Chris was unable to access a specialist long COVID rehab program after a trip to the ED.

Transcript

The way I wound up in this program was, a couple of months later, I had a really bad bout of palpitations and presyncope that ended up – I ended up going to the emergency room because I just couldn’t get my heart rate under control or some of the other issues under control. And it was the longest emergency room wait I have ever had. I was referred to sort of the, you know, lowest level after triage because my ECG ended up being normal, which was good. But after, I don’t know, something like eight hours or nine hours when the emergency room doctor did finally examine me, he said that he noticed a number of indicators of possible autonomic dysfunction and he’s the one who actually referred me … So had I gone to a different hospital emerg I wouldn’t have been referred to that program, but the emergency room doctor knew of this program and thought because I’d had COVID and because of the symptoms that I was presenting with that this rehab program would possibly be a good fit for me. And so it ended up being a referral from the emerg …

My OT and my physiotherapist and my kinesiologist have done an immense amount of positive things for me. The most benefit I’ve had in terms of just getting functional again, getting some of my deconditioning resolved, getting the strength and motivation to, you know, get out of bed some days it’s been largely because of what those three individuals have done. And my physiotherapist in particular, she was the one who after I first met with her after I had COVID in January and rattled off my laundry list of symptoms, both the ones I’d had since 2020 and the ones that were starting to emerge post-COVID, she’s the one who first said, you know, “Oh, this sounds like POTS which we’re starting to see in some of our long COVID patients.” … And so she was really the first one who kind of really said to me, “Not only do I think you have long COVID, but here’s how I think your long COVID might be manifesting and most importantly here’s something I think we can do about it.” And then she started to build an exercise rehab program for me … So recumbent biking has been a big part of it because I’m not fully sitting upright and I’m not standing, I’m kind of a bit reclined. And, you know, I started with five minutes of biking every two days and now I’m up to half an hour of biking every day … The kinesiologist has me doing sort of a variety of exercises where I’m either seated or on my back or we’re starting to do things like squats to try to improve my leg strength but I’m always like hugging a beam or something [laughs] or have a chair or a bench right behind me just because I do have that dizziness. I do get like a syncope type feeling a lot and my legs are still pretty deconditioned. So we’re just trying to take the precautions as we expand the content of the exercise maybe.

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