The "Mindf***" of Long COVID: From CEO to "Currently Disabled"
Sickboy
CBC
4.8 • 524 Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Briefing the President one day, forgetting how to cook bacon the next. What happens when a high-achieving powerhouse (Harvard grad, Wall Street alum, and Obama White House staffer) suddenly loses her most prized asset: her mind? Marisa Renee Lee joins the boys to get brutally honest about her "dumpster fire" journey with Long COVID. From the visceral pain of biting through a night guard in her sleep to the terrifying moment her larynx was 70% blocked while on a "restorative" trip to Greece, Marisa’s story is a raw look at identity, ego death, and the absolute chaos of a body in revolt. We dive into the controversial intersection of vaccine injury and infection, the skepticism Black women face in the U.S. healthcare system, and the three questions that forced her to reframe her life as "currently disabled".
For all things Marisa - https://www.marisareneelee.com/about
You can watch this entire episode over on YouTube.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's becoming pretty clear that U.S. President Donald Trump is ripping up the political |
| 0:05.3 | playbook. |
| 0:05.8 | And when it comes to what it all means for Canada, well, as they say, it's complicated. |
| 0:09.8 | But our podcast, two blocks from the White House, is a way to make sense of it all. |
| 0:13.8 | Join me, Willie Lowry, and senior Washington correspondents, Paul Hunter and Katie Simpson |
| 0:18.6 | every week as we break down the headlines from Capitol Hill with a Canadian spin. |
| 0:24.2 | Find and follow two blocks from the White House on your favorite podcast app, including YouTube. |
| 0:30.2 | This is a CBC podcast. |
| 0:33.7 | I got these crushing headaches, like couldn't sleep, couldn't work, couldn't think straight. |
| 0:42.1 | The pain was so intense. |
| 0:43.6 | At one point, I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I had bitten off a piece of my night guard, like, in my sleep. |
| 0:52.2 | Like, that's how bad the pain was. |
| 0:53.9 | Yeah, I mean, it's like, it was, it was awful. |
| 1:00.4 | Hello, everyone. |
| 1:01.7 | Welcome back another week, another episode of Sick Boy. |
| 1:04.3 | And today we are hanging out with Marissa Renee Lee. |
| 1:09.5 | This woman is a certified powerhouse. |
| 1:13.9 | She went to Harvard. |
| 1:15.5 | She worked in the Obama White House. |
| 1:18.7 | She's an award-winning and best-selling author and is currently the CEO of a consulting company. |
| 1:24.0 | But we are not here to talk about her resume. |
| 1:30.3 | We are here because Marissa has long COVID. And it's decided to give her life a massive shakeup. We're going to get into the |
... |
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