Getting rear-ended
Figuratively and literally. Plus, The Antidote #37: the gut biome, bullying, inspiration & recovery
The Tonic is a lighthearted, heavily resourced newsletter for folks interested in learning about long COVID, ME/CFS, and other health conditions. Come for the info; stay for the whimsy. Or vice versa.
If you are new here and curious about the tools that have been helping me in my long COVID recovery, please check out the Recovery Tools series tab on my Substack site. (Please start with part one, as it includes an important disclaimer about how highly individualized recovery tools can be with a heterogenous illness like long COVID).
Paid supporter shout out!
This week we have one new very generous paid supporter - Danna S.! (she’s actually one of my besties - shhh!). THANK YOU!! In return, I gift you this meme that is our friendship in a nutshell.
The Tonic will always be free to read - Amy is so happy you’re here! However, if you are valuing the experience and are able, please consider a show of support by upgrading to a paid subscription. If that’s too much to bite off at the moment, you can also make a one-time contribution through Buy Me a Coffee. Any help is appreciated! Anyone who does gets a 📢 in an upcoming post. Thank you!
Sad news
A few weeks back, we had to say goodbye to our beloved feline elder stateswoman, Zira.
Our beautiful, sassy little calico nicknamed “the little squirrel” and “circus cat” for her propensity to dart acrobatically across many pieces of furniture in rapid succession. She was a fan favorite of some of you in the Cat Dump segment that closes out this newsletter (
loved her from afar).It is hard to put into words how this loss is affecting us. For the last few years, she was truly the focal point of our lives as she seemingly swatted away every health issue she faced under our care and the care of our incredible veterinarian. First, a severe allergy to flea saliva (it’s really a thing!). Then asthma. That was it for many years, until about a month after we said goodbye to her buddy Speck, when she suddenly dropped a bunch of weight, having developed IBD (like Speck - ugh). A year after that, I found a lump on her belly that turned out to be mammary cancer. She underwent a partial mastectomy with a significant recovery and bounced back just fine.
Later that year, after she seemed particularly lethargic, she was diagnosed with immune-mediated hemolytic anemia. Our vet expertly guided us through that, and she came through it. A few months later, testing revealed she had stage one kidney disease. She was able to stay at stage one for several months, eating/drinking/peeing just fine.
But a few months ago, she was losing more weight. The kidney disease has advanced to stage four very quickly. We changed her diet and were able to get her back into stage three, but it didn’t last very long. Her health and her weight were declining. We were losing the fight, which seemed impossible, since she had won so many before and seemed invincible to us. Our vet called her “a marvel” for all she had gotten through.
Our home felt intolerably empty and quiet in the days after we said goodbye. We had been giving her care and attention on an hourly basis for the last few months, pushing food under her nose and indulging her lap-sitting every time she demanded it. Once we said goodbye, we just didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Our two other indoor kitties are much younger and healthy. They also seem a little lost, navigating how to fill in the void of attention we were paying to Zira. Fritzy has been much more needy for affection; Birdie thinks we exist to play with her all day. I guess this is how cats grieve.
Here are a few pictures of our queen. We know she’s not suffering anymore, which does comfort us, but we miss her terribly.
Rest in peace, little squirrely girl. Thank you for the joy and the memories.
2025 continues to rear-end me
Literally and figuratively.
Baldy’s back-to-back retinal surgeries and recovery. Losing our girl. Could 2025 get any worse? The universe bitch-slapped me for even asking.
Two weeks ago, after an epic weekend with my fam celebrating my big sister’s annibirthary, I got rear-ended on my drive home.
The weekend was filled with activities that would have previously flared up all my symptoms, including a two-hour drive, meals in noisy restaurants, and a rousing rock concert with crazy lighting effects. So imagine how pissed I was to be but an hour from home, about to marvel at having gotten away with this epic weekend unscathed, when I hear and feel “CRUNCH!” coming from Joni Mitchell’s back end (yes, I name my cars. Tell me yours in the comments!).
The stupid part is that I was on course to take my usual route home, when the GPS enticed me with, “go this way instead and save 12 minutes?” I was feeling greedy, or maybe cocky from having sailed through the fun weekend, so I took the new route. BIG MISTAKE. Confucius must have a saying about this.
But wait, there’s more…here’s where the story gets a lil wackadoodle.
I stayed calm, feeling grateful that I hadn’t been hurt and my airbags didn’t deploy. I pulled over to assess the damage and talk with the driver who hit me. It was a pair of young brothers, and the one driving only had a learner’s permit. He looked terrified. The older brother did all the talking, which wasn’t much because I was distracted by a man approaching us from further down the sidewalk. From far away, the man looked familiar, but I was not in an area where I would have known anyone, so it took me a second.
That man wound up being my nephew.
