DEV Community: Neha

When Getting Well Isn’t Happening Soon: My Experience with Long COVID

Neha — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 00:38:31 +0000

I’ve been wanting to publish this article for weeks now. I knew I wanted to share my Long COVID experience on a broader scale, especially since the condition isn’t widely spoken about. The title of my article is inspired my someone’s response to a social media post I made regarding my experience with Long COVID. They had commented ‘Get well soon’. While I know they had positive intentions behind their response, many do not know about the true experience of Long COVID and how it can last up to many years. I personally have been dealing with Long COVID symptoms for over a year now. I decided today would be a great day to put my final touches on the article and hit publish as today is Long COVID awareness day.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been knowingly infected with SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 three times. After my first infection, I didn’t notice any long-term effects. However, after my second infection, I have symptoms lingering for nearly a year now. The most disruptive of the symptoms is a consistent headache. The severity and location of the headache vary day by day. The headache affects me at work as well as my studies and sleep. Some days when I wake up, I feel as though there’s an additional weight within my head and I struggle with positioning myself upright and getting out of bed. Other long-term symptoms I deal with include hair loss, fatigue, as well as occasional chest pain and cough.

COVID has led to long-term impacts for many individuals. Long COVID is impacting more than 1 million children in the US according to CDC as reported by ABC news. About 25% of adults infected with COVID experience Long COVID symptoms. Additionally, the prevalence of Long COVID varies across different groups. Prioritizing COVID infection is necessary to protect the health of all. The greater the number of COVID infections one has, the greater their chance of contracting Long COVID.

After the COVID vaccines were released and before I had learned that COVID could transmit asyptomatically and was airborne, I had relaxed my precautions. I only masked up in public places where I was around complete strangers. After all, I had trusted that anyone I knew wouldn’t meet up with me while they were sick. I continued to mask up at the grocery store, library, on public transit, on planes, and other public spaces. I knew that vaccination alone wasn’t enough as I had seen people in my life getting infected with COVID despite having the latest COVID-19 booster vaccine. I did make an exception for eating at restaurants as that is a common activity to do with friends and I’d opt for outdoor seating if it was available.

Of course later on, I did learn that SARS-Cov-2 is airborne and can transmit asymptomatically. Additionally, I learned that while vaccination reduces the likelihood of hospitalization from a COVID infection, the vaccine does not protect against transmission. Upon learning this new information, I had increased the number of COVID precautions I take. Before, when meeting with friends and family, I trusted that they would not be sick. Now, knowing that asymptomatic transmission can take place, I assume everyone is carrying the virus. I wear a high-quality N95 respirator when I’m around others. If COVID tests were free or more reasonably priced, I could ask others to test before meeting up. Unfortunately in most cases, tests are very pricey. Now, I no longer dine-in at restaurants. I opt to get takeout and if the restaurant is fast-casual, meaning no server is interacting with me multiple times as I’m eating, I eat in the patio area of the restaurant assuming it’s not crowded. I read about restaurant staff online who have contracted COVID at their jobs and I make a point not to interact with restaurant staff unless I’m masked up for the sake of their health as well as mine. When I contracted Long COVID, I rarely made time to see friends in-person. I wanted to recover and protect myself. Upon realizing my symptoms weren’t going away. I made sure to get an air purifier to use when eating a friends’ homes and eat outdoors when possible. Otherwise, I remained masked up.

I thought the research I shared, showing that Long COVID affects people of all ages including children as well as athletes and my contraction of Long COVID would make people in my life more willing to mask as I am a warning sign to them of the result of multiple COVID infections. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. Long COVID has strained my relationships to people close to me. Some people no longer reach out to hang out after I’ve made attempts. Others gaslight me as they’ve read about others with Long COVID and that my symptoms aren’t severe enough. When I refuse to eat in a restaurant, they say I’m not living a normal life. I try to make the point that even if my symptoms aren’t Long COVID, I don’t want to exacerbate them by getting another infection. Getting sick with anything be it COVID, flu, norovirus, etc. will not help me.

