Thanks, I needed to hear that. I do feel torn between "listen to your body and take it easy / move less" and "keep on moving slowly and steadily", as I don't know what will work best in my recovery. You seem to be suggesting the latter, right? Because my inclination is to do the former.
I'm suggesting both. Do what you can, when you think you can do it, and celebrate that you did it rather than condemning that you didn't do enough. I'm not going to run three times this week. Maybe twice, maybe once. But I'm walking every damn day, often twice a day. Is it enough? not by a long shot. Is it what I got? It's what I can repeat, that improves my health, that's sustainable. Learned something dealing with my mom's bullshit. Medicare uses the acronym "RTB" for "Return To Baseline" to determine when they're kicking you out of physical therapy. For most of us? "Baseline" would be "all better." For Medicare? It means "you're within 20% of the asymptote it looks like you're going to hit." Medicare literally cuts you off from physical therapy as soon as you start to level off. You'd think that'd be a money decision but nah - the way the laws are written Medicare gets to claw back all the money they spent on you within five years of your death, and your heirs can't dispute any prices - now you know why medicine in the US is so expensive, considering 95% of your medical care is in the last six months of your life. There's recovery? And then there's slllllowwwwwwwwwwww recovery. With old people there's "RTB." I'm having to acknowledge that for purposes of Long Covid, I'm "old people" and every minor victory is a major one and it sucks. You? I'll bet you do better. But you gotta give yourself the permission to do it at a sustainable rate.