Jessie Chaffee
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jessielchaffee.bsky.social
Jessie Chaffee
@jessielchaffee.bsky.social
95 followers 170 following 26 posts
Author of Florence in Ecstasy. Living with and writing about #longcovid
https://lithub.com/a-single-ray-of-light-on-ray-bradburys-all-summer-in-a-day-and-living-in-the-shadow-of-long-covid/ www.JessieChaffee.com
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jessielchaffee.bsky.social
Gratitude to activists and advocates who have fought for support for #longcovid sufferers for 5 long years. @angelamswinca.bsky.social @patientled.bsky.social @filowenstein.bsky.social @ahandvanish.bsky.social @longcovidsupport.bsky.social @longcovidadvoc.com @c19lap.bsky.social @sanders.senate.gov
Screenshot of essay excerpt about the U.S. Senate Committee Hearing on Long COVID: Because there are people resisting erasure. There are people challenging the “post-pandemic” story, in which COVID is a historical blip rather than an ongoing and devastating narrative. One morning, a year-and-a-half into my illness, I watch the U.S. Senate Committee Hearing on Long COVID, a meeting that is only happening because of the advocacy of groups like the Patient-Led Research Collaborative and Long COVID Moonshot. Bernie Sanders introduces the meeting, and I weep as he states the simplest truths: “Long COVID is a very serious illness that can have devastating consequences for those who contract it….Long COVID can include more than two hundred symptoms, including serious cognitive impairment and severe cardiovascular and neurological problems….Far too many patients with long COVID have struggled to get their symptoms taken seriously.” Screenshot of essay excerpt about long COVID patients who testified at the U.S. Senate Committee Hearing on Long COVID: None of this new to me, and yet hearing it acknowledged feels groundbreaking. Then the panelists give testimony. Rachel Beale, a mother of three, says, “My kids have grown accustomed to me being sick….Full recovery seems out of reach for me. I’ve been sick for almost three years.” Her appearance in person at the hearing is a physical sacrifice—it will trigger a days-long fatigue crash, she predicts. Nicole Heim, whose teenaged daughter has long COVID, testifies, “Long COVID stripped away my daughter’s life as she knew it.” Angela Vázquez, the founder of Body Politic, a grassroots organization that connected and advocated for long COVID patients early in the pandemic, shares her prolonged journey to diagnosis—one impeded by disbelief and gaslighting, and made worse by the inequitable treatment she received as a woman of color. Then she says something that both resonates with and terrifies me: “We are living through what is likely to be the largest mass disabling event in modern history.”
April 4, 2025 at 6:46 PM