A Friend for the Long Haul - A Podcast about Long Covid Friends

About A Friend for the Long Haul - A Podcast about Long Covid Friends

Are you struggling with Long COVID-19, ME/CFS, chronic illness, or disability? "A Friend for the Long Haul" is a Long COVID podcast that aims to be a supportive companion. This podcast offers insights, humor, and shared stories within a community that understands. Each episode features a Long COVID patient or ally to help you feel less isolated, because you are not alone.

Publisher

A Friend for the Long Haul

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

24 Mar 2024

Latest episode

3 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

6 of 61 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   3 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Long COVID Clinical Trials, Tirzepatide & Finding the Right Doctor (Dr. Wes Ely & Dr. Julia Moore Vogel)

   Dr. Wes Ely and Dr. Julia Moore Vogel discuss Long COVID clinical trials, tirzepatide, and finding the right doctor in this interview.

2. 

   10 Aug 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Clarity, Awareness, Presence, Acceptance, and Gratitude: A Conversation with Claire Jones of Sista Creative Rising and Musings of a Black Disabled Elder

   Welcome to a new episode of A Friend for the Long Haul - A Long Covid Podcast! Claire Jones, co-founder of Sista Creatives Rising and creator of Musings of a Black Disabled Elder, is a repeat guest of the pod. She has developed a five-part framework for navigating life's chaos: Clarity, Awareness, Presence, Acceptance, and Gratitude. In this episode, Claire and I talk about what it means to build a life when illness, disability, trauma, grief, and change knock us sideways. We talk about: Learning to live and resist within your capacity, and why your contribution doesn't have to look like anyone else's Claire's experience with cancer and how it changed her relationship with self-love, joy, and worthiness Why acceptance isn't the same thing as forgiveness Grieving the life you thought you would have while still making room for a different kind of joy The cognitive cost of constantly trying to manage other people's experience of you Living a COVID-conscious life without allowing other people's perceptions to define what makes a life rich or fulfilling "Getting ahead of life before life gets ahead of you” Claire reminds us that life will always contain suffering, disruption, and uncertainty. The goal isn't to become so grounded that nothing ever knocks us off course, it's to develop a way back to ourselves. Read Sista Creatives Rising and Musings of a Black Disabled Elder on Substack (https://substack.com/@sistacreativesrising). A Friend for the Long Haul is a podcast about chronic illness, disability, Long COVID, community, and the messy business of building meaningful lives when our bodies and circumstances don't cooperate with the plans we made. If this conversation resonates with you, subscribe/follow the podcast and share it with someone who might need it. #LongCOVID #ChronicIllness #Disability #DisabilityCommunity #ChronicIllnessCommunity #Acceptance #Grief #SelfLove #SistaCreativesRising Find Claire and Amaranthia's Instagram account for Sista Creatives Rising here: https://www.instagram.com/sistacreativesrising (https://www.instagram.com/sistacreativesrising) and their website is: https://www.sistacreativesrising.com/ (https://www.sistacreativesrising.com/) Follow A Friend for the Long Haul - A Long Covid Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afriendforthelonghaulpodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/afriendforthelonghaulpodcast/) A Friend for the Long Haul is a one disabled woman produced podcast. If you'd like to support my work, you can: Check out my shop (https://www.bonfire.com/store/a-friend-for-the-long-haul/?utm_source=copy_link&utm_medium=store_page_share&utm_campaign=a-friend-for-the-long-haul&utm_content=default), full of snarky long covid and chronic illness shirts, mugs, and bags. Any proceeds from the shop go right back to the podcast, or community care/mutual aid. I have an Amazon gift registry focused on back to school (https://www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/YLQ6XEWA29IZ?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_ggr-subnav-share_95FCY9PK9GRDGYTMZ88H)and things that would help at home. We're a family of 6 neurodivergent and disabled baddies. All 4 kids are heading back to school next week, and any help is always appreciated. Venmo me at: afriend4thelonghaul Or, just listen, review, and share this podcast! Thank you!

3. 

   20 Jul 2026

   Why Stories Matter in the Fight for Long COVID Awareness with Charlie McCone - A Friend for the Long Haul Podcast

   In this episode of A Friend for the Long Haul - A Long COVID Podcast, I'm joined by Charlie McCone. Charlie is a Long COVID advocate, contributor to The Sick Times, member of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, someone whose work has become deeply woven into the LC community, and another guest I was convinced was too cool to come on the show. Charlie and I talk about what happens when your life is changed by an illness that most people still don't understand, if they even think it's real. We explore why Long COVID has been so difficult for the public to grasp, why facts alone don't seem to be enough to create change, and the role storytelling plays in helping communities be seen, believed, and understood. We also discuss the concept of "hypocognition," which is what happens when society lacks the frameworks to recognize a problem, and how this shows up in the experiences of people living with chronic illness and disability, as well as disability culture, patient-led research, the power of first-person narratives, how communities organize, and what keeps people speaking up when progress feels so very painfully slow. We also chat about Charlie's friendship with Alice Wong, and the lessons he learned from her about advocacy and life. You don't have to live with Long COVID to understand how it feels to try to find purpose when your life takes an unexpected turn. But if you do have LC, are navigating another chronic illness or disability, you're supporting a loved one, or trying to better understand what millions of people have experienced over the last 6 years, I think we took a really good look at how people telling the truth about what they've lived through is a powerful way to drive change. Charlie, thanks for your work and for joining me! Find Charlie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loscharlos/ Bravely, on X: https://x.com/loscharlos?lang=en On Threads: https://www.threads.com/@loscharlos His amazing piece, Alice Wong showed us DIsability Justice makes our advocacy stronger: https://thesicktimes.org/2026/04/10/alice-wong-showed-us-disability-justice-makes-our-advocacy-stronger/ Find Beth on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afriendforthelonghaulpodcast/ Treat yourself to some Long COVID merch in my shop and support this podcast and mutual aid: https://www.bonfire.com/store/a-friend-for-the-long-haul/ Read my Substack: https://f4lh.substack.com/

Inside a recent episode

Long COVID Clinical Trials, Tirzepatide & Finding the Right Doctor (Dr. Wes Ely & Dr. Julia Moore Vogel)

Published 3 Sept 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] And we're, you know, a couple of hundred patients into a large phase three randomized controlled trial. That's that's going to help provide answers one way or the other. And I want to mention to you about that. I have two rules for my research. I never do a project unless it meets both rules. And the first rule is either answer matters. And the second rule is study what you have a lot of. Never in history have there been so many people with an infection associated chronic condition as long COVID. So we have a lot of it. And I don't know if immunomodulation or antiviral medications or SGLT2s or whatever drug mechanism is going to work for long COVID, but we can take our best candidate drugs, best candidate chemical compounds, allow patients to be randomized into those groups and learn about the science and the mechanism of the disease by seeing if they help or not. […]

Who has been a guest on A Friend for the Long Haul - A Podcast about Long Covid Friends

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Dr Wes Ely
• Dr Julia Moore Vogel
• Katrina Dreamer
• April Thompson
• Megan Wages

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.8 / 5

23 ratings

Spotify

4.9 / 5

35 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 52 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

76

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

71

Contact A Friend for the Long Haul - A Podcast about Long Covid Friends

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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Questions about A Friend for the Long Haul - A Podcast about Long Covid Friends