One of Illinois’ First COVID-19 Patients Shares Lasting Effects Two Years Later
It's been a long two years, and it's been even longer for COVID-19 survivors with lasting effects. Have you experienced any?
On this day in history... well technically on Sunday's day in history I was sent for a COVID-19 test in 2020.
It was a Friday, March 27 and I'm assuming it's a day I will remember for the rest of my life.
The Wednesday before, March 25, I called my doctor because I had some weird stuff going on in my body. I was sweating through my clothes, I had the worst headache of my life, my hips felt like someone was drilling into them, I kept falling asleep in the afternoon and I thought I might be getting bronchitis.
When I called Wednesday the doctor's office said, 'call back if it gets worse.'
On Friday I started coughing and the sweating and the hip pain did in fact get worse. If you remember, tests were not easy to come by at that time. You couldn't buy one at the store or even get one on your own at all, you had to have a doctor send you.
I drove to somewhere I had never been in Rockford and was told to stay in my car until it was my turn. Two nurses covered in white PPE finally called my name and swabbed me so hard it felt like they reached my eyeballs. I know they were just doing their job but when I got back in the car I started tearing up, but it wasn't about me, it was about this little girl who was in front of me in line, I was so scared for her. She will probably always remember that day, too.
NINE DAYS LATER... I finally got the phone call that I was COVID-19 positive. I pretty much knew that already since I continued to have symptoms and could no longer smell garlic, wine or candles.
Fast forward two entire years, which is pretty bananas by the way... and I will say I have one lingering symptom for sure and that is an intense dep inability to catch my breath when I overexert myself.
You might say, did you always feel this way when you tried to run a mile as fast as you can? But the answer to that is, no, I never had this sensation, where my lungs are both on fire and completely empty at the same time after a hard workout. I now have an inhaler to deal with moments like that and I think that's the only symptom I have.
If you're wondering it also took me months to even be able to workout at the intensity that I was used to, it was a SLOW summer in 2020.
I would love to blame my arthritis in my feet on COVID or the mole I recently had to get removed but I don't think that's really fair.
Despite the infrequent deep breathing issues I consider myself super lucky that I recovered from COVID just fine and managed to not spread the disease to my friends, family or co-workers.