I visited two different doctors regarding my headache and other symptoms and that I stared experiencing them after my COVID infection. Both of them say that I could have Long COVID but refuse to give me a confirmed diagnosis. This doesn’t help when I try to explain it to those close to me. I tried headache medicines per their recommendations but instead I ended up getting a rebound headache with every medicine I tried. Another person said, well you look fine. It’s frustrating that I don’t have any visible physical effects of Long COVID or people would more easily believe me. One physical symptom I do have is increased hair loss. Whenever I comb or wash my hair, handfuls of hair come out.

From the research I have read, here is what I have observed as well as what I would like to see going forward for everyone’s health and safety:

I continue to see in-person conferences and events held. Considering that many conferences have attendees from all over the world, having enforced masking would help reduce transmission. Especially since this brings multiple variants of COVID from different countries all in one place. Also, having a virtual option allows the conference to be more accessible to all. Knowing what COVID can do to the brain, STEAM conferences should want to protect their attendees and keep their minds sharp. I was happy to see that PyCascades enforced masking as well as encouraged vaccination and testing this year.

Masking up on planes is especially important. Through air travel, the virus continues to bounce between cities and the number of variants continues to increase. According to a Malaysian study reported by Forbes, 96% of flights have COVID-19 on board.

Masking also needs to be required in all healthcare facilities, including hospitals, doctor’s offices and pharmacies. No one should get sick while accessing essential care or picking up medicine. Additionally, medical staff should not get sick on the job and as many precautions as possible need to be put in place. In the UK, nursing staff and doctors have Long COVID as a result of workplace acquired infections. Healthcare needs to be accessible to everyone regardless of their risk.

School and daycare centers should enforce masking and have air purifiers to cleanse the air. Infections from schools make up 70% of household infections in the US. Air purifiers reduced the number of illnesses among children and staff in Finland. Keeping children safe as well as teachers and daycare staff is essential. Long COVID also has diminished the quality of life of school aged children. They deserve to be healthy. Children and those who work with children should not suffer from a preventable virus.

Ideally, everyone would take a COVID test before interacting with others. Unfortunately tests are not available freely in most cases and rapid tests are known to be inaccurate. High quality respirators can also be pricy. Mask Blocs do address this gap by providing free respirators, COVID tests, and air purifiers to borrow to those in need. Mask Blocs are sustained by donations and through volunteers. Outside of COVID, several Mask Blocs were able to provide respirators to those in LA during the wildfires earlier this year. Masking and the presence of air purifiers in public places is essential to keeping everyone safe. There is no reason why we should allow the SARS-Cov-2 virus to continue spreading in our communities. Research shows the virus is airborne and that N95 respirators protect one from the virus and air purifiers reduce the quantity of virus particles in the air. By caring for yourself and others, we can all be healthier and avoid death as well as long term disability.

Those with cancer or preexisting conditions are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 and developing Long COVID. To keep public spaces accessible and safe for all, masking should be enforced. In addition, a virtual option needs to be made available for events to ensure all can take part in the experience, regardless of whether they are able to attend in-person. COVID-19 also weakens the immune system, hence why many other viruses and illnesses have been spiking since the start of the pandemic.

I hope that more people read and keep up with COVID and Long COVID research findings. Especially during a time where that information is limited on the CDC, NIH, and other government websites due to the current presidential administration. There needs to be acknowledgment that COVID is indeed still disabling and deadly and we should want to protect those around us as well as ourselves.

Cover drawing illustrated by me!

ben

Neha — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 23:13:52 +0000

Intro to Data Analysis using PySpark

Neha — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 02:01:51 +0000

In this tutorial we will be exploring the functionality of PySpark on a World Population data set.

Preliminary Work

First check if Python is installed. Type the following in your computer terminal:

python –-version

If not installed, download Python based on your OS here

Install Jupyter Notebook following the steps here if not already installed

Alternatively, Python and Jupyter Notebook can be installed after downloading Anaconda which provides many preinstalled libraries.

Open the Jupyter Notebook application using the following command in your computer's terminal:

jupyter notebook

The application opens in your web browser. First, navigate to the file path where you want to store your work. Then on the top right of your screen click 'New' then under the Notebook heading click 'Python 3'.
Within your notebook install the necessary libraries if not already installed

!pip install pandas
!pip install pyspark
!pip install findspark
!pip install pyspark_dist_explore

Next, we will obtain the population data set from datahub.io and save it on our machine. For this tutorial, download the csv file of the data set. Be sure to take note of where the data set is saved.

