Contents
- How long do symptoms of coronavirus infection last?
- Coronavirus: a carousel of changing symptoms
- Coronavirus infections are more common among black people
- Coronavirus: The doctor suggested to Monique that she was making up non-existent symptoms
- A negative coronavirus test result did not bring the expected relief
- Coronavirus: Monique doesn’t know if she’ll ever recover
Monique is a young dark-skinned British woman who fell ill with the coronavirus at the start of the pandemic. Six months have passed since then and she still has symptoms. It is not the only one, many people have found themselves in a similar situation. Monique tries to tame her illness by running an illustrated online journal on Instagram. He describes his symptoms and subsequent treatments every day. Her case was described by the BBC.
- Monique Jackson keeps an Instagram journal in which she describes the “long tail” of COVID-19
- For some people, symptoms are very persistent and change frequently
- Lekarze nie wiedzą do tej pory, jak pomóc takim pacjentom
- A mutual aid network strengthens the sick and builds an even stronger bond with friends
The woman suspected that the “COVID long tail” was a reaction to an infection that doctors overlooked. She herself fell ill in March. The symptoms were mild, only… they never went away.
Monique is an extrovert. He trains Thai boxing and jiu-jitsu on a daily basis, and covers the 20-kilometer route from home to work in an art gallery in central London by bike.
The coronavirus changed her life profoundly. Now a reminder hangs on the wall in her bedroom to save the energy needed to brush her teeth.
“I’m not lazy,” she says. – And there are days when I don’t have the strength to go down the stairs.
Monique gives way to her fears and fears on Instagram. He keeps an illustrated diary in which he talks about his situation. Thanks to him, she also establishes contacts with similar “long-distance” ones.
We don’t know much about the coronavirus yet, but the “long tail” seems to be one of the most intriguing mysteries. Dlaczego u niektórych objawy nie znikają? I to zazwyczaj u tych, u których infekcja przebiegała łagodnie?
Monique i jej przyjaciółka zachorowały w tym samym czasie. Domyślają się, że zakaziły się jadąc pociągiem. Na początku kobiety utrzymywały kontakt, a ich objawy idealnie się pokrywały.
For the first two weeks, she was so tired that she struggled to get out of bed. W Londynie panował chłód, a ona leżała odkryta z woreczkiem lodu na czole. Nie miała termometru, więc nie mierzyła temperatury, ale czuła, że ma wysoką gorączkę.
The next week I started having trouble breathing. An ambulance arrived, but the oxygen test was normal. She was told she was having a panic attack. A test for COVID-19 was not done because only the most severe cases were commissioned in the UK in March.
Monique tried to heal herself using natural methods. She was eating raw garlic and whole chillies. She remembers that she couldn’t taste them, and that struck her as strange. She was tired all the time.
“I didn’t have the energy to text more than two people a day,” he says.
After two weeks, some symptoms disappeared … but new ones appeared.
– I felt a tightness in my chest that later turned to fire. There was severe pain on the left side, I thought I was having a heart attack.
She called the emergency room and was advised to take paracetamol. Some people are said to have had their pain gone after this, although no one knew why. The drug worked, but when the pain in my chest subsided, my stomach and throat began to burn. Especially while eating. At first, doctors suspected ulcers, then later regarded stomach problems as another symptom of the virus.
After six weeks, Monique began to feel a burning sensation while urinating. There was also pain in the lower back. Her doctor prescribed three different antibiotics, but it turned out not to be a bacterial infection.
— Myślałam, że umieram – mówi kobieta. – A później wszystko tak nagle, jak się pojawiło, zniknęło.
- The editorial office recommends: Ozdrowieńcy about the loss of smell and taste: “everything tastes like paint or gasoline”
Monique cut herself off from social media first, because every mention of COVID-19 made her heart pound like crazy. She was afraid that if she loged in again, she would only see the posts about the deaths. She consoled herself with online shopping, but even entering the size of the dress in the search engine sparked thoughts about new symptoms of the disease. “I was actually afraid to use Google,” he says.