My fam was headed to the area zoo that day, over an hour from their home, and my re-routing and accident just happened to be near the exit for the zoo. My nephew drove by with his wife, their toddler, and his best friend, and he was like, “wait - that’s my aunt!” So he pulled over at a nearby service station and came over to assist.
And assist he did, being that he’s a police officer and has responded to the scene of many an accident. What a privilege it was for me to go into brain-erase mode, turn to him and say, “tell me what to do.”
He guided us all. We took pics, exchanged info, and he sent me the NYS form to fill out when there’s been an accident. We agreed to try to work out the repairs without going through insurance (I’m still working that part out) and we were all on our way.
I got home a little while later, told Baldy what happened, and settled in, still feeling pretty fortunate to be okay (though feeling a little bad for the young driver; in the days after, I was texting with his brother, who apologized to me for what happened and I said, “it happens to us all.” I do think it’s kind of good for the young man to get his first ‘ding’ out of the way).
The next morning, I woke up with an extremely stiff neck and slightly stiff back. My first thought was, “wow - I must have slept wrong, being back in my own bed.” After a minute or so, I made the connection that it was likely the accident that caused this. Later that day, I reached out to my insurance company to talk through my options. Apparently in New York, if you are in an accident you didn’t cause but get injured, it is your insurance that foots the medical bills, not the one of the driver who caused the accident. Who knew? I am in a no-fault state. I told them I wasn’t planning on seeking medical attention just yet and they asked me to stay in touch if I do.
I had a sense that I wasn’t seriously injured, so I told my brain calming messages, à la many of the long COVID and ME/CFS recovery programs and gurus. I reasoned that, with a few days of taking it easy, I’d feel better. And this turned out to be true, thank goodness.
(Fun fact break: did you know that chronic whiplash is a social disorder? It doesn’t exist in countries that have no concept of it and thus don’t fear it. The brain is powerful and WILD!)
About a week before the accident, I joined CFS Recovery, the program run by Miguel Bautista, who himself recovered from ME/CFS some years prior. I credit my ability to stay immediately calm in the minutes and days after the accident to the messaging of the program, which is already creating helpful mindset shifts in me. Stay tuned for more on how my experience goes in the program; in the meantime, here’s a great video Miguel put out recently that covers the basics, called How To Actually Fix CFS and Long Covid With Science.
⬇️ On to the links…I made this new snazzy banner for this section ⬇️
COVID, Long COVID, and ME/CFS
😪 Long COVID: the case for addressing the quandary using Ryan White HIV/AIDS funding as a model.
🩺 Long COVID assessment and treatment: multidisciplinary collaborative guidance (thorough piece with helpful tables - check it out).
👩🏾🦱 Long COVIDing While Black: Long COVID’s Toll on Black Americans. Featuring the inimitable
, who writes here on Substack (give her a subscribe!).💉 COVID vaccine: works faster with both doses in the same arm. Also, FDA Scrutiny of Novavax COVID Shot Sparks Uncertainty About Other Vaccines.
😷 Masks: this study measured the fitted filtration efficiency of cloth masks, medical masks and respirators. My KN95 is not as effective as I had hoped, yikes.
🔵 Methylene blue: miracle cure or dangerous trend? Some long haulers have been trying it and some swear by it.
🦠 Fibromyalgia and the gut biome: a small, preliminary trial shows that the baffling chronic pain eases after doses of gut microbes.
🚸 Young People with ME/CFS or Long COVID: What Do We Know? A great Health Rising piece summarizing all of the research so far.
🐂 Bullying: just what does this have to do with Long COVID? Let the brilliant
tell you in this tight piece (I wish I had her gift for succinctness…sigh….).Webinars/conferences/podcasts/videos/resources
👩🏽💻 RECOVER webinar: Understanding Metformin Use and Long COVID and ME/CFS following COVID-19 Infection, May 13th at 12pm ET. Register here.
🔬 Long COVID 2025: Symptoms, diagnosis, post-COVID treatments and the latest long COVID research, a video featuring Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki.
🏋🏽♂️ Iron deficiency: 14 visible signs (I lost a ton of hair and my pinky fingernail completely separated from the nail bed - don’t ignore these signs!).
🩸 Menopause webinar: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Menopause But Were Too Afraid To Ask: a Q&A session with Dr. Vanessa Soviero. Info and registration here.
🗣️ ME/CFS patient TED talk:
Health miscellany
✈️ Traveling with medication: the ins and outs.
😢 Creatine: common for weightlifting, but could it also treat depression? (I’m currently taking it at the urging of my functional medicine doctor, who is seeing good results with other long haulers being less fatigued. Two weeks in and the jury is still out for me).
🥣 Overnight oats: five recipes for busy (or spoonie) mornings.
