The first time I got Covid, it was before most people knew Covid was a thing. An antibody test would later confirm my diagnosis, but in January 2020, those were few and far between, so I called it a mystery illness and focused all my efforts on just getting better. It would take a while, but thankfully I recovered. And that’s when I started to realise how profoundly my body had been impacted.

After spending almost a month in bed, in between ambulance rides and endless doctor visits, I was given the all-clear. Eager to return to normal life, I made big plans for new work projects, moving house and spending a few months in another country with friends… only for reality to quickly slap me in the face: for months, I couldn’t walk up a single flight of stairs without having to sit down midway through.

I was so tired all the time, and no matter how much I slept or how many vitamins I took, nothing seemed to change. I was too weak to walk more than 20 minutes at a time, and the first time I tried to get back into my pilates routine, I almost fainted. It looked like recovery would take a lot longer than I thought.