Welcome! This is The Heart Dialogues, a free newsletter for people born with heart conditions (and the people who care about them). Join this community by adding your email below. Every other week, you’ll get an edition in your inbox with candid conversations, essays, links, recommendations, reader threads and other good stuff about what it’s really like to live with a weird and special heart.
This is not the newsletter I wanted to send today. I had planned to spend the morning participating in the Adult Congenital Heart Association’s annual Walk for 1 in 100 in New York, an event to raise funds for research, education and outreach for the adult CHD community.
But this morning I tested positive for Covid.
This is the first time I’ve gotten it (or at least the first time I’ve known about it), and I’m so disappointed. I was all set to take in the views of lower Manhattan from Brooklyn Bridge Park, get in some steps on a brilliantly sunny day—the first in what feels like forever!—meet people I’ve only ever encountered virtually, and introduce a wider community to this newsletter. I even made stickers!
It’s a good reminder of how easy it is for plans to go awry.
I feel sick, feverish, foggy. But I also feel OK. I’m vaccinated, I’m checking my oxygen, I’m downing honey-laced tea and ginger-packed chicken soup. Worries about this turning into a bad case occasionally cross my mind—perhaps that’s unavoidable when you know that medical emergencies do happen. I remember those first months of the pandemic when we didn’t know how dangerous the virus would be for people with congenital heart disease. Feeling fragile and unsure and different. This doesn’t feel like that, and for that I’m grateful.
You can still donate to the ACHA’s Walk for 1 in 100. If you’d like to contribute, visit my personal page. Thank you so much! ❤️
Sorry you missed a glorious day in the city supporting the 1 in a 100.I hope your bout is as mild as ours was in the spring
Feel better soon! 🫶🏼