Imagine being young and healthy, a nonsmoker with no preexisting health conditions, and then waking up one morning feeling like you were being suffocated by an unseen force. Back in March, this was my reality.
I had just returned from Europe, and roughly 10 days later started having flu-like symptoms. I became weak overnight and had trouble breathing. It felt like jogging in the Rocky Mountains without being in condition, only I wasn’t moving. I went to the hospital, where I was tested for COVID-19.
More than four months later, the symptoms have not gone away. My heart still races, even though I am resting. I cannot stay in the sun for long periods; it zaps all of my energy. I have gastrointestinal problems, ringing in the ears and chest pain.
I’m what’s known as a long-hauler – part of a growing group of people who have COVID-19 and have never fully recovered. Fatigue is one of the most common persistent symptoms, but there are many others, including the cognitive effects people often describe as brain fog.
“it will take months to a year or more to know whether lingering COVID-19 symptoms in young people could be chronic illnesses.”
The frustration of not knowing
What made matters worse in the beginning was that my doctors were not certain I had COVID-19. My test was negative, and I had no fever, so my symptoms did not fit into early descriptions of the disease. Instead, I was diagnosed with a respiratory illness, prescribed the Z-pack antibiotic and a low dosage of an anti-inflammatory medication normally used for arthritis patients.
A Yale study released in May shows COVID- 19 deaths in America do not reflect the pandemic’s true mortality rate. If I had died at home, my death would not have been counted as COVID-19.
By the end of March, I was on the road to recovery. Then I had a seizure. In the ER, the doctor said I had COVID-19 and that I was lucky – tests showed my organs did not have lasting damage. After the seizure, I lay in my bedroom for weeks with the curtains drawn, because light and sound had started to hurt.
The search for answers
I did not understand why I was not recovering. I began searching for answers online. I found a support group for people struggling with COVID-19 long-term. They called them- selves long-haulers.
COVID-19 support groups show that there are many people not considered sick enough to be hospitalized – yet they are experiencing symptoms worse than the flu. It is possible COVID-19 is neurotoxic and is one of the first illnesses capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier. This might explain why many people like me have neurological problems. Many long-haulers are experiencing post-viral symptoms similar to those caused by mono- nucleosis and myalgic encephalomyelitis/ chronic fatigue syndrome.
A common frustration is that some medical doctors dismiss their complaints as psycho- logical. One woman in the support group wrote: “140 days later, so many are hard to breathe, and no doctors will take me seriously as I was diagnosed with a negative swab and negative antibodies.”
Like many long-haulers, my goal is to resume a normal life. I still grapple with a host of post-viral issues, including extreme fatigue, brain fog and headaches. I spend the majority of my day resting.
A big challenge long-haulers face may be sustaining employment. Ultimately, it is too early to classify long-haulers as having a disability. Anthony Fauci reported that “it will take months to a year or more to know whether lingering COVID-19 symptoms in young people could be chronic illnesses.”