Import the required libraries

import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import findspark  # To find and use Apache Spark
findspark.init()  # Initialize findspark to locate Spark
from pyspark.sql import SparkSession  
from pyspark.sql.types import StructType, IntegerType, FloatType, StringType, StructField
from pyspark_dist_explore import hist

Initialize a Spark Session

To avoid errors, do the following before intializing the Spark session:
To avoid a JAVA_HOME error, check whether Java is installed on your computer terminal:

java -version

Install JDK using the steps here
In Jupyter notebook, enter the following to initialize the Spark session

spark = SparkSession \
    .builder \
    .appName("User-Defined Schema") \
    .config("spark.sql.execution.arrow.pyspark.enabled", "true") \
    .getOrCreate()

Verify that the spark session instance has been created

spark

If you receive a warning, your hostname resolves to a loopback address, define IP using an IP that is not 127.0.0.1 before initializing the spark session in local-spark-env.sh or spark-env.sh

export SPARK_LOCAL_IP = "10.0.0.19"

Load data into a Pandas DataFrame

pd_dataframe = pd.read_csv(‘population.csv’)

Preview the first few lines

pd_dataframe.head()

Load data into a Spark DataFrame

Use createDataFrame function to load the data into a spark dataframe

sdf = spark.createDataFrame(pd_dataframe)

Look at the schema of the loaded spark dataframe

sdf.printSchema()

Rename the columns

Rename the existing columns with multiple words to be one string for ease of processing
The function withColumnRenamed() is renames the existing column names.

sdf_new = sdf.withColumnRenamed("Country Name", "Country_Name").withColumnRenamed("Country Code", "Country_Code")

The execution of the above function doesn’t modify the original DataFrame sdf, instead, a new DataFrame sdf_new is created with the renamed column.

View the new dataframe

sdf_new.head(5)

Create a Table View

Creating a table view in Spark SQL is required to run SQL queries programmatically on a DataFrame. A view is a temporary table to run SQL queries. A Temporary view provides local scope within the current Spark session. In this example we create a temporary view using the createTempView() function

sdf_new.createTempView('population_values')

Running SQL queries and aggregating data
Once we have a table view, we can run queries similar to querying a SQL table. We perform similar operations to the ones in the DataFrames notebook. Note the difference here however is that we use the SQL queries directly.

Showing the whole table

spark.sql("SELECT * FROM population_values").show()

Showing a specific column, Country_Name

spark.sql("SELECT Country_Name FROM population_values").show()

Plot a histogram

Using pyspark_dist_explore to view the distribution of the population of Aruba over the years in 20 bins

sdf_population = sdf_new.filter(sdf_new.Country_Name == 'Aruba')
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
hist(ax, sdf_population.select('Value'), bins = 20, color=['red'])

The expected code execution is located here for reference.

How I Spent My Time After Getting Laid Off – Security+, Python, and a career shift!

Neha — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 17:39:10 +0000

I got laid off for the first time in my career this past May. Many projects at the company had reduced funding and I was one of multiple people on my team that was let go. The team I was on was the most supportive team I’ve had in my career thus far and the project I was working on was one that interested me. During the months prior, my manager had assured me that I would find another role at the company. I was fortunate to have advance notice that my role was in jeopardy. I filled out as many applications for internal roles as I could and interviewed for several of them. I also applied to a couple roles outside the company but at the time was only focusing on internal roles. My manger had assured me in every call we had that he was not sharing bad news. Weeks later I had a call put on my calendar with my manager and a representative from HR. I didn’t have any heads up prior to the call on what it would be regarding. During the call I received my two week notice. My stomach dropped and I was in shock. Even though I knew that I was at risk of getting let go, hearing the news confirmed felt very different. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. My manager was super supportive and assured me that even though I would no longer be at the company, he would always be someone there for me to reach out to and have as a support no matter where my career took me. I am very grateful to have had such an amazing manager.

