Covid Zombies: A Longhauler's Poetic Fight For Survival

We're the forgotten ones. The zombies. The longhaulers. We suffer alone, wandering aimlessly through this new world without a plan--because nobody had a plan in the first place. Doctors don't know what to do with us, and loved ones ignore us. The brain fog makes it impossible to work, and the pain and fatigue are so unbearable that all we can do is watch TV or sleep. Every day is the same Groundhog Day as the last, and for now, living with long Covid is a fight for survival. And acceptance.

COVID ZOMBIES is a longhauler's poetic fight for survival by author BRIAN SHAW, who introduces you to the frightening onset of Covid-19 symptoms he suffered as a high school behaviorist in March 2020 that then transports you into a desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape bereft of cars and people.

From there, the book catapults you into a world that is slowly reopening, a moment in time where doctors were as confused as the writer by mysterious symptoms that weren’t resolving for him. Without having so much as a positive test but with all the symptoms of the virus including shortness of breath, the writer was in the position many were during the pandemic: he was stuck at home, forced to do telehealth appointments. A team of doctors who refused to see SHAW in person used him like a guinea pig, prescribing all kinds of medications in a frantic effort to stop his symptoms, which were worsening by the day.

The book then sends you on a roller coaster ride that continues from summer 2020 well into 2021. By the time the world fully reopened, the coronavirus had turned into a disease for SHAW, who had no medical insurance. Backroom politics from his employer and the state and the doctors inability to control the disease's spread resulted in him losing his job and child. What started as a total annoyance was now a dystopian nightmare. SHAW was left to his own devices, and that which he could afford: cheap steroids, proton pump inhibitors and a slew of vitamins. "Within weeks, I couldn't smell, taste, talk or walk," said the writer. "Medical professionals always had the same four word reply when I asked for a timeline to recovery: 'We just don't know.'"