A New Year, A New Beginning: The Year I Stop Surviving and Start Solving

As this year comes to a close, I find myself standing in a place I never expected to reach.

Not “healed.”
Not finished.
But ready.

For the past six years, my body has been my greatest teacher.
Not gently.
Not kindly.
But relentlessly.

Long COVID, dysautonomia, MCAS, gut dysbiosis, mitochondrial dysfunction ~ these weren’t chapters I chose. They were lessons I was forced to live inside of, every single day. Lessons written in heart palpitations, neurological chaos, exhaustion that erased language, and a body that refused to obey the rules of medicine as it’s currently practiced.

For a long time, survival was the only goal.
Get through the day.
Get through the night.
Make it to tomorrow.

But something has shifted.

This coming year, I have big plans.

No … I’m not promising a miracle cure.
I’ve lived long enough inside this illness to respect complexity.
But I am committing to something bold:

* I am going to pursue real answers for Long COVID ~ not just management, not just coping, not just somatic retraining, not just dismissal disguised as reassurance.

Maybe I won’t find the cure.
But I am determined to find partial cures, pathways, patterns, and possibilities ~ and to share them.

What My Body Has Taught Me

My body has been running experiments long before the research caught up.

It has taught me that:

• Long COVID is not “one thing”

• Many treatments fail not because they’re wrong, but because timing, order, and capacity matter

• Pushing through is often the very thing that makes us worse

• Healing is not linear ~ it is intelligent, adaptive, and deeply individual

• There IS an upstream causation of most downstream symptoms

• Mitochondria are not an afterthought … they are central, yet, still downstream

• The gut, immune system, and autonomic nervous system are inseparable

Most importantly, my body has taught me that the current medical model is not built for complex, post-viral illness …. and waiting for it to catch up is costing people their lives, livelihoods, and identities.

So I’m done waiting.

This New Year Is About Integration, Not Guessing

In the year ahead, I’m shifting from trial-and-error survival mode into synthesis.

That means:

• Connecting the dots between systems instead of treating symptoms in isolation

• Exploring outside-the-box therapies that address root dysfunction

• Respecting the body’s limits instead of overriding them

• Translating lived experience into usable knowledge

• Bridging science, intuition, and compassion

• Asking better questions when the old ones fail

This isn’t about chasing the next supplement or protocol.

It’s about understanding the terrain.

And once you understand the terrain, you stop wandering in the dark.

A Personal Promise for the New Year

This year, I’m committing to:

• Researching with rigor and curiosity

• Listening to my body as data, not as an inconvenience

• Sharing what I learn honestly ~ including what doesn’t work

• Advocating for those still trapped in dismissal and silence

• Creating resources that help people feel less lost and less alone

Long COVID has taken enough from us.

This year, I’m taking something back:
Agency. Direction. Purpose.

For Anyone Entering the New Year Exhausted but Hopeful

If you’re reading this from bed…
From a couch…
From a body that still doesn’t feel safe…

Please hear this:

You are not broken.
You are not failing.
You are living inside a system that hasn’t learned how to see you yet.

But that doesn’t mean answers don’t exist.

This year is not about forcing healing.
It’s about listening more closely than ever before.

And I believe … deeply … that when we do that, new pathways open.

Here’s to a new year.
New questions.
New courage.
And the beginning of something that finally feels like forward motion.

The Very Warmest of Wishes,

Dr. Rachael

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