Long COVID and a PhD

A PhD, the highest academic qualification, requiring in depth research, concentration, the ability to pull together literature into a narrative and advance human knowledge. Long COVID, often characterised by debilitating brain fog, lethargy and the inability to focus—at least these are the symptoms I have experienced in this multifaceted new illness which can take many forms. Long COVID and a PhD are thus seemingly incompatible.

My story begins on New Years Day 2022, sitting at the breakfast table at my parents’ house, surrounded by my four children. The perfect start to the year, jokes and laugher ringing out, peace and happiness emerging from the COVID juggernaut, lasting mere seconds before a family member announced a positive COVID test. And so the year began, followed soon after by me and two of my children getting COVID too, meaning no back to school after the holidays after all. Fast forward to 7^th February 2022 and the news didn’t improve, my Upgrade was caught up in tensions between International Relations/Cyber Security Studies. Let’s just say 2022 was not turning out to be the year of peace and harmony. In fact, given the number of punishing blows which came my way, I was certain my inability to concentrate, tiredness, and lack of productivity were all down to the hostile environment in which I found myself operating.

By 7^th May I had taken enough, and so I asked how long the notice period would be to leave the CDT. The answer was one day, a single day, which I did not expect. Well, I could likely survive a single day and see how that went, and then maybe the next day and the next, let’s see. In May I had two weeks of Ray Hunt’s computer ‘cracking’ classes followed by a conference called Cycon in Estonia. Why not try and get through May and reassess things afterwards?

So I did exactly that. As June came, the same brain fog and tiredness persisted, but through May I had developed a sense that I actually liked my PhD area and I knew it well. Maybe I just needed to fall back in love with work and then all the tiredness and inability to function would clear. I would test that theory and see where it went. Now onto July, and my Upgrade was completed, bringing with it the sense of a task ticked off, however, also thoughts that maybe not being on the CDT would be the easier option. This was not a great way to be thinking when I still had a long way to go to finish the PhD. I decided to take August off, have the summer holiday with family, and hopefully this blip which had been 2022 would clear. I hoped to come back refreshed and ready in September, simple…

…Well simple, if simple meant trying to do a PhD when I couldn’t read a sentence and get it to make sense. I began to think that maybe more was wrong with me than tough times and falling out of love with my PhD, so I went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with long COVID, which made so much sense. Now I needed to make a decision about the PhD. The one-day notice period became very tempting, but on the other hand, I thought, this allowed me to take things day by day, with a quick exit ready to be used at any time if needed. So the year went on, less as a decision to continue, more as a perpetual delay in making a decision. As the year drew to a close, however, I had decided to give the PhD my best shot, to do what I could to shake long COVID, and to move forward and make it work, even though I still existed in a haze of brain fog. 2022 ended with my PhD plans for the next year and a new mentor from the CDT scheme.

New year 2023 began with a reorganisation of my supervisory team and my submission timelines officially pushed back. This was a great start, but long COVID isn’t something you can wish away and the year started slowly work-wise. My hopes that one day I would wake up and all this would be better had long faded. I was instead on a painful journey of slow and steady progress towards goals which always seemed to achieve less than I wanted, working along timelines so basic under normal circumstances that they would have been completed in hours, but now they dragged on.

May 2023 came around, and I went back to the Cycon conference, which acted as a time benchmark indicating that a year had passed. My doctor’s words of wisdom concerning long COVID resonated as I reflected on the year: look back a week, a month, 3 months, and a year. Do you feel better now than you did then? If so, then things are getting better. I was definitely feeling better than a year ago, and indeed the answer to all these questions was yes. Maybe things were looking up, even though everything was still a challenge and still took forever to complete (and some things still weren’t getting done).

Another conference followed in October, this time in Zurich. Here I felt functioning, fit, and well. Buoyed from the conference and the renewed sense that I knew my area of study, I started to think that this might be the sign of long COVID finally lifting. Writing was still more difficult than usual but maybe this ‘just’ needed a period of practice, like physiotherapy after recovering a broken limb, perhaps. October was also my original PhD completion date, which brought on thoughts of ‘if only’ and ‘what if’.

Moving onward, the final days of 2023 marked nearly two years from when I first caught COVID which would not leave. Compared to a year ago, I felt much better and found myself on a steady track to PhD completion. However, comparing my outputs to when I started on the CDT in 2019, productivity was still below what I was used to. However, I am hopeful that two years is indeed now a line in the sand with the worst of long COVID over for me. Looking back a week, a month, 3 months, and a year as check ins, I carry on forwards. The ultimate uncertainty of not knowing if my brain will function from one day to the next thankfully seems to have passed.

So why share this story? Well, my thoughts are two-fold: first, it may resonate with others and help them to feel like they are not alone in their struggles, whether this be long COVID, other illness, bereavement, or struggling with the PhD itself; and second this is a way to reflect on and put to rest these last two years. I now move forwards with a clear head and a renewed sense of purpose. So with this in mind, my aim for 2024 is to carry on and complete the PhD. Wish me luck!