It’s a monstrosity — a creature that’s part spider, part hyena, and part rabbit, with one blind eye and a drooling maw.
The depiction, by long COVID-19 patient and artist Ella Udell, is one of several disturbing and heart-wrenching art pieces included in a new report released Wednesday by Utah health officials on the prevalence of the mysterious but very real and troubling chronic condition that continues to plague many Utahns after a COVID-19 infection, sometimes years later.
Udell’s piece, created as part of the “Meet My Monster project,” is meant to illustrate what it’s like to contend with the symptoms of long COVID day to day.
“My monster is part trapdoor spider,” she wrote alongside the creature, because “it lives in a hidden burrow underground and stalks me.” Part hyena, because “it always seems to mock me” with “loopy brain fog and frequent maniacal migraines.” Part rabbit, because “I feel like a lab animal constantly injected, poked, prodded, jerked around.” And it has one blind eye for the “sudden literal blindness I sometimes experience as well as visual events that no one can explain.”
“My monster is not evil or malicious but rather confused, clunky and unpredictable,” Udell wrote. “This monster has been with me since 2020.”
That art piece along with several others by Udell was printed on a display board in a conference room at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services’ offices in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, when state officials unveiled their first-ever report on long COVID in Utah and invited media members to interview patients who have suffered and continue to suffer with it today.
Long COVID is defined as an “infection-associated chronic condition present for at least three months that includes a wide range of symptoms lasting months to years that is just starting to be understood,” the report states. Symptoms include fatigue, memory problems, lightheadedness, shortness of breath, fast heartbeat, chest pain, changes in taste and smell, and potentially more.
“It can significantly impact a person’s quality of life and well-being. Diagnosis is challenging because there is no simple test or validated screening tool,” the report states. “Treatment options are limited and do not guarantee resolution of the illness. Our understanding of what Long COVID is and how to define it is being continually refined.”
Blake Bockholt — who used to run half marathons on weekends before COVID-19 changed his life, and now he can’t make it up the stairs to his kids’ bedroom — parked his wheelchair so the images were just outside of his line of sight.
“I can’t even look at it,” he said, adding that the depictions remind him of the “despair” he’s felt dealing with long COVID and everything it’s taken away from him. He said “one of the hardest parts” about the condition is the devastating impacts it can have on mental health.
“It’s one thing to have an injury, but know that injury will get better,” he said. “It’s a whole other thing when you don’t have the energy to get out. Everyone else is doing things you wish you could do. You’re stuck in your body; you’re stuck in your mind. It leads to mental health crises.”
Brockholt, whose struggles with long COVID were detailed in an in-depth report by the Deseret News in 2023, paused, seemingly gathering his thoughts, before going on to explain just how dire his mental health has gotten at certain points while dealing with the exhaustion.
“I know what it’s like to not go into work on a Friday afternoon because my wife had to make a phone call to 988 in order to keep me around,” he said, referring to the suicide prevention and crisis hotline.
“I see the same thing in that art,” he said. “The despair.”
It’s taken “lots of therapy,” he said, but he’s still fighting, even though it’s been frustrating for himself and hard on his family.
Ever since he tested positive for COVID-19 in January 2022 and soon after began feeling the full effects of long COVID, “every day is still a struggle,” Brockholt said. He’s on long-term disability now, which he said was a good move for both his physical and mental health. But to this day, “I feel like running a marathon was easier than just every single day of this.”
It’s hard “not being able to show up to my kids’ soccer games and performances,” he said, pausing to choke back his emotions before adding he missed a soccer game just this weekend. “I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I’m sleeping through the most important events of my life. It’s hard.”
But Brockholt expressed gratitude for the state report shedding light on long COVID and patients’ struggles. Even though nothing in it was particularly surprising to him since he’s been dealing with it for more than two years now, he hopes it will raise awareness as well as increase both the public’s understanding, as well as help doctors continue to learn how to best treat it.
Read the full report at UtahNewsDispatch.com.
