A Tale of Long Covid & The Realities of Living with Post-Viral Syndromes

I feel the need to share some of my experiences with myalgic encephalitis (chronic fatigue syndrome) publicly because before getting it I really had no idea what it meant. I figured it was like extreme burnout. Stress certainly doesn’t help but there is much more to it than being very tired.

Before becoming sick with what has finally been diagnosed as covid in October 2020, I was tired from being a new mother with a high-stress front-line job during a pandemic. My mental health had declined sharply around June and kept getting worse as I had increasingly frequent and unpredictable panic attacks where I almost lost consciousness many times. But before all of that I was very active. Sure I had dealt with injuries and illnesses postpartum but even with spondylitis, thyroiditis & a prolapse I was walking several hours a day, doing yoga, and generally keeping up with a super active baby very well.

If we go even further back, before I got pregnant and before a very triggering workplace violence incident, I had been running regularly at the gym, doing a combination of strength and cardio training with restorative conditioning, and had generally been a gym rat since university. We had fitness tests in first year. Our performance training was very physical. My body was my instrument and I took good care of it between spondylitis flare ups, practicing yoga every morning at 5:30am & hitting the gym for weights and cardio several times a week, plus teaching physical performance techniques in class and being super involved in leadership and extracurricular activities.

All of this changed drastically in October 2020 when I got covid for what we suspect was the second time. I had been hit with bad respiratory infections before. I’d even had walking pneumonia a few years prior, through which I still managed to run a full day of active back to back orientation games for elementary kids, do public speaking on stage for a massive audience of prospective students and their families, and cover for a colleague who was in hospital. I am no stranger to digging deep. “The show must go on.”

But this was very different. I got very sick very quickly and I could not get better. I was bedbound for a month, and would get winded simply from talking to my student teacher and LTO on video chat. I had intended to run parent teacher interviews from home but had to cancel because I couldn’t sit up and talk for more than half an hour at a time. I couldn’t get out of bed. My partner became a single parent. I only saw my 1 year old child when he would climb into bed with me to cuddle or play. I worked on my laptop in short bursts to finish marking, writing report cards, and planning for the rest of the semester all while burning through my short-term disability.

I cried on the phone to early intervention agents from the insurance company as I started to physically recover but mentally decline. I became clinically depressed, even during my short one-month rebound where I was able to get out of bed and clean the apartment. Eventually I mysteriously lost my ability to use the computer. Trying to look at anything on my laptop screen was like trying to decipher ancient hieroglyphics without a code breaker. I began to lose words very rapidly. I‘d have momentary lapses where I didn’t recognize common household objects, like clothing items and garbage bins. I became nearly narcoleptic and catatonic, spending another month unable to move from the couch and being able to do nothing more than pass out and stare at the ceiling.

Then the spondylitis flare began, and with it came the worst pain of my life, including labour, that made it impossible to move or to rest. Eventually I was put on antidepressants. Eventually I had my spondylitis officially diagnosed after ten years of occasional flares. After endless consults and MRIs and fighting w insurance (who still refused to covered it because they deemed it too expensive) I started on my biologic treatment. During this time I started to be able to do more, to think more clearly. By September I thought I should be ready to go back to work. We were hit with another bug in October and I moved my son and I into the new house early to isolate us from my partner. I was finally able to care for him on my own, though it was exhausting. I told insurance I’d like to try to come back to work. They said they’d touch base in the new year.

In the new year we got sick again, this time with what we would discover 5 months later to be EBV (mono). My partner and child bounced back in two days. I remained sick for two weeks. And then for three weeks. And then insurance followed up about returning to work. And then the questioning started: how are these symptoms coming back? Why didn’t they go away? Should we withdraw your treatment? Maybe it’s psychological, we see you have a history of mental illness? Maybe you’re just afraid to go back to work? Maybe going back is exactly what you need to get better?

So I did what I do every time I’m faced with a challenge: I threw all my energy at trying to overcome. I went for second opinions and new referrals. I refused for them to send me to the wasteland that is “pain management” (ie here are some opiates & meditation techniques—best of luck!). I refused to take “I don’t know” for an answer. And the answer is simple: you are still debilitatingly tired and sore because you have a very real medical condition that makes you very tired and sore. I have good days and bad days. My good days often bring on the bad ones. I used to be able to walk this city morning to night for 6 hours straight; now a good day is spending 3 hours on a 1 hour walk and then flaring for two more days because I just learned that overexertion actually aggravates the biological mechanisms behind myalgic encephalitis.

