Nevertheless, Persisting: Life. Love. Long COVID.

As former residents and forever fans of Minneapolis, we’re outraged and heartbroken by the occupation, kidnapping, and murder of residents that our government is shamelessly unleashing on the people who live there today. Everything is very much NOT alright. But Minnesotans are hardy - and hearty - folk and we love them and the state we moved from those 20+ years ago, deeply. In this episode, Amy shares an essay she wrote recently about the occupation in Minnesota and what the occupiers don’t understand about the people they so foolishly thought they could intimidate. We go on to reflect on our years in Minneapolis and the various ways that social trust has been the key to building the strong community ties that took ICE by storm.TO MINNEAPOLIS, WITH LOVENormally, the chill in Minneapolis melts easily - all it takes is a smile, a nod, a simple kindness - but there’s a new kind of ICE in town, the likes of which Minnesotans have never seen and, before they can melt it, it is quite literally killing them. Watching as the city that ushered me into adulthood is occupied and its people are kidnapped and murdered by our very own government is the sort of apocalyptic cognitive dissonance that was most definitely not on my Bingo card this year. Or ever.Continues at ⁠⁠https://amyblackstonephd.substack.com/p/to-minneapolis-with-loveCITED IN THIS EPISODE:Howley, Kerry. January 23, 2026. “Your Friendly Neighborhood Resistance.” New York Magazine. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/minneapolis-vs-donald-trump-ice-invasion.htmlStrand, Palma J.,J.D.L.L.M., and Malka R. Kopell M.P.P. 2025. "A "Civity" Approach Helps Build the Civic Muscle that Underlies Healthy Communities." American Journal of Public Health 115(4):506-510 https://libraries.maine.edu/auth/EZproxy/test/authej.asp?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/civity-approach-helps-build-civic-muscle-that/docview/3188476442/se-2.As promised in the episode, note that the state with the HIGHEST levels of social trust in the nation, even higher than Minnesota, is (drum roll, please).... UTAH!

Forget about silver linings; midnight blue is where it's at. This week, Amy confronts her old habit of grasping for silver linings and considers a different, more nuanced approach (and color) along with lessons learned from life in a chronically ill body. Together, Lance and Amy discuss how they think about silver linings and how they find meaning when things seem to happen for no reason at all.THE BUCKET FORMERLY KNOWN AS SILVER LININGS“This sort of thing is old hat for me and I'm a huge silver linings person. I'm really just looking for help coping with my current condition and celebrating what I'm learning from it.”And so began the latest in my decades-long series of relationships where I bare all of my most humiliating truths, the ugliest bits that make it hard for even me to face myself after revealing them. I have sometimes revealed these truths within mere minutes of first meeting said compadre and they STILL look me in the eye after I’ve divulged the unsightliness within me. They look with compassion even.I'm talking about THERAPY. Said compadre is my THERAPIST. There, I said it.Continues at https://amyblackstonephd.substack.com/p/the-bucket-formerly-known-as-silverCITED IN THIS EPISODE Marishelle Lieberwerth and Alistair Niemeijer. “Lost and changed meaning in life of people with Long Covid: a qualitative study.” 2024. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF QUALITATIVE STUDIES ON HEALTH AND WELL-BEING VOL. 19, 2289668 https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2023.2289668Anna M. Carapellotti, Hannie (J.E.M.) Meijerink, Christine Gravemaker-Scott, Lucia Thielman, Renée Kool, Natalie Lewin, and Tineke A. Abma. 2023. “Escape, expand, embrace: the transformational lived experience of rediscovering the self and the other while dancing with Parkinson’s or Multiple Sclerosis.” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF QUALITATIVE STUDIES ON HEALTH AND WELL-BEING VOL. 18, 2143611 https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2022.2143611

