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megclems.bsky.social
meg’s malaise
@megclems.bsky.social
1.1K followers 610 following 2.6K posts
she/her

Long COVID since 7/2020 with a side of ME + Dysautonomia

Let’s talk Sociology, Ethnic Studies, Knitting, Writing, Drag Race & Dragula 🤍
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megclems.bsky.social
TRIGGER WARNING: MEDICAL MISINFORMATION & LONG COVID DENIALISM

These losers have been using the same tired conspiracy bullshit for five+ years now. Where are our able bodied allies to shut this shit down? We’ve fought it long enough, it’s time for y’all to step up and have our backs.
Post from user HANK TOUGH @/flag-burner.bsky.com Text reads: I've decided I'm gonna start believing unreasonable conspiracy theories that I make up: I believe long covid is a lie that people subconsciously tell themselves in order to get more time off from work after they get better from covid. It's entirely psychosomatic.
April 20, 2025 at 7:40 AM
megclems.bsky.social
Today is Toast’s birthday! He’s 11 years old 🥰🥹
Photo of my smaller dog, River, taking a treat from my hand. The treat says “Let’s” on it. River is a medium sized tan dog with white paws and a little bit of grey around his mouth. Photo of my bigger dog, Toast, taking a treat from my hand. The treat says “Pawty” on it. He’s a large tan dog with lots of grey around his muzzle and eyebrows. He’s the birthday boy!
November 20, 2024 at 3:52 AM
megclems.bsky.social
WOW. Just saying the quiet part out loud with her whole face and name on her account —

This is the kind of disgusting ableism we have to face down all the goddamn time. Long COVID is NOT “just people being a bummer/not being able to read a room/TMI”

Getting some unwanted comments is NOT (1)
Post from account anthrodiva.bsky.social: I've had to hide two comments today, mostly just people being giant bummers/not reading the room/TMI or just what I think of as Long Covid: Me: posts cute bunny pic Friend: WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE OF BUNNY FEVER!
October 26, 2024 at 2:37 PM
megclems.bsky.social
I’m racing to get this baby blanket done before my new nephew comes ☺️ I’ve got mayyybe a month to go. It’s gonna take a knitting miracle for me lol

Pattern is called Basket Weave Preemie Blanket by Cheryl Chow.
A shot of a work-in-progress knitting project. There is the beginning of a light yellow blanket perched on top an attached cake of yarn. There are about four inches of fabric made, which has a basket-weave-like texture.
July 27, 2024 at 7:46 PM
megclems.bsky.social
My neighbor and I heard them screeching sometime last week and I wouldn’t have known what the hell I was hearing, but he told me they were owls. I thought just hearing them was cool!

