Recognizing the Start of Long COVID – Cher

 

Cher tried to carry on working but eventually found it impossible.

Transcript

So I had my positive test results in March, March 16th, 2021. And I was pretty sick for pretty much a month, where I wasn’t doing much of anything except for being in bed. And then by April 17th, so exactly one month after, I was trying to go back to work, but I did still have pretty extreme shortness of breath. Like I couldn’t walk to my mailbox, for example, without having to huff and puff. And I didn’t have a voice, just like I do now – some days I have a voice, some days I don’t. And I was very tired. But I love my job, and so I wanted to go back to work, so I did that in April. For April, May, June I was essentially working my normal schedule, and then crashing, falling asleep on the couch, wherever I was, I was just asleep. And I could barely stay awake, ever. And then at the end of June, beginning of July, 2021, my hair started falling out in big clumps … – so I was thinking, “OK, I have this fatigue and the shortness of breath, and a croaky voice, and – you know, but – and I’m bald, but so what, I can kind of deal.”…  By the end of August, I was starting to get pretty continuous headaches that were very abnormal for me, and they lasted all day, every day … The MRI ended up being fine. I was clear, there was nothing there they could see, but meanwhile the headaches just got worse, and worse and worse. And so I was still trying to work, and still not great, but I was … So by then it was like shortness of breath, hard to walk, fatigued, then add in the daily headache, and no voice. And still just making myself get up, going to work, and then falling asleep the instant work was done. Had zero life. And then by October I was realizing that this just wasn’t sustainable anymore.


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