Amy is delivering a special form of torture to Lance this week and we're discussing all things Bravo. Bravo, Bravo, f'ing Bravo! Amy shares how the 'wives have helped her cope with the challenges of chronic illness and we consider the impact and possibilities of reality TV more broadly - all while enjoying some pink bubbly, in honor of the real housewives, of course.HEALING WITH THE HOUSEWIVESMy name is Amy. I am a sociologist and I have a Ph.D. and I like to think I’m reasonably smart and I believe that wealth is distributed in ALL the wrong ways in my home country of the U.S. of A. I am a raging feminist and damn proud of it. I believe the propagation of MAGA beliefs is mostly the result of widespread inequality, abuse of power, corporate monopolization, and crippling fear.And. Wait for it. I love Bravo. The network where wealth is flaunted in all the dumbest ways. The network whose roster of stars includes dingdongs who will charter four private planes to Puerto Rico to deliver $50 gift cards to the people, as long as they can catch it on camera. This IS a crisis, after all...Continues at https://amyblackstonephd.substack.com/p/8c9f81f1-0049-449c-a10e-0a1a16e3d0b2CITED IN THIS EPISODEBranco, Susan F. 2025. "Teaching while Streaming: Adult Adoptee Themes in the Real Housewives Reality Series." Family Journal 33(2):244-247. doi: Teaching While Streaming: Adult Adoptee Themes in The Real Housewives Reality Series - Susan F. Branco, 2025 .

We, like so many of you, are sick and tired of our broken healthcare system in the United States of America. In this episode, Amy reads a piece expressing her despair over the state of it. We discuss how disempowering it can feel to be a patient in this system. And we consider how Luigi Mangione's 2024 shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson reflects similar feelings of disempowerment and also a rising class consciousness in the United States. Finally, Lance SHOCKS Amy by quoting a sociologist to HER and we even manage to have a few laughs.A PATIENT SANS PATIENCEI'm sick and tired of being sick and tiredSick and tired of medical forms and filings and faxes*Sick and tired of bureaucracies and bureaucratsSick and tired of treating symptoms, never causes or curesSick and tired of pollyanna pundits and politiciansSick and tired of systems and structures built by and for only the fortunate fewSick and tired of the sick and tired system that got us hereSick and tired of the sick and tired system that's keeping us hereSick and tired of the sick and tired system that hasn't a clue or a care to get us out*Does anyone else worry that an industry that's supposed to be cutting edge relies so heavily on faxes?Originally posted at https://substack.com/@neverthelesspersisting/note/c-102724456CITED IN THIS EPISODECommonwealth Fund: https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/Thiele Strong, Megan. "Support for Luigi Mangione Reflects Working Class Weariness of Top-Down Violence," Common Dreams, December 28, 2024.Turner, Bryan. 1992. Max Weber: From History to Modernity. New York: Routledge.Urban Institute: https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/

Welcome to Season 2 of NEVERTHELESS, PERSISTING! We're still here, we're still sick, we're still tired, and we've still got idiocracy to lament and solutions to share. In this episode, Amy shares her haiku, TIRED, and Amy and Lance discuss the never-ending quest to describe to not-sick people how it feels to be always-sick. We also talk about how people have always used stories, poetry, and other forms of creativity to help others understand experiences and conditions they themselves don't share.TIREDFatigue surfacesAs helpless as to quicksandThe world carries onOriginally posted at https://substack.com/@neverthelesspersisting/note/c-91231028EPISODE CITATIONShttps://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/living-well/what-those-with-chronic-conditions-wish-their-friends-knew/https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo14674212.htmlAlso,Anne Karen Bakken and colleagues apply Arthur Frank's model in their 2023 analysis of 14 ME/CFS patients' narratives of "recovery""The analysis yielded a common plotline with a distinct turning point. Participants went through a profound narrative shift, change in mindset and subsequent long-time work to actively pursue their own healing. Their narrative understandings of being helpless victims of disease were replaced by a more complex view of causality and illness and a new sense of self-agency developed."Bakken, Anne K., Anne M. Mengshoel, Oddgeir Synnes and Bolle S. Elin. 2023. "Acquiring a New Understanding of Illness and Agency: A Narrative Study of Recovering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome." International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being 18(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2023.2223420 .Colleen Donnelly applies Frank’s model in her 2024 article in the journal Disability & Society to make the argument that those who are unable to turn their chronic illness stories into RESTITUTION NARRATIVES are rendered mute.“There is a need to allow more venues for allowing stories about ongoing struggles that do not resolve rather than to silence these narratives because they don’t fit our learned, preferred tastes.”Donnelly, Colleen. 2024. “Claiming Chaos Narrative, Emerging from Silence.” Disability & Society 39(1):1–15. doi: 10.1080/09687599.2021.1983420.