There is still so much stigma to face and likely more battles with insurance and my employer in my future. I’m still recovering from my latest round of COVID while still sick with symptoms of mono (though not contagious). There is still a risk that because I’ve had Long COVID once before that I might get it again even after being treated with Paxlovid, because the mono and the prior COVID infections and the spondylitis treatment have significantly weakened my immune system. There is still so much to recover from. I went to an outdoor family event yesterday and had to leave after three hours because I was having so much trouble breathing. By the end I was a dizzy, disoriented mess, with a big smile and pre-loaded w small talk bc that’s just who I am. And today it’s cost me time with my son who is now sick again, for the third time in a row, this time with heat rash.

I’m not sure sometimes how I can keep going on like this. But I know with love & nonjudgmental support from family and friends, I will get through this to the other side, even if that other side looks drastically different from my place of origin. I hope this story will help shed light on how precious the gift of good health is and how real post-viral syndromes like long covid and chronic fatigue are, especially in a time when we have less compassion for the vulnerable and the cautious than we did even before the pandemic. Thanks to those who stuck with me this far.

What I’ve Learned About Healing During This March Break

The power of connection, community, and weathering hard times together

March Break is over for Ontario students, parents, and educators. For most, it was a much-needed opportunity to take a break after two years of constant changes and unpredictability.

For my friends and I, it was an important opportunity to re-connect in person, as we had not seen each other since the summer time. Teaching is a deceptively busy and difficult job. From the outside, the hours seem ideal, and of course there are benefits to sharing holidays with your children, if you are a parent. However, it is emotionally and mentally taxing, and has been especially so this year.

Meeting with two of my best friends this March Break, while I am still on a medical leave, taught me a great deal about the importance of presence and connection in weathering hard times. I’m also currently listening to “What Happened to You: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing” by Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D., and Oprah Winfrey, which discusses the power of authentic community and belonging in building resilience, or what Dr. Perry refers to as “trauma wisdom.” What I noticed was that beyond the challenges of adapting to constant changes and hybrid learning, or of responding the the increasingly complex needs of adolescents embroiled in the already confusing and troubling work of finding their identities and preparing for adulthood, the lack of time and opportunity to connect with the people who help us feel safety, love, belonging, and community (from caring colleagues to loving friends and family) has taken a major toll on educators.

When I first started teaching, I was completely overwhelmed. Rather than building a strong foundation of social connections to help buoy me in this difficult time, I focussed all my attention and energy on working harder and trying to meet my always-high expectations of myself. It wasn’t until I was facing my own personal challenges (a diagnosis of cancerous melanoma, thankfully removed without further treatment needed) and a colleague I admired getting sick (also with cancer) that I started to slow down a bit and take stock of the emotional and social aspects of my life that were missing, and how this was impacting me both personally and professionally.

Eventually I developed a close circle of friends who helped me manage the stressors of the job while also learning how to become more of myself. I felt welcomed, valued, and like I belonged. What did that for me wasn’t being a top educator—it was taking the time to build social connections that would last, with people who understood the challenges I faced daily—including the two friends I was fortunate enough to have come to visit me over this past March Break, two of my best friends who have seen me through many challenges and changes since we first began those tentative relationships almost ten years ago. Sadly, the colleague who was diagnosed with cancer the same year I was did not share my luck. She died of leukaemia four years later. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to become friends with her as well, and we even shared a classroom when she came back to work, for what we did not know yet would be our final year together.

Making and then losing a friend this way taught all of us the importance of friendship, connection, and love, and that there is nothing more important than the unique gifts each one of us brings to this world. We all have a role to play in others’ lives, and no one else can be cast in our role. I believe it is in part because we went through the trauma of losing a dear friend together that my friends and I have been able to weather future storms together, and that these have only brought us closer together, as we have learned the hard way just how important it is to maintain those connections with the people we love and to make sure each of us feels that love while we are still here, because we never quite know what tomorrow will bring.

