How Snoopy Helped Measure My Long Covid Recovery Process

I had no idea how the three words “Where is Snoopy?” could both make my stomach drop and help highlight how far I have traveled on my Long Covid symptom management journey. 

My family and I recently traveled to the UK to visit relatives, friends, and a few former health service colleagues of mine. With family in both the US and UK, we are not strangers to transatlantic journeys. The logistics got more complicated when we became parents, and juggling the physical and mental demands of family travel became even more tricky when I developed Long Covid. Fortunately, my symptoms have significantly reduced over the last 12 to 18 months. Although I had not thought about it beforehand, this trip was an opportunity to see how far I had come with managing Long Covid symptoms, and test where I am on my recovery journey.  

Most of our travel plans centered on catching up with people. There were no big outings or adventures planned, so we were traveling light-ish. We were planning to leave for the airport right after school. All our things, and the gifts we were bringing, were comfortably packed into couple of bags. I still needed to pack my computer and a few items for my carry-on, but we had everything organized for my little one… almost.

As we were having breakfast, my stomach dropped when I heard the question “Where is Snoopy?”.  

Snoopy is my daughter’s favorite soft toy and it has been with her every night since she was born. My husband and I each had an ambitious to-do list to get through before we rolled out of town that afternoon, and had a tightly mapped plan to get through it. Our lists included work, running a few errands, buttoning up the house and I was trying to sneak in a workout to stretch my legs before a long journey. I had not factored in an extensive search for Snoopy, but there was no option of doing anything else. After about 15 min of looking in the usual, and then unusual, places Snoopy was located and packed into our carry-on luggage. My husband and I coordinated to re-jig our to-do list, and got everything done between us. I even managed to get a workout in.     

On one level this is an unremarkable story of pre-trip juggling. It was a bit hectic, but the problem got solved, and everyone who has traveled with small children or large groups has had similar experiences. 

But for me, this is what made it truly remarkable. Partway through the morning hunt for Snoopy I realized that I was coping in a way I would not have been able to if this had happened a year before. In the lead up to the trip, I was conscious of a general wariness about all the time on public transport that we had planned, but in general I felt healthy, and the concerns were at the edges, and not at the center, of my mind. When the unexpected happened, I was able to multitask and adjust with (relative) ease, re-focus on work when Snoopy was found and even got in some exercise. It is a sign that I am back to being more like “me”.  This was more how I pictured my life as a parent.

18 months ago “Where is Snoopy?” would have been something I couldn’t have managed though my Long Covid symptoms. My heart rate would have spiked, my brain would have been overloaded, I would have felt overwhelmed and questioned whether traveling was even a good idea in the first place. I may have been able to do some of the things on my list that day, but the incident would have taken a lot out of me and I wouldn’t have been able to bounce back as easily (read more about Long Covid symptoms in the post What is Long Covid?). As it happened, we were able to laugh about the situation, had a full day, caught the red eye to London and then had a great trip working our way through a packed itinerary.  

If you are still in the space where a missing Snoopy would be difficult to cope with, take heart. There are lots of recovery stories, and more and more every day. People are finding ways to manage Long Covid symptoms as well as symptoms from other post-viral conditions.