Finally, she asked a friend to tell her what was happening in the world. She learned that the highest percentage of coronavirus deaths is among black people and ethnic minorities. “It was like a horror movie in which all blacks died out,” she recalls.
One day, while lying in a bathtub, she heard on a broadcast that many African Americans were dying of COVID-19. She immediately straightened up and grabbed the phone to send an email to relatives in the US. She also thought that most of the people who made her work are minorities – Uber drivers who drove her to visits, hospital staff, corner shop staff, where she got her food.
- Check if you may have contracted the coronavirus:
As the BBC describes, as time went on, some symptoms replaced others, which became more and more bizarre. The pain in the neck was accompanied by strange sensations from inside the ear, like the sound of a packet of chips being crushed in your hand. Once her hands suddenly turned blue, she threw herself at the faucet to restore circulation with the hot stream of water. The doctor later asked if she had taken a picture, but she hadn’t thought of it at all then.
— Wciąż dzwoniłam do lekarza, informując o nowych objawach – mówi. – W końcu zapytano o moje zdrowie psychiczne, sugerując, że wszystko sobie wymyśliłam.
Once she got a rash, other times her toes turned bright red. The stabbing pain in her torso woke her up. One night, while talking to her friend on the phone, she felt the right side of her face fall. She went to the mirror, but everything looked normal. She was worried about having a stroke, but the doctors found nothing. Sometimes it felt as if someone was grabbing her leg or her hair. She tried many times to explain to doctors what was happening, often with only 5 or 10 minutes to do so.
“If they told me they had no idea how to treat COVID-19, it would be fine,” he says. It is difficult for her to unequivocally summarize these consultations. She does not want to criticize the medics, because many have tried very hard, but she believes that the health care system did not work properly in her case.
She did the test after nine weeks. Until then, she was still afraid of infecting someone. After all, isolation was recommended for seven days or until symptoms subsided, but the symptoms did not disappear.
Together with their roommates, they devised a system to avoid contact. Everyone opened the refrigerator, grabbing only the designated place. Then he went to his room and ate his meal alone.
One day, when she went to the park to get some fresh air, a kid ran up to her. Until she jumped! The baby’s mother was indignant, and when Monique began explaining that she was not afraid of contagion, only of passing on the infection, she stated that patients should stay home.
Her friends went out of their way to help her, but sometimes they were fed up with her. They said he was obsessed with the coronavirus.
Once the test could be done, it turned out that the test was being done in a parking lot and Monique did not have a car. A friend picked her up. He put himself at risk, it was uplifting.
The test was negative. She was very relieved because it meant she wouldn’t infect her friends and family. However, mentally she felt strange.
She wrote in her journal: «Bardzo trudno jest pozbyć się poczucia, że zarażasz. Jeszcze trudniej, kiedy nie czujesz się lepiej».
Four months after her illness, she decided to move out of East London. Simple tasks such as cleaning still presented her with a lot of difficulties, so she preferred to have a family on hand to help if necessary.
By that time, her condition had improved. In July, she was able to climb upstairs in one fell swoop, without pausing to catch her breath. However, vacuuming the room after four minutes, she passed out. She then lay in bed for three weeks.
— Ludzie mówią mi: poczujesz się lepiej i znowu będziesz jeździć na rowerze, uprawiać boks i wychodzić. Ale to mi nie pomaga – zauważa.
Doctors still have no idea how to help patients with similar symptoms that persist over time.
“It’s also about knowing what I can and can’t do and being flexible,” Monique says. Sometimes you plan your day, but your body doesn’t care about your plans. Sometimes I get stuck in e-mailing or talking to doctors or friends and I’m so exhausted that I don’t have the strength to brush my teeth.
Monique attends therapy which gives her the tools to deal with a new reality.
Monique’s journal can be found HERE
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