2023-06-27 19:28:00
Dear friends, our reader was actually not afraid of Corona. She was in great shape, worked as an outdoor sports trainer and managed her life with three sons. When the virus reached her family, the kids took it pretty well, but she was really sick for 10 days. But that was nothing compared to what came next: Long Covid. She has been ill for 350 days and has problems coping with her everyday life. Here she tells about it.
Living with Long Covid: Hardly possible to take care of the family
“350 days… 350 days that I’m not healthy. 350 days have passed since I had Corona. I had made up my mind not to have to celebrate the anniversary. But a miracle cure seems impossible in the short time.
I’m just 43 years old, I was in top shape and fit as a fiddle, my main job is self-employed and I give outdoor sports lessons. Well trained every day in the fresh air, summer and winter. To be honest, I wasn’t afraid of the disease, I was worried about my parents and chronically ill people.
Then it hit me at the beginning of February, together with the children. They took it well while I was really, really sick for ten days. After that, it was said that it would take a few more weeks before you were really fit again.
After the corona disease, I got worse and worse
Unfortunately, after a few weeks, I got worse and worse. Until the peak in spring/summer I was no longer able to pursue my two jobs in sports and in the office, let alone climb stairs or vacuum a room.
I often lay in bed in the afternoon – my three boys were left to their own devices or stayed with friends. Here too – fortunately – they are already independent enough at the age of 6, 8 and 11. In the few sports lessons that I was able to give initially, I either followed them on the scooter or we had to stop in the parking lot instead of jogging through the park because I couldn’t walk anymore.
This helplessness felt during and after doctor visits was frightening. Nobody knew how to help me. I should go to the pulmonologist, to the neurologist, to register at the Long Covid Ward in the hospital. I was only able to get an appointment with a pulmonologist through connections, I haven’t been to a neurologist to this day.
Long Covid station? Immense waiting times
In the clinic in our city, where a Long Covid ward was built, you could only register by email. Six months later I got an answer that it could take another three months before I could get an appointment.
Now I can count myself lucky – at least in this respect – to have an excellent general practitioner. She just didn’t give up, registered me at the LC station in the next bigger city, where I found accommodation within three weeks. She made all contacts to discuss my clinical picture.
I still remember sitting with her at the height of the illness, totally desperate. I couldn’t even bend down in pain, physically exhausted. She took blood from me again and then treated me for internal shingles. And that was the first small success.
Drugs that only relieve symptoms but do not cure them
Whether it really was shingles or not – the symptoms and pain indicated that – I didn’t care, because it made it more bearable. If we take a pain scale from 1-10, I was almost only a 10 – after that less often, there were better days again. When it was at its worst, I could only get through the day on five to six Ibu 600 tablets. I know that this was an immense burden for my other organs.
At the LC station I was admitted to, I had mixed feelings. Again, there was no help or relief, but my body was completely checked over. Heart, lungs, MRI, CT, long-term ECG, everything was done. Physically I was considered healthy.
Pain outpatient clinic to make everyday life easier for me
The LC station admitted me to the pain outpatient clinic. Again, I drove 100 miles a week to get treatment. Here I was put on medication, pills for nerve pain, pills for heart palpitations (my resting heart rate is still 90-120), drops to sleep. stomach saver. Physio. That went up.
I was able to work reasonably well again, do the most basic household chores and look after my children. But everything after 2 p.m. became critical, driving only the bare essentials because I was so exhausted and tired that I experienced critical moments behind the wheel.
Exhaustion and pressure on the chest
Most sufferers report exhaustion, including pressure on their chests. For me, the pressure spread – and still does – across the entire thoracic area in front and behind. It’s hard to breathe, it’s torture to cough, and I get dizzy all the time if I get up too fast or walk up stairs too fast.
Since the illness, I can no longer wear a bra, the pressure is driving me crazy. I found my memory lapses really bad. Like Alzheimer’s but sane. Sometimes it was right in a situation that I had no idea what was being said 5 minutes ago. Sometimes from the day before. And now not in the way that everyone knows, when you forget something and someone tells you and you then remember.
Photo: pixabay
No, those things weren’t there in my head. And you start to doubt your sanity. Fortunately, these dropouts were relatively rare. What I had for a long time was eye twitching or tremors. Especially the hands. And in such a way that I could no longer write because my hand was shaking. Or the coffee sloshed out of the cup.
Corona, Divorce, Long Covid
I am now divorced from the father of my three children and have to see how I can make ends meet. Everyone can imagine that the pressure was immense, not earning any money in the job in which I am self-employed. I was already shaken as a solo self-employed person during Corona.
I know that the illness caught me in a mentally tense situation – the divorce was also in progress, the joint assets had to be sorted out, we moved twice within six months. And despite the fact that I’ve met a new partner and I’m very happy, I’m still sick.
In November, I stopped all medication overnight – there was no improvement, a basic pain was there, every day, 24 hours a day. It was bearable for the first few weeks, until I got sick like everyone else at the beginning of December. Since then it’s been so bad again that my doctor prescribed the tablets again.
I’m still missing 30 to 30 percent
Well – where am I now? I would say that I’m still missing 20 to 30 percent. The only thing that really helps me is my phenomenal physical therapist, who I see twice a week. She tries to loosen the fascia in the chest area and around the solar plexus. It’s the only thing that brings me relief. Most of the time I can dub it just fine now. What else can I do?
I have to function to keep our lives going. That’s why some people probably didn’t even notice that I was so ill. But when you have to take a painkiller just to get one of the kids to the soccer game, you can see the seriousness of the situation.
Slowly back to life – with as little effort as possible
Even today it is critical if I try too hard. Just last week we played catch with the kids – I had to stop after the first race because I couldn’t breathe and my heart was racing. And these are moments when I would rather cry from the pain than have to endure.
I wish that this constant constant pain would go away. That I am no longer so restricted in my activities. No more going to bed in pain at night and having to get up in pain in the morning. And that research continues to help those affected by Long Covid.”
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#Ive #suffering #Corona #days