The Struggle of Coming Back to School After Having Covid

The day before we got back to school from break, I got Covid. I was lucky enough to have what seemed like a bad cold for about a week. However, this seemingly rough cold had many other side effects on my life than I thought. 

Since coming back, I have noticed myself being less motivated to do my school work. This is unfortunate because I have had a lot of work to do as I missed a whole week of school. I am not a student who usually leaves things to the last minute or is ever late on anything. However, I have found myself not doing my work as fast as I used to. In some ways, I view this as a blessing because I am not constantly stressed about school work all the time. Although, I find myself feeling stressed out at odd times about how I am not as concerned about school work. I believe this is because I had almost a month where I didn’t do any school work and about a week of doing nothing. Slowly, my focus and motivation are improving. 

The most inconvenient consequence of getting Covid is not playing soccer. The state has a return to play protocol that takes a minimum of 6 days that you can start ten days after showing symptoms. I can’t and haven’t been playing soccer since before break. I understand why the protocol is in place, but the new Omicron variant does not affect your lungs and heart as much, especially if you are vaccinated. According to NBC, “Omicron appears to cause milder illness that can resemble the common cold.” Because of this, the current protocol seems outdated.

Not being able to play soccer has affected my overall motivation. I feel motivated after exercise, and without that designated time in the day to exercise, I have exercised less, and my motivation has gone down. This has been the most significant side effect of Covid I have experienced. For me, this is because of a lack of exercise and routine. I could not find any data on people after having Covid, and their motivation levels. I would love to know if anyone else has experienced this as a side effect. Either way, after two weeks of being at school, my motivation is starting to come back as more things in my life begin to go back to normal. If anyone else is struggling with the consequences of getting covid, it gets better after a while, and you get used to the new normal.