Dr. Amy reads a piece from summer 2024 about her fight with an enema, Catholic hospital policies, shabby science, and JD Vance. The Forces of Evil were strong that summer and we've got shit to say about it! We've even got a few solutions to share which, as always, we expect will go ignored. Tune in, commiserate along, and perhaps the camaraderie will get us through. We can always hope.AMY VS. FORCES OF EVILLet’s never do this week again.For me, it started with a day trip to Beth Israel in Boston to get poked and prodded for my on-going participation in the NIH’s RECOVER-VITAL clinical trial. Go, science! The people at Beth Israel are just about as kind as can be so score one for humanity. But the trip is exhausting, expensive, and (in my case, at least), it turns out that while PAXLOVID might be well and good for acute COVID-19 symptoms, it does jack squat for long COVID symptoms unless you count inducing hypothyroidism and wreaking havoc on other blood test results as outcomes worth counting. And those only count if I actually took PAXLOVID which we don’t know because it’s a double-blind study.Score so far: Amy-0, Forces of Evil-1, Humanity-1. Life can suck it.Phase two of the week began the next day when I found myself doubled over in pain on the floor of the shower, simultaneously pooping and puking (it’s a long story). Throw in an at-home enema for extra shits (pun intended) and giggles and we’ve got ourselves a party, people! I’ll spare you the photographic evidence.Tally card: Amy-0, Forces of Evil-11, Humanity-1. Life can RAWT IN HELL, JAX.Continuing further into phase two, we move from the shower floor to the emergency room where we’ve got a drunk guy in handcuffs screaming racist shit at the top of his lungs, a lady in a dress with no undies writhing on the floor (I’m telling you it wasn’t me and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it), a guy with an arm dangling from his motorcycle jacket in supernatural sorta way, and a kid bleeding from a real doozy on his knee remaining calmer than any of the so-called adults in the room.Continues at https://amyblackstonephd.substack.com/p/amy-vs-forces-of-evil

This is your brain on Long COVID. This week, we attempt the impossible: to describe brain fog while experiencing brain fog. We also share what's worked for us to fight it and Amy gets on her sociological soapbox for a moment and gives a mini lesson on the concept of ANOMIE. IT'S A LOT LIKE LIFEFog creeps in, seeps in slowly. It’s a tricky fucker. Slipping into the tiniest of crevices, spaces I didn’t know were there. My mind slows to a crawl. Words slip away, just out of reach.Mental tasks that were once so easy are impossible now. Thoughts trapped in a dense, damp mess that I can’t see through or push away. I can resist but eventually I have no choice but to live with it. Live in it.It's unclear exactly when the fog took over – I'm the frog on slow boil – but eventually I can’t deny that it has. The clarity I once had is gone. This is life with Long COVID. No more Life 1.0 … Life 2.0 has begun. Life-adjacent. Life-like. Life-ish. Life sorta kinda.I’m reminded of a song I had on repeat during my teen years; Depeche Mode’s “Master and Servant.” The lyric goes “You treat me like a dog, get me down on my knees.” I’m the dog, down on my knees.I’m the servant and the fog is my master. On rare days I’m allowed out. But always, the servant heeds its master. Afterall, “Domination's the name of the game.” Playtime always ends, and when it does, it’s back to the fog and the certainty that this is my life now.Posted at https://amyblackstonephd.substack.com/p/its-a-lot-like-life

In this episode, we reflect on our 30 year marriage, lessons learned and, perhaps more importantly, lessons unlearned over the years. Topics range from the Grim Reaper and date nights to Dr. Phil and sticking together behind enemy lines.LIVE~LAUGH~LONG COVIDLance and I celebrated 30 years of marriage recently. And by celebrated I mean it went something like this. And by “something like this” I mean it went exactly like this…Amy "What day is it!? Is it our anniversary!?!"Lance " ... " (Thinking ...)Lance " ... " (Looks at phone ...)Lance "Not yet."Later that night, I got a text from Lance, “Dinner at Novio’s tomorrow at 5.” We were gonna celebrate!Thus marked our 30th rotation around the sun as a legally married couple. Perfectly befitting a perfectly brain foggy pair, if you ask me.Continues at https://amyblackstonephd.substack.com/p/livelaughlong-covid