How COVID-19 lasts for several monthsExBulletin

For Marjorie Roberts, it started on March 26th.

Roberts, a 59-year-old healthy life coach in Atlanta, says it started on a normal day. She went out to get an email. When she returned to her apartment she lost balance. Oddly enough, she didn’t think much about it.

But by the evening, “everything has come down like a brick,” she says. Exhaustion was among the first symptoms of some. Her long trial was just the beginning. “I didn’t understand my purpose”

On April 23rd, 34-year-old Natalie Norwell had a similar experience. With three mothers in Memphis, Tennessee, she ran around her children most of the time. Her family has been quarantined for over a month.

Then, from nowhere, she started to feel heavy on her chest and deep anxiety. She told her husband that she needed a rest. It was even worse when she woke up. Terrible chest pain—“It’s like having a lot of bricks on my chest,” she says.

According to a report from the World Health Organization earlier this year, about 80% of coronavirus infections are “Mild or asymptomaticThe patient usually recovers later Only 2 weeks..

Roberts and Norwell were not. After a few months, both women are still experiencing symptoms of COVID-19: shortness of breath, chest pain, vomiting, and neurological symptoms ranging from headaches and fatigue to hallucinations and jumbles.

Support group on Facebook It includes thousands of people like Roberts and Norwell, who say they have been working on serious COVID-19 symptoms for at least a month (if not two or three). The group has created a name for themselves: “long hauler”.

Both Norwell and Roberts visited the emergency room early in the illness, but neither could be admitted to the ICU. The doctors decided that neither needed a ventilator. Their case was technically counted as “mild”.

But their lives have been irreversibly altered by violent heat, headaches, nausea, and the onslaught of horrifying waves that can’t hold their breath. To Roberts, she was robbed of time: “I was very good. This COVID-19 stole my life,” she says.

A few weeks after her first symptoms, Norwell was barely able to walk from room to room in her house. Roberts also had a hard time breathing.

Long haul carriers are often excluded from the COVID-19 description. The data sheet counts cases, hospitalizations, recovery, and deaths, but Roberts and Nowell do not fit well in any of these categories. Neither woman was initially positive for illness: when the condition became intolerable, she went to the hospital for a test, both tested negative, and both were told to go home and rest. It was Both women eventually addressed a doctor who did not believe them until they both confirmed that they had the virus.

Many long-distance lovers say their doctors suspected their symptoms were as bad as they were saying. Roberts says her first primary care physician argued that it was just a stress, suggesting that she watch a lifelong movie and do a puzzle to calm down. “I know stress,” Roberts says, “this wasn’t stress.”

Unwell couldn’t make the words for the children to read bedtime stories at that time, so he turned to the doctor. “He said, “Well, maybe you have a UTI. Or it may be a stomach infection. Let’s call it a sinus infection.”

Both women eventually found doctors who believed in them, which made a huge difference.

“I was relieved because I felt like I was being taken seriously when I was feeling unwell,” Norwell said. “And the rest of me was terrible. Suddenly it was in my house, it was in my body, it was terrible because the whole world is dealing with this.”

It was a few months ago. Roberts and Norwell are still struggling to overcome the constant congestion, more than 100 days after their first symptoms. I have headaches and nausea. Roberts’ lungs were so hurt that she had a biopsy in early August and she was able to better understand her prognosis. She is still waiting for results.

Norwell says her grades are improving, but it’s moving slowly.

Pandemic sad loneliness is difficult enough for a healthy person. But for people like Roberts and Norwell who had to live with a misty heart, intense fatigue, and a constant fear of irregular symptoms, it was a horrifying challenge. Roberts says she’s still afraid to go everywhere because the worst symptoms don’t come out so fast yet.

They both spend the day with hope and prayer. Norwell has a Bible verse she trusts. And Roberts says, “I hope they can find a cure.”