As employers, leaders, and teachers, I believe we have a responsility to help our staff, team members, and students make time for developing authentic social and emotional connections in their lives. Sometimes, this can happen in the workplace or the classroom. Sometimes, people just need time and space to figure out where and with whom they belong, or to help maintain and grow their existing ties to community, whether that be through biological families, friend groups, faith communities, or otherwise. Either way, the benefit to all is clear: we become more secure, confident, resilient people when we are grounded in meaningful and authentic personal relationships, so providing people with the time and space to establish and maintain those relationships both within and outside the organization will always be a wise investment in the individual and shared success of all members of team or a classroom.

Here goes nothing! Or something? I don’t know…

“‘I don’t know’ is a totally valid response.”

It’s something I’ve said over and over again while coaching students through some of the introductory activities we’ve been working through over the first two weeks of this new (to us) “adaptive model” of education. It’s been tough work, even though many students don’t see it as “the work” yet. I’ve been inviting students to activate prior knowledge and make predictions and connections, even though they don’t yet know what this course will look like–and neither do I, exactly. In arts education (in this case, high school Drama), we so often think of “the work” as simply producing the art and showing it to people. Load in, perform, tear down. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Where I want to go, and the place where I think my students will learn the most, is towards a vision of “the work” as learning how to harness our own creativity; to keep the gasoline tank full so we can keep powering that creative engine which allows us to “make stuff,” to perform, to create, and to “do” the most visible part of the work. Most of us have seen a car drive down the road but have no idea how an engine really works, let alone how to build or service one. In essence, I want to help my students become engineers of their own creativity, so they can own that process, and what they create. To me this is what empowered, equitable education in the arts looks like, and it has applications that extend far beyond the studio or stage.

I say “two weeks” but truly, at this point, we’ve only “done” 6.5 traditional periods (typically 75 minutes in a semester model) for our online afternoon classes, which is where this catchphrase of mine is so often used. Meanwhile, the morning “hybrid”* students have done the equivalent of 20 periods worth of work; 5 double-periods in-person + 5 double-periods at home. More on the tricky balance I tried to strike in this first rotation (and what my plans are for the next one) in another post. The point is, thinking about time as a space within which to explore a process, rather than as a resource we pour into a final product, seems very difficult for all of us. “I/We should (be/able to do/have done) __________ by now” is a common thought trap we want to avoid in the studio, even (especially) if the studio is online in our minds/our bedrooms/at our kitchen tables right now. Especially when we don’t know if/when we will be on stage again. Especially when time drags on and on in quarantine, in limbo, without a sense of a guaranteed end point. I’m all about looking for opportunity in crisis (more on that later maybe, too) and this seems like the perfect opportunity to play with the space time affords us in a way we feel unable to when we are trapped in the endless production cycle.

So far, here is where we’ve gotten in the afternoons (with links to follow hopefully, when I have a chance):

  • Norms and expectations for working creatively and collaboratively online and in person. Deceptively dense when you consider the challenges of working from behind a screen, in separate locations, and all the new rules of civility around personal space and comfort with our “new normal”.
  • Learning about, creating, and beginning our Thoughtbooks (thank you, Usha!) using the simplest framework I could think of quickly**: a 3-2-1 (3 things we’ve noticed, learned or were surprised by; 2 things we are still wondering; 1 wish for the future)
  • Introducing the concept of visual language to get ready to learn some basic mime technique, which will help us with our course focus, and using PearDeck*** to engage in some critical thinking work around activating prior knowledge, making connections, and making predictions based on those connections.
  • Selecting a course focus as a class (improvisation, which I think is simultaneously the best and trickiest focus we could choose for doing Drama in these strange times and ways).

It doesn’t feel like much yet, considering that in “two weeks” my online students haven’t performed or created “anything”–other than generated lots and lots of helpful thinking within which we will frame what I hope to be relevant learning experiences for each individual student.

Diving into Rotation 2 tomorrow, with all three of my classes online, with an exploration of the Ontario Arts Curriculum, as I try using what I’ve learned may be a #causalmodel for arts education (thanks Jillian!) and hopefully learn more from Rotman I-Think in a webinar they are hosting Wednesday night (thanks to my partner for putting his own creative production on hold for a couple of weeks while I figure this all out, for keeping us fed always, and for taking over the whole bedtime thing when I want to do a webinar).