At the time, I was unsure of what I wanted to do next in my career. I had only been a software engineer so far with experience working on different teams using Java, Python, and C++. I had grown exhausted with dealing with large codebases and trying to figure out bugs that were very involved with the code. I felt that I was missing something as my teammates were able to debug the code with quite a bit more ease than I did. I had been a software engineer for a little over three and a half years and figured if I’m struggling even after all this experience, maybe pure software development isn’t for me.

Some of my other interests involved data science and cybersecurity. I worked on data science projects while in school and had newly discovered cybersecurity as a potential path after discussing with a couple colleagues and friends as well as read online about other’s experiences. An overwhelmingly common consensus was to get the CompTIA Security+ certification as a starting point. The certification provides an introduction to security principles and is an entry-level certificate in the field. I began to study for the certification using Professor Messer’s free online course and ebooks from O’Reilly with summaries, practice questions, and practice tests. I have O’Reilly access included with my public library card. I bought Security+ practice exams from Professor Messer for additional practice. I took about two and a half months to study for the exam. The exam has a lot of content which took quite a bit of time to digest. I took my exam on July 12th this year and passed. Security+ provided me a comprehensive introduction to cybersecurity and I’m happy with my experience.

I applied for cybersecurity jobs and while the Security+ certificate checked off a box on most applications, me not having direct cybersecurity or IT work experience is where I fell short. I then explored data science further, taking online courses in Python. I also completed projects on the platform as well, applying my skills. I reignited my interest in data science. I utilized multiple platform I was encouraged to apply for data science and machine learning roles where I completely overhauled my resume including personal projects as well as projects from school.

A few days after I passed the Security+ exam, I received a LinkedIn message which led me to the role I’m currently in. I applied to many job postings on LinkedIn and did not have much luck with those. In the past, I’ve had LinkedIn messages from recruiters which led to interviews so I was excited about the message. I interviewed at the start of August and at the end of September joined the company as a Machine Learning Software Engineer. I was very excited to work in a new area of tech, one I had dabbled in during school but not professionally. My new role involves Python, PySpark, and SQL. I am still just over a month into my new role and feel rejuvenated at a new company exploring a new area of tech!

Cover photo by Concord90

Lessons I've Learned After Three Years as a Full-time Software Engineer

Neha — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 17:10:39 +0000

I cannot believe that I'm already three years into my software engineering career. The time has flown by faster than I ever would have expected. As I hit this milestone, here are some things that I've learned.

It Takes a Few Tries to Find the Right Team and That's Fine!

I am currently on my third full-time team. My first team out of school was definitely not the right match or me. While my teammates were kind and helpful, I felt that I did not jive with them as I have with some of the teams I worked on as an intern. My second team was better but still not quite right. I definitely got along with some of my teammates better than I did on my first team and the project I was working on was more intriguing, still not quite the best though. My current team has by far been the best fit for me. I get along with my teammates on a personal level and find the project I'm working on intriguing. I never thought I'd find a team that fits me so perfectly and am very happy with my current position.

Developers Don't Leave Jobs, They Leave Managers

This could not have been more true for my experience. My first manager micromanaged quite a bit, dictating that we'd need to put out a notice to the team even if we were taking just a 1 hour off work. She just felt a bit too much at times and I was never at ease. My second manager was the complete opposite. He was very hands off. While some people may have preferred this, I felt like I had not too much direction career-wise. My current manager is amazing as both a manager and an individual. I feel supported not only as an employee but also as a person and individual. We have monthly tag up meetings and in every meeting with my manager, I truly felt heard. I've read through Sarah Drasner's book, Engineering Management for the Rest of Us and my manager does display many of these traits. I definitely feel that I can be on this team for longer than a year.

It's Okay to Ask Questions!

On my prior two teams, asking questions felt like a huge obstacle. The first team I worked on was short staffed and therefore it was hard for me to get dedicated attention to get up to speed with the project. My second team had some teammates that were great resources and others that explained things in an unclear manner that I had trouble knowing where to begin both in terms of working and for asking followup questions.
My current team on the other hand, asking questions is very much encouraged and I do not feel inadequate for asking questions. I am always met with teammates who are very willing to help me out.

