to work was hard, there were lots of challenges and comparison reared its head again… acceptance and gratitude were needed in a big way, and became a daily practise. Gradually, cognitive capacity grew through the work. The beauty of it was that there was a much better balance in life than I’d ever had. Things had fundamentally changed. I invested in my relationships and found more meaning in everyday connections, and more presence. Pacing was a friend, I relished a healthy pace to life. I was selective, cherishing my energy and embracing the JOMO! (Joy of missing out). I spent time in the garden, the earth, and grew organic food. I relished the beauty of the ocean and rivers while paddle boarding and embraced the joy in unrushed life.

By spring 2024 I was working 30 hours a week (50/50 office/home), able to take care of my children, able to drive, and able to participate in gentle movement and hobbies like yoga, paddleboarding, gardening and piano. I was still pacing, and adapting to life as it flowed along. I had this capacity but was still plagued by migraines, blood pressure drops, reduced cognitive capacity and tinnitus. That’s when I noticed a lump the size of a quails egg in the pit of my throat. The biopsy was inconclusive so I had half of my thyroid, containing the lump, surgically removed. It was cancer, but it was contained. I decided not to have any further treatment, and as I recovered from surgery, so I noticed that there were no more migraines or tinnitus. It was a beautiful relief and had a noticeable impact on my capacity. 

 
 
“People being left unsupported and unnecessarily prolonging these illnesses is archaic, unjust and inhumane. I hope it will improve with time but for now this is my purpose. ”
 

Career

Despite this progress my ongoing need to work at a steady pace wasn’t a good fit for the busy NHS culture I was working in. My career trajectory towards Head of Service was no longer realistic, and no longer something I wanted. I invested more in the people I was working with, and the Long Covid, ME/CFS service we were providing. My initial professional research and investment in starting up this service, my lived experience, and the support I received from my colleagues during my own illness, made it special to me. Knowing what people were going through and that we were able to help gave me a great sense of pride and purpose, and it met my need to contribute to my local community. 

When the organisation I worked for decided to close the service, it was a new grief, a grief for the collective, our fatigue community. We’d come so far, but this was a huge backwards step. We were letting people down. The decision makers weren’t listening, and to me it was a huge betrayal, evident of ignorance, misguided priorities and a lack of integrity. My 23 year passionate and dedicated NHS career was over. I couldn’t be a part of it anymore. 

As I write this, Summer 2025, I’m starting a new chapter in my career and life. I have founded my own business, Sage Health and Wellness, to provide Physiotherapy and coaching to support people living with fatiguing illnesses. I have written a comprehensive education programme to give people the tools they need in recovery, that I am so passionate about. People being left unsupported and unnecessarily prolonging these illnesses is archaic, unjust and inhumane. I hope it will improve with time but for now this is my purpose.

 
 
“Looking back now the “rushing” life I was leading, trying to comply to cultural norms, was not a healthy one and was not sustainable. There is a richness in life now that I would never have thought possible. I have beautiful, cherished energy today that is a delight.”
 

Recovered

Long Covid, and Cancer (that I didn’t know I had until it was gone) has been a hard, sometimes lonely, sometimes dark and often testing time. As hard as it was, I wouldn’t change a thing. This recovery process has brought healing and learning at a deep and essential level. I am much more myself now than I ever was before the illness. Looking back now the “rushing” life I was leading, trying to comply to cultural norms, was not a healthy one and was not sustainable. There is a richness in life now that I would never have thought possible. I have beautiful, cherished energy today that is a delight; there is balance and a flow to life and I have an able and comfortable body. The symptom list is a thing of the past. 

If you’re where I was in winter 2021, in despair and desperately seeking a solution, trying and crashing, wishing we were 20 years ahead so medicine would have the answer; please know that the answer is not in outside remedies. Although they might help, the answer is not in one thing outside of you. The answer is within you. The answer is you. Study yourself, look at your routine, the way you do things, your patterns and habits. Be honest about what is working for you and what isn’t. Live in alignment with what your body is willing and able to do comfortably, and let go of comparison. Let go of thoughts about how you should live or who you should be, and step into your authenticity. I want you to know that if you’re willing to change, then change is possible. There is a way to live a full, healthy and joyful life.

Katy McGhie
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Payton Foeller’s Story