This is probably the best frame I can get from the video. It must’ve been on the hunt to be down in the grass 😯
A very blurry screenshot from a video taken at night. The silhouette of what I’m quite sure is an owl is illuminated by street lights. It has just taken flight - its wings are flung straight upward and its talons are just barely pushed off of the ground below. The bird’s shadow stretches out beneath it on a green lawn.
July 27, 2024 at 9:02 AM
megclems.bsky.social
Birds!
A very blurry, awkwardly lit nighttime photo of a pond lined with grasses and other freshwater plants. A large grey-ish bird with long legs and a curving neck steps through the water, its silhouette reflected off the dark blue-black surface. The bird is perhaps a heron, but I’m not confident to say that absolutely. Beyond the maybe-heron, a huddle of four or five ducks appear as a little blurry brown clump. It’s an incredibly amateur photo, but if you’re into birding you might find it interesting nonetheless!
July 27, 2024 at 8:24 AM
megclems.bsky.social
The bit on Long COVID for anyone who doesn’t have the spoons to scroll.
Text reading: Improving Access to Health Care: Addressing Long COVID. As tasked by the President in his Memorandum on Addressing the Long-Term Effects of COVID-19, HHS established the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice, which is coordinating a whole-of-government response to the long-term impacts of COVID-19 and responding to the needs of those living with Long COVID. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) RECOVER initiative has enrolled nearly 30,000 people to help us understand Long COVID and develop treatments.
July 27, 2024 at 2:48 AM
megclems.bsky.social
This is so so so important - Catherine provided a gift link for this article. Please share it widely!
Screenshot including text: It’s bad enough patients of color are coping with a debilitating illness, they said. It’s all the more devastating, they said, to feel like they’re being erased — from medical records, public imagination and policy considerations. Researchers say that in many cases, people are not even being formally diagnosed, meaning they’re suffering and not getting help.
May 29, 2024 at 2:31 AM
megclems.bsky.social
From the Guardian article referenced in the above - www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
You can trace the origins of this model to a paper published in 1970. Without assessing a single patient or interviewing a single doctor, it blamed an earlier outbreak of post-viral ME/CFS on “mass hysteria” based on case notes alone. The reasoning included the fact that the outbreak affected more women than men. For centuries, doctors have been readier to classify women’s illnesses as hysterical or psychosomatic than they have men’s. ME/CFS, like long Covid, hits women harder, so, the thinking goes, it must be all in the mind.
March 18, 2024 at 8:43 AM
megclems.bsky.social
Of course I find the perfect hair salon when I have a month left in the city 🥲 guess I’ll be coming back for doctor visits AND haircuts
Photo of me - a 30 year old white woman. My hair is medium brown and hits just at my chin. It’s freshly cut and very cute. My glasses are oversized lime green square frames and I’m wearing a black shirt with text visible that says “born too.” I’m standing in front of a green curtain and a white dresser with a tendril of a pothos plant trailing just behind my shoulder.
January 28, 2024 at 10:37 PM
megclems.bsky.social
Damn I love New Yorkers so much 🥺
Screen grab of the article linked in the previous skeet. The text reads: Passengers on the train told Eyewitness News that everyone was screaming and it was very scary when it happened. They said there was crying until the fire department arrived and broke the doors to help the passengers out. Others said despite the scare, it will still as calm of a situation as it could have been given the circumstances. "People were asking that everybody was OK, it was a good New Yorker experience," Danny White said. "It was as good as it could have been."
January 4, 2024 at 10:23 PM
megclems.bsky.social
CW: long COVID denial/dismissal, ableism, general assholery

Account to report and block - don’t waste your energy engaging with these trolls. Send them back to Twitter where they belong 🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻
Screengrab of a skeet by user jimcolbert.bsky.social. Text reads: “Venn Diagram” followed by a photo of a circle with the text “People with ‘Fibromyalgia’… People with ‘Long COVID’”
January 4, 2024 at 8:59 AM
megclems.bsky.social
imma bug 🐛
A selfie of me. I have short auburn hair, and I’m wearing a burgundy mask, and oversized green glasses. I think the combo makes me look a little bit like a bug. My black and white shirt says “Born too kick ass” with a drawing of a skull. I’m in horrendous overhead lighting, but we must work with what we are given.
December 6, 2023 at 9:44 PM
megclems.bsky.social
I’m doing some light packing - no heavy lifting, no bending, no lifting my arms above my head. Just putting lip gloss into my little quart sized baggie, chill as can be listening to a podcast… why the fuck is my heart rate at 130bpm 😐

FUCK LONG COVID
A photo of a fitness tracker watch on my pale pale arm. The screen reads: TUE 5 01:43 Little footprints signifying daily steps: 1339 A heart signifying heart rate: 130 A battery signifying, well, the battery: 72%
December 5, 2023 at 7:13 PM
megclems.bsky.social
Someone didn’t get the 🐝 memo… 😂

Happy Halloween everybody!!!
Five dogs pose in their Halloween costumes in front of a wrought iron gate. Four of them, the two large brown mixed breed dogs and the two little Boston Terriers, are in an array of bumble bee costumes. The fifth, a tiny chihuahua mix, is wearing a pumpkin costume. Of course only two of them are successfully looking at the camera. None of them look particularly pleased, but they put up with us regardless!
October 31, 2023 at 11:02 PM
megclems.bsky.social
Reskeet with a photo of you in the sun…

Had to dig back into the days before I was a long COVID zombie. I miss her 🥲
A white woman in her late twenties takes a selfie of her leaning on a windowsill. The window is pushed all the way open and her long auburn-ish hair catches the sunlight and trails out over the threshold. It’s the longest her hair has ever been. She’s wearing a red wine colored bridesmaid dress and oversized octagonal sunglasses. The sky beyond is blue and speckled with fluffy clouds.
October 7, 2023 at 6:41 AM
megclems.bsky.social
Using an image, show a movie you are sure you have watched more than ten times.