This is all just to say… here goes nothing! Or something? I don’t know. But we will see, together.

*Another term I have limited familiarity with and am probably using wrong (and what experience I do have with it is a different model used within the Personal Alternative Education program)

**It should be noted that part of my inspiration for this approach to teaching Drama this year is that we as teachers have been put in a position of having to build the engine while driving the car. This mode of teaching and learning is new to most of us, as are the conditions of crisis and trauma under which some of us are learning and working, as are the tools and technology we will be using. We are have an opportunity to engage directly with the creative process, out loud, in front of our students, if we are ok with that level of vulnerability. And being of the “hey, why not?” mindset, I thought… “hey, why not?” It also means a lot of late nights, responsive planning, and figuring things out with students in class; a great way to model creative problem-solving in a very “real-world” situation.

***I am just learning how to use this tool day by day and am by no means an expert.

P.S. I must also shout-out Emily for being the person to talk me through and to this point in my own professional learning journey!

Sample Jamboard for Arts Curriculum Exploration

I created this Jamboard Activity in response to some questions filtering in from students who want a little more structure within what will be a co-designed & responsive learning experience.

It was created in response to student “wonderings” about curriculum, assessment, and the types of things we can expect to learn in our class, along with some perceived anxieties about how/whether we can do that online, masked, or with physical distancing. One of the things I’m really trying to do is make lots of space for student feedback and co-construction, and honouring students at every level of readiness.

My plan right now is to do the first 3 pieces as a class and then divide students into smaller groups to work on subsequent slides during the period, with consolidation either at the end of the period or beginning of the next one (these 40 synch blocks are tough to plan).

This sample activity / resource is for Grade 9 Drama but many slides could be reused for different grades and subjects, with little to no modification. I clearly ran out of time as the formatting of latter slides gets progressively less exciting, so if you copy and make it fancier, I would love to get a share back on this one. My child and partner would also love it, as they waited very patiently for our family walk while I rushed to complete this on a Saturday afternoon 😂 #teachermomlife

My Long-Range Planner for Adaptive Model

Hoping this will help anyone else struggling to conceptualize of the different blocks of time we need to manage in terms of class length under the adaptive or hybrid model.

I’m a very visual person when it comes to organizing information and ideas, so having a sense of what the time “looks like” is very helpful to me. If I were to modify this further I would probably also change the spacing to reflect the fact that Block 1 classes are about 4x the length of Block 2-4 classes 🙂

Click here to make your own copy.

Why “Drama Mama”

I created this name for myself, the Drama Mama, when I became pregnant with my first child. It began as a cute little joke, when ordering personalized school clothing. I wanted to challenge a fallacy presented to me several years ago, while also trying to integrate two seemingly opposed aspects of myself.

A trusted friend advised me that my days of teaching Drama were numbered because I wanted children, and that I certainly wouldn’t be able to become a department head if I also wanted to have a family, especially if I actually wanted to see and spend quality time with them. I was very motivated to not only prove them wrong, but to also challenge the mindsets, biases, and perspectives that make this logic seem valid, from limiting beliefs about working mothers to norms and expectations within both the performing arts and education communities.

We are all works in process…

Thanks for visiting my new site! Like all of us, it is a work in process.

I’m the subject head of Dramatic Arts for Maple High School, and just returned from maternity leave after birthing my first child a year ago. The first year of my son’s life was a bit rocky, and my first month back at work were a major challenge for my family, as my husband also started a new job. We were finally feeling like we had adjusted to our “new normal” when WHAM! we were all hit with a global pandemic! So here we are, waking up each day to remind ourselves that the world has changed and counting our blessings as we hope for an end to this global crisis soon. We are just like most other fortunate folks right now, meeting new challenges daily but trying to make the most our of our situation. As they say, “wherever you go, there you are,” so we are learning how to grow into our own as new parents, as employees lucky enough to still have work, and, most importantly, as people.


If you want to see what I’ve been up to in the past and get an idea of what I’m all about, check out my old site, jomaselli.com. I’ve got a few even older sites, most of which have been archived by now. Playing around with digital communication approaches has been a little hobby of mine throughout my teaching career. I’m looking for ways to create connection on a human level between the work we do at school and who we are as people. Thanks for being part of the experiment!