🧠 Dementia and metabolic syndrome: the risk factors and what you can do. And speaking of diabetes, malnutrition-related diabetes officially named ‘Type 5’.
🐶 Pets: a new study says they can be just as good for your mental health as a spouse!
😒 Government health fuckery: in the U.S. and the U.K. Starting with vaccines: HHS redirects $500 million to Trump appointee's vaccine project, bypassing reviews and, of course, the FDA names outspoken Covid vaccine critic as the new vaccine chief. Also, hospitals begin to grapple with tariff fallout. Meanwhile, Social Security and the DOGE teenagers have been cutting off benefits to people still alive, while the system thinks they’re dead. Can’t entirely attribute this to Trump, but nearly half of Americans live in an area with a failing grade for air pollution, and the problem is only getting worse. A new KFF Health Tracking poll shows that most Americans, of any political party, are not happy with the cuts to federal health agencies. And check out this what-the-fuckery from across the pond: NHS to test all gender-questioning children for autism.
🍴 Starvation in Gaza: short of supplies, Gaza's vital community kitchens may soon shut, halt free meals. No one in power seems to care.
🤕 Migraines: nasal powder for acute migraines gets FDA nod.
👨🏼⚕️ Dr. Google: put some thought into how you search for medical answers online.
👎🏼 Conversion therapy: trying to make people not gay is increasing their risk for serious cardiovascular disease. FFS, let people just be who they are.
👩🏽🍼 Maternal health disparities: Why Black mothers die at higher rates. Even Black female celebrities and doctors!
🚢 Cruisin’ for a bruisin’: nearly 150 cruise guests, crew sick with gastrointestinal illness on 3 ships. I don’t like to judge people (ha, yeah right), but cruising does seem riskier these days than it used to. Though they are often the best vacays for spoonies to take, for many reasons. So really, this time I’m not judging. This time…
🧫 Fixing gut microbiome: that’s been ravaged by antibiotics. A new study where the gut microbial diversity of mice was restored.
⬇️ NEW SECTION ALERT! ⬇️
Inspiration & Recovery
(One-time explainer: in this new section, I’ll be including inspirational and/or recovery videos and resources that catch my eye and that might be interesting or motivational to others. These will generally pertain to post-viral chronic illnesses or nervous system dysregulation disorder, but some of it may relate to general health conditions or trauma healing).
💪🏼 Amazing recovery story: I’ve had the good fortune to interact with Dusty during my few short weeks in CFS Recovery, and she is so inspiring and supportive of others. Check out her story. She gives me so much hope!
🦅 Traumatic Brain Injury: check out this beautiful post by
on lessons he’s learned while recovering from and living with TBI.❤️🩹 Signs that you’re healing: from trauma, abuse, or illness. A graphic.
🎶 Creating music while disabled: Here’s
with an inspiring post about creating her new music (being released soon!).💥 How To Do More WITHOUT Crashing: Junior, the man in this video, is the coach I met one-on-one with this week in CFS Recovery. He is a font of recovery wisdom, and he’s already helped me connect some dots in my own recovery. Check this one out:
Another new banner! 👇🏼
🥹 How to make someone feel seen and heard
🍸 Happy hour: chimpanzees in the wild filmed by scientists bonding over alcoholic fruit.
🐦 Bird man: sets off on 53-mile walk dressed as a curlew to raise awareness for conservation. Seems cumbersome (and like it uses a lot of plastic?), but what do I know?
☠️ Meet the death metal singers changing vocal health research. I highly, highly recommend opening up the video in this article, watching the first few minutes, then going to about the 25-minute mark. Mind-blowing!
🏋🏼♂️ Filming oneself at the gym: just WHY? (consider this a buffoon warm-up piece)
🤦🏻 Buffoons of the week: Fyre Festival 2 is postponed, no new date set. Should “organizer” Billy McFarland be the buffoon? I mean, YES, he is absolutely a buffoon. But I think the bigger buffoons are those who bought tickets to the second iteration of this “luxury” music festival (a.k.a, absolute train wreck). These rubes cannot say they weren’t warned! (If you don’t know what this is about, Google it, or check out the Netflix documentary, Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened).
🏆 Winner of the week: it’s Cyndi Lauper, who will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (it’s about effing time, I say!). Girls don’t want to JUST have fun; they want to be taken seriously, too. Congrats, Cyndi!
🐈⬛ 💩 And finally, it’s this week’s Cat Dump. We already opened this post with a grief-dump, but here’s an article: 13 Human Foods That Are Poisonous & Toxic to Cats.
Oh my god I'm so sorry about Zira. And then the accident ! Sending lots of (belated) love.
Rest in peace Zira. Oh the ache Amy. These beings are such a beautiful part of life and it’s impossibly hard to say goodbye. I hope you’re feeling her spirit hanging around, maybe still jumping on that furniture, and abiding very closely to your heart.