I KNOW a lot of awful dudes Stan this movie but idc… Once a Chuck Palahniuk girlie, always a Chuck Palahniuk girlie 😘
A still from the movie Fight Club. In a dark room, Meatloaf (the musician and actor) embraces Edward Norton.
September 10, 2023 at 2:02 AM
megclems.bsky.social
Screenshot of the article reading: “Dee likens PEM to quicksand, in the sense that the harder she pushes to try and get out, the more unwell she gets. And that’s just the physical side of things. Cognitive dysfunction including concentration difficulties, a loss of mental stamina and forgetting words is also a big part of the picture.” [there is a text box here on the page that reads “Do you have a story to share? Email Specialist.Team@abc.net.au”] The article continues, “people with ME/CFS and Long COVID show ‘significant differences’ in the brain compared to healthy people, Professor Marshall-Gradisnik says. ‘If I was to use energy to order groceries online, that’s a whole lot of other cognitive things, like paying a bill, that I cannot do on the same day,’ Dee says”
September 9, 2023 at 4:37 AM
megclems.bsky.social
Heard “no nightshades” and had to rewind. Michelle representing for the autoimmune girlies 🥰
A tv in a dark room with the screen showing a still from RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under. Michelle Visage, a fashionable white woman is wearing silver and black to match her hair. She sits in front of a blue and red honeycomb-patterned wall. The subtitles read: “But also the AIP— so no nuts, no beans,”. If you look closely you can see plants and paintings and a globe around the tv in the dark
September 2, 2023 at 1:30 AM
megclems.bsky.social
Can’t let Dog Day pass without posting Toast and River - they are quite the chaotic duo but there’s no way I would’ve made it through the last few years without them 🩷🩷🩷
Two tan dogs are cuddled up on a beige couch. Toast is the bigger dog on the left, and he has his paw outstretched towards the right. River sits to the right and has his little white paw draped over Toast’s leg. They’re looking at the camera like they’re a little apprehensive, like they’re thinking, “why do you keep taking pictures of us, mom?”
August 27, 2023 at 3:31 AM
megclems.bsky.social
Love a good food dog name 😄 this is Toast! Happy Dog Day!
Toast, a big tan mixed breed dog is sitting on a dark brown couch with his front paws dangling down off the side. He’s looking at the camera and doesn’t seem particularly amused, but he is still very cute and handsome.
August 27, 2023 at 12:20 AM
megclems.bsky.social
Pushed play on the first movie in a list my friend recommended and 😳

Now what are the chances of that? 😅
Screengrab from the movie Videodrome. A brunette white woman is paused mid-sentence. The subtitles read: here with your wake-up call of today, which is Wednesday the 23rd.
August 24, 2023 at 1:36 AM
megclems.bsky.social
I value the opportunity for the opportunity for you and I ✨😂
Finish with predictive text: Aries: I admit Taurus: I value Gemini: I speak Cancer: I deserve Leo: I admire Virgo: I reevaluate Libra: I balance Scorpio: I transform Sagittarius: I hope Capricorn: I avoid Aquarius: I belong Pisces: I dream
August 24, 2023 at 12:33 AM
megclems.bsky.social
Ahh fuck it… why not a little throwback to the buzzcut days 😋
Year-old selfie of me - 29-year-old white woman with buzz cut brown hair. It’s just my head in the bottom right corner against a plain white wall. I look a little moody and maybe a little stoned.
August 23, 2023 at 7:57 AM
megclems.bsky.social
Sending you a very special virtual birthday cuddle 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍 hope you can treat yourself today!
Two tan dogs are laying on a white sheet. The smaller dog has his chin resting on the bigger dog’s neck
August 21, 2023 at 7:07 PM