What if a horse could motivate and empower a person to be their best and happiest? They can, and with Flying Change they do.

Flying Change sees clients of all ages and backgrounds motivated by the guidance, acceptance, and love of a horse to grow into happier, healthier, more peaceful, and more loving people. This is part of the introduction to Flying Change Services which became an important part of a teen-age boy's year-long struggle to recover from long covid.

An article in the Sunday, April 24th edition of the LA Times, details the challenges that Ami Korn and his parents faced in overcoming his long battle with Covid 19 which began in January 2021.

According to the article, Ami feels that he "lost" eight months of his life due to the array of covid symptoms  that affected him over a course of many months. Nagging head aches, ear aches, lung inflammation, body aches, fatigue and other challenges kept him from nearly all physical and mental activities he previously enjoyed.

Walking a block left him exhausted and he was sleeping for 12 to 16 hours a day. When it became obvious he wasn't recovering from covid, he and his parents began an exhaustive internet search for ways to lessen the symptoms he had and help him recover his previous mental and physical strengths. They tried everything from accupuncture to vitamins, to medications and therapies, but nothing seemed to help lessen the symptoms of covid.

Finally cardiopulmonary rehab and getting vaccinated for covid had some positive effects and he was able to participate in moe physical and mental activities. His father, Ze'ev a psychotherapist at UCLA, was able to reach out to other professionals for information and after a move to Atlanta, Georgia, Ami with the help of his father began Equine Assisted Therapy at Flying Change Equine Therapy center.

Tending to horses gives Ami structure and helps lift his spirits as he grooms and feeds the horses. He also takes pride in working with Mercedes, a young horse who was sick with pneumonia for almost a year.

His work with horses doing activities such as moving through a series of physical obstacles reflects Ami's own navigation through the Covid 19 pandemic and helps him see the progress he is making although he still struggles in many ways. Fortunately, he is now able to play baseball again and physical activities are helpful in many ways.

Ami, who has returned to school, continues to suffer from memory loss saying that what he learns in English class on Monday is often forgotten by Wednesday and when he learns how to solve a math problem, two days later, he has to relearn the process again.

A number of covid-related research projects are underway to determine how and why covid affects some people long after they should have recovered fully from the disease. Various researchers maintain that somewhere between 10 and 50 percent of people affected with covid have long-term consequences to the disease, long after others are considered to be covid-free.