The Adjustment to Remote Work

During my internships, I'd worked in person for all of them. However, I'd graduated from school in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviewing and starting a job remotely was a completely new experience. Time and time again, I found that I had a hard time focusing and I did not know why. I tried so hard to eliminate distractions and had no success. Two years into my full-time career, I had mentioned this to my doctor and she suggested that I see a psychaitrist. Sure enough, I was diagnosed with ADHD. My second team had thought that I took too long to complete tasks and I wasn't working to my full potential and now I know why. On my current team, I feel very supported. I mentioned to my manager and my team lead that I have ADHD and they understand me and help me work in a way that's best for me. Reflecting on my life up until this diagnosis, I knew there was something different about me, I just hadn't known since I had my own ways of working around the way I'm wired up until this point. Remote work changed everything.

Impostor Syndrome

Throughout school and for the first two years of my career, impostor syndrome took over, eating me from the inside out and making me think I wasn't good enough. I'd compare myself to teammates and especially on the second team, I felt like I was the least knowledgeable on the team. With my current team, I clearly notice that my impostor syndrome is at an all time low. I never thought that I would reach this point. I feel more confident in my abilities than ever before and I feel that I truly add value to my team. Impostor syndrome in my experience is as much external as it is internal. I worked hard to realize that I indeed do have the knowledge but with me not getting unconditional support from the teams that I'd worked with, it was out of control at that point. My current team has made me realize that I am valuable and that I am not an impostor. I truly do know what I know.

Performative Activism

Unfortunately most companies are run to benefit people at the top and rely on government for sponsorships. I was gaslit for reporting sexual harassment. I also gave the company 3 years to speak out about hateful homophobic and transphobic comments in the workplace. Unfortunately I did not get a satisfactory response for either issue. In these first few years of my career, I learned the HR exists to protect the company, not employees. My manager has been very supportive when I brought these concerns up. My working team itself is very supportive. It’s a shame the company does not have the employees backs. I’ve been doing unpaid women’s resource group work for the company and I decided I would no longer do that work if the company can’t 100% support me as an individual.

Reflections

Overall, I've learned a lot in my career so far and am looking forward to gaining more experience and insight as I continue in my journey.

Cover Photo by prostooleh

Best app/website for online community

Neha — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 17:31:49 +0000

From my observations I see two groups of apps/websites, one being feed based communities/social media and the other being more communication based platforms that don't have feeds and rather are more conversation based. Here are a few I've used or taken note of.

Twitter - used to be one of my favorite social media apps, went downhill as I barely see the posts of people I follow :(

Bluesky - started off great & has close-knit feeling, then the team mishandled racism against Black individuals :( I personally have hope it could be revived as I love only seeing the posts of people I follow, still keeping my account for the time being.

Geneva - a new app I came across, I don't know too much about it. It aims to combine the qualities of Facebook groups/GroupMe with Slack/Discord. I'm gonna keep my eye on this one for sure! More info here: Geneva Intro.

Mastodon - I personally haven't used this one, I see it touted as a Twitter alternative. From the looks of it, seems pretty Reddit based.

Discord - I absolutely love the Baddies in Tech Discord server. It's the best managed server I've ever seen! There's a few other Discord servers that I'm a part of but they tend to be overwhelming for me, so I have them muted & check on them once in a while.

Slack - My favorite workspace is Virtual Coffee. Overall a great and supportive community. I'm in a couple other tech Slack workspaces too.

Forem - Getting a little bit meta here as DEV itself is a Forem! I'd love to have a community on the internet with everyone in tech that I follow on Twitter in a feed based community as well as have the ability to communicate with one another via replies on various topics. Some people I follow on Twitter have such a large following that I'm not able to converse/interface with them as much as I'd like. I personally haven't experienced creating my own Forem though I definitely can see it's a great option!

I'm interested in hearing others' opinions. Which platform is your favorite? What do you think the future of communities and social networks on the internet will look like? I appreciate your thoughts on this topic!

Is Polywork still a viable alternative?

Neha — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 15:20:47 +0000

I recall Polywork had a surge of popularity over a year ago but I don't hear too much about the platform these days. With the slow downfall of Twitter and the hyper-perfectionist expectations of LinkedIn, I personally think it's a great alternative and I'm curious to hear others' thoughts!