Great Britain rower forced to retire with long Covid
Oonagh Cousins is accepting of the cards life dealt her but the emotions around what might have been remain raw.
She took a year and a half off training, a period of time in which her symptoms - mainly fatigue, though it's a word she feels underplays its severity - meant she could do little more than four hours of "basic tasks" a day like cooking or showering, a short walk at an absolute push. "I thought I was coming to the end of my long Covid journey and I'd made it back. I was just so desperate for normality.
She feels she has "paid the price" in pushing herself for too long. Her symptoms of dysautonomia - a disorder of the autonomic nervous system - worsened significantly, while she has also been diagnosed with reactive hypoglycaemia , histamine intolerance and oestrogen dominance, which causes problems with her hormones.
"I really did think I was planning my life to go towards Paris and Los Angeles [in 2028]. I do think that's where my life would have gone. And so there's this big loss of the life that you envisioned not being there anymore.
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