Ever wondered what happens when a neuropsychologist comes down with COVID-19?

Well, you know all that hype about long COVID including the negative effects on the brain – that was the first thing I thought about when I found out that I was COVID-positive.

It was on the National Day of Singapore that I tested positive, although I had been feeling unwell for two days already, with a mild sore throat which had turned into a cough of sorts. On the weekend we had gone out to the farmers market and tried all sorts of food samplers, which was an utterly moronic thing to do given that I was probably one of a handful of people in that space that the virus hadn’t infected yet. I really shouldn’t have been so surprised to test positive, but I suppose I had dodged it so many times already, even when my closest got the virus. Fancy then catching it from complete strangers when I finally did get it! Jeez.

So anyway, Tuesday was officially Day 1, and I had to isolate myself till Day 7, after which I could go back to work on Day 8 regardless of whether I test positive or not. Things were still not too bad on Day 1 – I was just feeling pretty knocked out and coughing a fair bit. But boy Day 2 was bad, and I don’t remember ever having coughed this horribly with my lungs feeling like they were on fire with each deep, hacking cough. And I was running a low-grade fever too.

And of course once I knew it was COVID, I began to pay the utmost attention (well, as much as I could have mustered in my state) to my neural faculties. On Day 2, I tried to test my brain with some backward sums. Every good neuropsychologist knows the serial 7s – subtract 7 from 100 and keep going until the examiner says to stop – and yup I did know it as well as I know the back of my hand. So I tried to do serial 8s, and O-M-G. It took me a while to stumble through the mental work. Goes without saying that I was pretty alarmed.

Day 3 came on, and I recalled the adage “if you don’t use it, you lose it”. So sick as I was, I decided to make myself some herbal soup meant to nourish the lungs. Interestingly, I noticed my brain starting to break down each step that needed to be done, in order for me to successfully cook this soup. It was like a slow-motion picture playing out. I wonder if it was because of the fever, the fact that I was generally unwell, or actually because of the effects of the COVID-19 virus, but I felt that my brain was being very deliberate in its planning and sequencing of movement and action.

So out came the stool that I would step on to access the top cupboard that held my big soup pot, the kettle was put on to boil, I got the chicken out to wash and clean, hot water was used to blanch the chicken with, then the herbs got cleaned and soaked briefly with some hot water, and everything went into the pot to be cooked. Every single step was acted upon with great mental deliberation. It didn’t feel hard to focus, which might have explained the intensity, but it was almost like my brain was enjoying the work and in doing so was shaking off the virus from its recesses.

By Day 4 the two-day fever had broken. I was now able to do two-digit backward calculations – I chose 41. It was a mental somersault, and I could now clearly see and hold the figures in my mind’s eye as I did each subtraction. Again, this mechanism wouldn’t have been obvious to me before I had COVID.

On Day 6 I decided to clean my entire house – out came the vacuum, the mop, the brush, and the cleaning agents. It wasn’t a struggle at all. I truly think that having done all these household chores helped me recover better. They certainly helped keep my muscles from wasting away.

I also want to mention that from Day 3 onwards I started training my lungs back up. I started with singing, but couldn’t go past two full lines before bending over from coughing. I persisted though. And I randomly started conversations with no one in particular, just so that I could hear myself speak and test out my stamina.

Epilogue – I am now 2 months post-COVID and thankfully am doing well without any overt long-COVID symptoms. HOWEVER. In the first month after I turned negative (around D6-D7), I did notice some latency in retrieving words in conversation – proper nouns in particular, such as names of places and people (this is reminiscent of what I type in my reports about the subjective complaints of my patients). I think the problem has ameliorated somewhat now, but I shall continue to monitor (as any self-respecting neuropsychologist would!).